Bloomsbury and Mitchell Beazley vie for Jane Grigson award

Two Bloomsbury titles are to battle it out for the Jane Grigson Trust Award alongside a title from Mitchell Beazley.

The £2,000 Jane Grigson Trust Award, created in memory of British food writer Jane Grigson, is awarded to a first-time writer of a book about food or drink which has been commissioned but has not yet been published.

The shortlisted books include Nargisse Benkabbou's Casablanca: My Moroccan Food (Mitchell Beazley, May 2018), which sees the chef and food blogger (pictured) blend traditional Moroccan home cooking with more contemporary dishes to create over 100 recipes for everyday cooking, and historian Angela Clutton's The Vinegar Cupboard (Absolute Press, Bloomsbury, February 2019), an exploration of vinegar. Rounding out the shortlist is home cook and blogger Skye McAlpine's A Table in Venice: Recipes from My Home (Bloomsbury, Spring 2018).

Geraldene Holt, chair of the judges, praised the three "exceptional" books that make up the shortlist.

"Jane Grigson's food writing was not only distinguished by the breadth of her cultural references but also by her sound advice on ingredients and cooking illustrated with hundreds of recipes", said Holt. "So it is appropriate that this year's shortlist for the award is for three exceptional books each devoted to home cooking. Each author reveals the distinctive history and origin of their food: there are secret family recipes from Morocco, and beautiful celebration dishes from Venice, plus forgotten and delicious ways of enhancing the flavour of food with a wide range of vinegars."

The winner will be announced at an award ceremony at Quo Vadis in Soho, London on Monday 12th March. The winner will receive a cheque for £2,000 and the two runners-up will receive £100 book tokens. All three shortlisted authors will receive copies of The Best of Jane Grigson (Grub Street Publishing).

Joining Holt on the judging panel are Professor Linda Challis, Trustee of the Jane Grigson Trust; Lucy Hambidge, Grigson’s niece, and fellow trustee of the JGT; Sheila Dillon, presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme; and Shaun Hill, food writer and chef).