At the 22nd edition of the Gourmand World Book Awards, Eallu: food, knowledge and how we did it at the margins, took home the top prize for immortalizing on paper a culinary heritage dating back 10,000 years.
Produced in collaboration with the Arctic Council and Association of World Reindeer Herders, the book was chosen over glossy, gourmet, celebrity-driven cooking titles, at a time when climate change is rapidly changing the Arctic landscape; hunting and feeding traditions in the Arctic are in danger of extinction; and dietary shifts away from native foods have led to an unprecedented health crisis in many Arctic communities.
“While many view the Arctic as a place of harsh climate and scarcity, the Arctic is in fact home to an extraordinary food culture built on 10,000 years of knowledge and intergenerational knowledge transfer,” reads an introductory excerpt.
eallu claims to be the first book of its kind – a crowd-sourced venture that presents the food cultures of 14 different arctic indigenous communities in one volume. “Eallu” means a herd of reindeer in the native Sami language.
The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards call themselves the “Oscars” of the cookbook world and were held this year in Yantai, China. The book focuses mainly on the preparation of reindeer in the north, with chapters such as ‘how to determine the right reindeer for raw food’, ‘traditional ways of preserving meat’ and ‘how to slaughter reindeer using traditional Sami knowledge. ‘.
“Receiving such an award from mainstream food publishing is a powerful recognition of the richness and depth of a focal point of our cultures, our relationship with food. This is much more than just a book of recipes,” said Mikhail Pogodaev, chairman of the Association of World Reindeer Herders, in a statement.
added eallu project leader Anders Oskal in a statement: “Perhaps this signals a shift in how mainstream society values our food knowledge and that our societies can use this recognition to improve the physical, mental and economic health of the community. Arctic indigenous peoples have an absolute unique understanding of the Arctic environment, their ecosystems and our living food sources.”
After eallu, Chinas Nulle Part Ailleurs, Terroirs written by Lin Yu-Sen won second place in the Best Book of the Year category. Third place is a draw between Colombia’s caldas by Jorge Mario Gómez Londoño and Pablo Rolando and Germany Black Forest Tapas 2, by Manuel Wassmer and Verena Scheidel.
Here are some of the big winners:
Food Person of the Year: Guillaume Gomez, Ambassador of French Gastronomy, Chef of French Presidents
Hall of Fame: Menu Great Hall of the People, China, published in 1999; Modernist Bread, Nathan Myhrvold, Francisco Migoya, USA, 2017
Online food magazine: Chinadaily.com.cn, China
Printing Food Magazine: Cook Inc., Italy
Best app: La Liste, France
Dear authors and chefs: Emotion culinary, Serge Vieira, France
TV Star Chef in English: Stir Crazy, Ching-He Huang, UK