Robert Danhi’s ‘Southeast Asian Flavors’, a James Beard nominee

Robert Danhi’s Southeast Asian Flavors has been nominated in this year’s James Beard Awards.

What is the James Beard Awards? From its official website: “Deemed “the Oscars of the food world,” by Time magazine, The James Beard Foundation Awards are the country’s most coveted honor for chefs; food and beverage professionals; broadcast media, journalists, and authors working on food; and restaurant architects and designers…

Covering all aspects of the industry—from chefs and restaurateurs to cookbook authors and food journalists to restaurant designers and architects and more—the Beard Awards are the highest honor for food and beverage professionals working in North America. The awards are presented each spring at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Nominees and winners are fêted at a weekend of events in New York City that has become the social and gastronomic highlight of the year…

The awards were established by the James Beard Foundation in 1990 through the merging of the two most prominent culinary awards in North America at the time: The R.T. French Tastemaker Cookbook Awards and Cook’s Magazine and Restaurant Business’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America…

In 2007 the Foundation grouped the Journalism and Broadcast Media Awards together into one ceremony called the James Beard Foundation Media Awards…

Who is Robert Danhi? Chef Danhi is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), worked in restaurants, became a teacher and eventually Executive Chef Instructor at the Southern California School of Culinary Arts. His food writings have been published in books and magazines.

What is Southeast Asian Flavors about? Food, of course. But what really caught my attention was a paragraph in the book’s website.

Is Traditional the Same As Authentic?

In a word: No. Food culture is a living force that’s constantly evolving. In this book, “traditional” and “authentic” have two different yet related meanings. Traditional cuisine refers to the way foods have been prepared through history—the way natives have cooked and presented food and passed those customs from generation to generation. Authentic cuisine is also steeped in history— respectful of traditions but incorporating innovations while still retaining the essential features that impact all our senses…

I know exactly what that means and I am buying Robert Danhi’s Southeast Asian Flavors.