The Smithsonian Food History Watch Party

Culinary journalist, author, editor-in-chief, and community health advocate Toni Tipton-Martin is the 2021 recipient of the Julia Child Award, created by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts to recognize an individual who has made a significant impact on the way America cooks, eats, and drinks. The award will be presented at the National Museum of American History as part of its American Food History Project. Registration details will be added soon, check back later!

A native of Los Angeles, Tipton-Martin graduated from the University of Southern California School of Journalism. She was a nutrition reporter for the Los Angeles Times and in 1991 became the first African American woman hired as the food editor for a major daily newspaper, Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer. A prolific researcher and writer, Tipton-Martin worked independently for many years, publishing articles and books, and speaking widely on African American food culture. In 2020 she was named editorin-chief of the magazine and television show Cook’s Country. Throughout her career, Tipton-Martin has collected and researched African American cookbooks, amassing a collection that served as the foundation for her award-winning 2015 book, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks. Her 2020 book, Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, builds on and reveals the largely unrecognized diversity of Black culinary contributions.

Tipton-Martin’s work extends to teaching, mentoring, and participating in community, regional, and national programs on food and nutrition. She is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and Foodways Texas and was invited twice to the White House by First Lady Michelle Obama in recognition of her work with families and communities

We hope that you will help support food history programming at the National Museum of American History. By becoming a donor, you will be supporting the important new initiatives of the Smithsonian Food History Project, which will help us to continue our paid internship program which provides mentoring and professional learning experiences to candidates from communities that are underrepresented in the museum and food history fields. Internships are an important way to build inclusive museums in the future. 

• "The Food History Curatorial internship gave me the opportunity to learn about the many facets of museum work, build relationships with fellow interns and staff, collect oral histories, and contribute to museum programming, such as Cooking Up History and Food History Weekend. What I learned from during my time at NMAH continues to support my passion for telling stories through food!" -Marsha Ungchusri (2019 Intern)

ABOUT THE JULIA CHILD AWARD

Created by Julia Child, The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts is one of the leading grant-giving private foundations solely dedicated to supporting the field of gastronomy and the culinary arts. The Foundation established the Julia Child Award in 2015 to foster Julia's legacy, while also honoring an individual (or team) who has made a profound and significant difference in the way America cooks, eats, and drinks.

For more information on the Julia Child Award, please visit the website of the Julia Child Foundation.