Ruth Bourdain, Fake Twitter Persona, Wins James Beard Award

-- Ruth Bourdain: acerbic, androgynous, foul-mouthed, totally fictitious and now...? James Beard Foundation winner.

On Friday, the so-called Oscars of the food world honored Ruth Bourdain – the made-up online mash-up of culinary icons Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain – with its first ever award for humor writing.

In some ways the award was a nod not just to the still anonymous man or woman behind the profanely funny spoof of wise-cracking Bourdain and former Gourmet magazine editor-in-chief Reichl. It also recognized the rising power of social media in food. Ruth Bourdain became a sensation during the past year almost exclusively by posting biting 140-character messages (most of them unfit to reprint) on Twitter.

"Leaden sky. Cold rain. Curled by the fire with a bowl of beans and a stack of corn tortillas. One fart and I could burn the whole house down," reads one early April tweet from Ruth Bourdain. He (or she?) did not come forward to accept the award during Friday's ceremony in New York City.

The ceremony honored the top culinary media talent for 2011, including cookbooks and broadcast and print journalism. Awards for chefs and restaurants were to be announced Monday.

Cookbook of the year went to Diana Kennedy's ode to the cooking of Mexico's Oaxaca region, "Oaxaca al Gusto." To write the book, Kennedy – known as the Julia Child of Mexican food – collected hundreds of recipes from home cooks from throughout the richly diverse region.

Food scientist Harold McGee's exhaustively informative "On Food and Cooking" was named to the organization's Cookbook Hall of Fame. The American cooking category was won by James Villas' "Pig: King of the Southern Table," while the general cooking award went to Amanda Hesser's "The Essential New York Times Cookbook."

Danish chef Rene Redzepi won two awards for his almost hauntingly beautiful cookbook, "Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine." It was honored in the professional cooking and photography categories.

On television, Bravo's "Top Chef" won for best studio program, while Eric Ripert's public television show "Avec Eric" won for on-location program.

Comments

[mistressoreality]

06:17 AM on 05/12/2011

I always look forward to reading his/her comments on Twitter. They definitely deserved this award.

[DMSmith]

02:26 AM on 05/12/2011

I want the book on my iPad.

[cookerman45]

11:56 PM on 05/09/2011

who one for grill cook? how about egg flipper?

[cookerman45]

11:55 PM on 05/09/2011

trump wants to see her cliff notes.

[fasassvalkf6]

08:48 PM on 05/09/2011

When it said fake person wins prize.... I thought it was a Obama story.

[RobModest]

07:42 PM on 05/09/2011

"In some ways the award was a nod not just to the still anonymous man or woman behind the profanely funny spoof of wise-cracking Bourdain and former Gourmet magazine editor-in-chief Reichl."

Anonymous? Thought it was revealed not too long ago that the person behind this was Alice Waters. Maybe I'm wrong?

[Ramart]

06:40 PM on 05/14/2011

The purported revelation about Alice Waters was a joke. The odds-on most likely real alter ego of RB is thought to be Regina Schrambling of gastropoda.com

[rbenante]

04:55 PM on 05/09/2011

WELL, I DO NOT FIND THIS TOO SURPRISING. AFTER ALL, DIDN'T obama WIN A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.

[temeculapaul]

06:33 PM on 05/09/2011

How cute you wrote all in caps except for "Obama" that you put in lowercase. Literally keeping the black man down! I'm sorry you hate the President of the United States and I'll bet you still call youurself a "good American."

[ecurbwl]

06:52 PM on 05/09/2011

Temeculapaul, I have a problem with your comment to the above blogger, rbenante. You have turned irbenante's comment into a "race" thing. You are assuming, rbenante did not use capital letters because she was, and I quote: "literally keeping the black man down". In my opinion, how do you know rbenante was not referring to Obama's white half ??? Obama is half white although at times HE forgets about his white half. He refers to himself as the first "black" president. So, if you want to manipulate rbenante's comment and make it racist---- who is the racist now ???? I would like to see Obama acknowledge his "white" half at times.

[fasassvalkf6]

08:52 PM on 05/09/2011

Had nothing to do with BLACK ! He just don't think enough of him to put it in caps !
Just because our President is BLACK does not mean we have to like him as a president or think he is doing a great job.
Put that on the black board if you like.

[rich3324]

10:17 AM on 05/10/2011

Yes Obama won a Noble award. What a great day for America.

[mombabytiger]

11:21 AM on 05/10/2011

What does Obama have to do with the James Beard awards? Go fight someplace else.

[CapsFan1988]

04:42 PM on 05/09/2011

I don't know about Ruth Bourdain, but I am a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain's, especially his show No Reservations!

[jonathanpace86]

03:33 PM on 05/09/2011

What a hottie

[blurredmolly]

06:53 PM on 05/08/2011

Ruth Bourdain. tee hee

[JScott]

10:32 PM on 05/07/2011

And yet Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, Little Debby have been around for years and didn't get anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BoBo53]

06:15 PM on 05/09/2011

Aunt Jemima was an actual person, not a fictional Madison Ave. creation.

[steves1709]

10:45 PM on 05/09/2011

So was Chef Boyardee

[doggums]

09:42 PM on 05/07/2011

'his almost hauntingly beautiful cookbook, "Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine." '

can we stop perpetuating this please? this is not a cookbook it's a picture book that is wrapped in plastic at the store so you can't check it out. people will think you are NOT lying to them when you say cookbook and go out to buy it, again there are NO RECIPES in this book.

[kareemachan]

01:42 PM on 05/08/2011

Funny, that a book with "no recipes" actually has recipes and a recipe index.

[travelingblogger]

02:41 PM on 05/09/2011

Agreed. This is a "coffee table" book only. JBAF screwed up big time on this one.