ABOUT TONI
Toni Tipton-Martin is an award-winning food and nutrition journalist who is busy building a healthier community through her books, foundation and in her role as Editor in Chief of Cook’s Country Magazine and its PBS television show. She is the recipient of the Julia Child Foundation Award, which is given to an individual (or team) who has made a profound and significant difference in the way America cooks, eats and drinks; is a three-time James Beard Book Award winner; and she has earned the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Trailblazer Award, its Book of the Year Award, and Member of the Year Award.
Toni is the author of several highly-acclaimed books that celebrate America’s Black and its female cooks. Most recently, she shepherded, When Southern Women Cook: History, Lore, and 300 Recipes with Contributions from 70 Women Writers, a first-of-its-kind cookbook for America’s Test Kitchen. Her personal works are:
Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs and Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, which received a Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award in 2024;
Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries of African American Cooking (Clarkson Potter), a beautifully-photographed, multiple award-winning recipe collection that takes African American cooking beyond soul food, and
The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks (University of Texas), a widely-acclaimed, annotated bibliography that tells the story behind her rare collection.
Toni also is co-author of A Taste of Heritage: New African-American Cuisine, which was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame. She published an historic reprint of an early 20th century cookbook, The Blue Grass Cook Book, by Minnie C. Fox and authored the chapter on the South for Culinaria: The Food of the United States.
She is a contributor to multiple anthologies: Black Food: Stories, Art & Recipes from Across the African Diaspora; Southern Women: More Than 100 Stories of Innovators, Artists, and Icons, America The Great Cookbook: The Food we make for the People We Love; Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original; and One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking.
Toni was the first African American Food Editor of a major daily newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the nutrition writer for the Los Angeles Times, and a co-founder and former president of both Southern Foodways Alliance and Foodways Texas.
With a $50,000 grant from the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, Toni restructured the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization she founded in 2008 (under the name of The SANDE Youth Project). The Toni Tipton-Martin Foundation expands Toni’s original vision while furthering her legacy of award-winning food and nutrition journalism. Today, the TTMF aims to increase community wellness by celebrating cultural heritage, role models, and ancestral recipes through mentoring/training activities and writing skills development.
Toni has appeared as a guest judge on Bravo’s Top Chef, was featured on CBS Sunday Morning’s annual Food Show and on the Cooking Channel’s Foodography. She has been featured in numerous anthologies, including the anthology, Best Food Writing of 2016. She received Notable Mention in The Best American Essays of 2015 and is profiled in Aetna’s 35th Annual African American History Calendar.
She is a member of the Oldways African Heritage Diet Pyramid Advisory Committee, Les Dames D’Escoffier Washington, D.C. Chapter, and Jack and Jill of America, Inc. She is a co-founder and former president of Southern Foodways Alliance and Foodways Texas. Toni is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Journalism. She lives in Houston.
