Anny Gaul

The Path

At the University of Maryland, College Park, Assistant Professor Anny Gaul reads cookbooks as working documents of everyday life and social value. That approach keeps the focus on the page as much as the plate. Her work tracks how ingredients travel, how they are taken up in kitchens and institutions, and how taste becomes a language of belonging.

The Work Today

The Assistant Professor role at the University of Maryland in College Park anchors Anny Gaul’s work in close reading of food writing. She has described cookbooks as texts that reveal “norms and ideals, what is good taste, what is good food, and how those questions are connected to who we are as a nation.” In that frame, the genre becomes a serious source for studying aspiration, identity, and habit, as well as the ways people cook, remember, and define themselves.

Signature

Anny's signature dishes include Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian Culinary History of the Tomato. The book uses a single ingredient, the tomato, to open onto a wider culinary and historical field. Its scope follows the tomato from arrival to adoption, and from agriculture and food systems into cookbooks and home kitchens.

In Their Words “At its most basic, the book is a straightforward history of tomatoes in Egypt, from their arrival to their integration into agriculture and food systems to their appearance in cookbooks and home kitchens.” “Cookbooks can tell us something significant about norms and ideals, what is good taste, what is good food, and how those questions are connected to who we are as a nation.” Together, those lines set out Anny Gaul’s method: close to the text, attentive to food systems, and focused on how culinary history is carried in ordinary forms.

Acclaim

Anny's honors include James Beard Media Award, Books: Reference, History, Scholarship (2026), Association for the Study of Food and Society Book Award – First Book (2026), Best Culinary History Book (2025), and Shortlisted for the Nach Waxman Prize for Food & Drink Scholarship (2025).