Grace Young

Grace Young is an American cookbook author, activist, and food historian specializing in Chinese cuisine and wok cookery. She received the Julia Child Award from The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and James Beard Humanitarian of the Year award from the James Beard Foundation, both in 2022, for her culinary achievements.

Young has authored cookbooks focused on American Chinese cuisine with her books The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen and The Breath of a Wok being influential in highlighting the use of the Chinese wok to a new generation of cooks. Both books have won the Best International Cookbook Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. As a young girl, Young watched Julia Child's show The French Chef and recreated recipes from the show. During college, she worked at the General Foods test kitchen for 3 years. In her 30s, Young learned traditional Cantonese recipes from her parents, compiling them in The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen, her first cookbook, published in 1999. It earned a 2019 Culinary Classics Award and the Jane Grigson Award for distinguished scholarship. In 2006, Young began working on her next cookbook, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge, which discussed stir-frying's benefits, uses, and origin.

Young has also been recognized for her culinary videos. In 2016, she released "Chinese Trinidadian Chicken with Mango Chutney", a video of her cooking the dish, which subsequently won the IACP Digital Media Single Food-Focused Video Award in 2017. Also, in 2017, she released a video "The Breath of Wok Video" depicting the structure and uses of a wok. The video was a finalist for the 2019 James Beard Video Webcast Award. The video earned the 2020 James Beard Digital Award and was a finalist for the Webby Award. In 2020, when New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio was considering a city-wide lockdown, she worked with filmmaker Dan Ahn documenting the pandemic's effect on Chinatown in New York City's Manhattan in a project called "Coronavirus: Chinatown Stories." The video series was nominated for an IACP digital media award and played at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. James Beard Foundation's Humanitarian of the Year (2022) Eating Well's American Food Hero (2022)

Publications The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing, Simon and Schuster (, 1999) The Breath of a Wok, Simon Schuster (, 2004) Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories (, 2010)