Meet Mashama Bailey, the first African-American woman nominated for best chef at the Beard Awards

By Stephanie Wu via https://mic.com

The James Beard Awards ceremony on Monday night was a celebration of the best chefs and restaurants in the country. And there was a lot to celebrate — after analyzing the race and gender of all 1,435 nominees for the regional best chef and outstanding chef awards, we determined that 2018 is the most inclusive year for women and the second-most inclusive for people of color in the history of the James Beard Foundation Awards, which were first presented in 1991.

Drawing on publicly available information, Mic’s analysis also found that only five African-American chefs have been nominated in the history of the awards: Patrick Clark (Mid-Atlantic winner) in 1994; Marcus Samuelsson (New York City winner) in 2003, and Edouardo Jordan (Northwest nominee) in 2017.

The first-time African-American nominees in 2018 were Rodney Scott of Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston, South Carolina (who won in the …

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