40 years of American culinary history with the James Beard Foundation

Dive into American culinary history like never before, thanks to a new partnership between the James Beard Foundation and Google Arts & Culture: Bite by Bite.

For over four decades, the James Beard Foundation — a launchpad for many of today’s top chefs — has hosted dinners capturing the evolution of American cuisine. This new James Beard Foundation digital archive opens a window into that evolution, with an interactive experiment and more than 10,000 digitized menus from those dinners documenting how ingredients, trends, and values have shifted across generations.

Mapping 40 years of food trends

The James Beard Menu Archive makes thousands of menus easy to explore and learn from. It uses AI to analyze ingredients across decades, letting you discover how dining habits have changed, from the explosion of kale in the 2000s to the decline of foie gras. More than just lists of dishes, the menus serve as cultural time capsules, revealing what diners valued at exact moments in history, how sourcing has evolved, and how regional and global influences have reshaped American dining.

Beyond the menus, the archive also features a curated story series that spotlights James Beard, “the father of American gastronomy,” the history of the James Beard Foundation’s New York City headquarters, and more.

Listening to voices from the culinary community

Regarding this project, James Beard Award–winning chef Marcus Samuelsson says that food connects diverse communities. The collaboration celebrates the people behind every plate and honors their cultures and innovations. By bringing their heritage online and opening the archive to kitchens everywhere, we hope to inspire the next generation of culinary creatives.

Immerse yourself in American culinary history by exploring the James Beard Foundation on Google Arts & Culture.