Darra Goldstein Add a review

Darra Goldstein (born April 28, 1951) is an American author and food scholar who is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian, emerita at Williams College.

She is the founding editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, which won the 2012 James Beard award for Publication of the Year, and she served as its editor-in-chief from 2001 to 2012. She also served as editor-in-chief of the short-lived magazine CURED from Zero Point Zero Production. Goldstein is the author of six award-winning cookbooks, most recently Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore, which topped the list of Best Summer Cookbooks 2020 in The New York Times Book Review.

Goldstein is also the founding series editor for California Studies in Food and Culture and from 2002 to 2016 was the food editor for Russian Life magazine. She has served on a number of culinary diplomacy programs including as Cultural Envoy from the U.S. Department of State to the Republic of Georgia (in 2013) and as a consultant on food and diversity for the Council of Europe (from 2002 to 2005) along with other USAID and Council of Europe culinary projects. In 1984–1985, Goldstein was the spokesperson for Stolichnaya Vodka in the United States; later in her career Goldstein also consulted for Firebird restaurant and the famed Russian Tea Room in New York City.

Goldstein has been honored as both a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Food Studies at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto and as a MacGeorge Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia. In 2020, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP).