Chicken Recepies
Women Chefs
Women Chefs
A quarter of a century ago, women restaurant professionals were few. Today, women comprise more
than half of the industry’s employees.
…Beth Panitz
It is likely that everyone has heard this phrase before and knows that it refers to a standard from only a few decades ago when men were expected to go to work and earn money, and women were supposed to stay at home with the children, clean the house, and make the meals. Because of this, it may be surprising that women were, until recently, not accepted into professional kitchens. Even today most of the big names in the culinary industry are male: Emeril Lagasse, Jamie Oliver, Todd English, Wolfgang Puck, even Chef Boyardee.
Historically, the division has been based on a perception among young men of catering as a trade, like plastering: women were pushed into hairdressing or childcare. The female tradition of cookery has been home-based: feeding families and preparing dinner parties, as evidenced in the long and noble line of women cookery writers, from Mrs Beeton and Elizabeth David to the sainted Delia.
As the excesses of haute cuisine are replaced by more rustic cooking from places without a huge restaurant culture, such as Italy and Spain, it is reasonable to expect more women to be involved: apart from anything else, with the skills shortage in catering, it is daft for employers to ignore half their potential workforce.
Along with women’s acceptance into the workplace overall, came women’s acceptance into the professional kitchen. However, as with many industries, it was not an easy process. In 1993, Women Chef and Restaurateurs (WCR) was created in order to provide a network for the increasing number of women in the culinary industry. Organizations such as this have helped to promote women’s rights and gain them access to both education and careers that, at one time, were not available to them. In 1972, the Culinary Institute of America was only 5% female; today it’s 25%. However, as we can see with the celebrity chefs, there are significantly fewer women than men in the industry; of the 2,134 certified executive chefs in the US today, only 92 are women (which is a mere 4.3%).
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Lyon has long held the title of “Gastronomic Capital” of France, due in no small measure to “les meres lyonnaises”, (the mothers of Lyon) who were women chefs and restauranteurs in and around the city. The tradition began in the mid-1800 with Mere Brigousse, whose restaurant in Charpennes gained a large following among the rich and titled. It was in the 1890′s that Mere Filloux became the first “star” mere of Lyon and between 1890 through 1920 the number of meres multiplied. In fact many famous male chefs trained under the meres, among them Paul Bocuse. As a 20-year-old novice, he appeared at the restaurant of Mere Brazier to ask for a job and impressed by the fact that he had bicycled up the mountain to her restaurant, she hired him.
Eugenie Brazier (Mere Brazier) was bom in Bourg-en-Bresse in 1895 and at the age of 11, she was put in service with a rich family from Lyon, the Milliat. When the family cook fell ill, Eugenie took over the cooking and her talent showed itself immediately. She went to Mere Filloux to further her training and was taken on as an apprentice. Relations between these two strong-willed women soon became strained and Eugenie left to direct the kitchen of a rival restaurant. In April, 1921, she was able to take her meagre savings and buy a small grocery store at 12, rue Roy ale, that she transformed into her restaurant.
Word of mouth quickly brought her a large and famous clientele. Soon, she became tired and overworked and took a much needed vacation to Col de la Luere, 12 miles east of Lyon. She decided to buy some more property and thus opened her second restaurant that became as famous as her Lyon restaurant. She was awarded 3 stars for each in 1933, becoming the first female chef to be awarded 6 stars, truly a rare honor even today. Her son, Gaston, eventually took over the Lyon restaurant while she directed the one at Col de la Luere until her retirement in 1974. Her granddaughter Jacotte, still presides over the rue Royal restaurant, featuring her grandmother’s specialities such as: crepes with truffles, artichokes with foie gras, quenelles and the famous Black and White Chicken.
Similarly Dey, 36, was born in India and lived there until she came to graduate school in the U.S. Once here, she wanted to broaden the perceptions of her native country. “I was appalled at the greasy, overspiced Indian fare I encountered here,” she says. “Restaurants are a much easier way to introduce Americans to a culture than getting them into museums. I wanted to show that we’re not all about sitars and snake charmers.”
After stints at McKinsey and the World Bank, Dey last December opened 200-seat Vermilion in downtown Chicago. She hired chef Chauhan, 27, to create a fusion menu that would leave behind lamb curry for something more innovative. Chauhan had studied the traditional cuisine of India at that country’s top hotel management school and opened an Indian restaurant in New Jersey. She had also mastered Continental cuisine at the Culinary Institute of America. There, some of her American colleagues were so averse to spices that when she tried their dishes, “I had to use Tabasco sauce,” says Chauhan. Her menu at Vermilion is complex, with overlapping Indian and Latin American ingredients. She serves empanadas with mango-coconut chutney, a Latin-influenced skirt steak in a traditional tandoori oven, tamarind-sauce ribs with yucca fries and corn salsa, and a tres leches cake flavored with chai and saffron. Vermilion has earned accolades from Chicago Magazine, Esquire, and Wine Enthusiast.
For too many years a woman’s place was in the kitchen—except when that kitchen happened to have a restaurant attached to it. Though every woman was expected to be a good cook, conventional wisdom declared that only men could be great chefs. Fortunately, women haven’t been paying attention to conventional wisdom, as Women of Taste makes abundantly clear. There is Andree Abranoff, for example, a woman who never took a formal cooking class in her life, yet presides over the highly respected New York eatery, Cafe Crocodile. And Gale Gand, whose family was crushed when she announced she wanted to become a chef, since they believed cooking, was something you did “because you can’t do anything else.” Their attitude has changed since Gand’s ascent to the top of her profession as a pastry chef.
“Women have to make life decisions that men are not asked to make”. “They are being forced to make the decision: Will I have a family or a job?” The challenge of balancing career and family life is especially difficult in the restaurant industry. “It’s harder in the culinary profession than in others because our hours are so strange.” Some of the industry’s top companies are working to eradicate barriers that have kept women from advancing their careers. They’ve realized that it’s good business to move skilled women up the ranks. “When you create an environment where women feel their contributions are valued and that they can grow and can take on new projects, now you have an environment where women want to stay and prosper”.
Thanks to the hard work of female and male pioneers, the ranks of women restaurant professionals are growing and many companies are actively helping women climb the career ladder.
CHEF AKSHAY KULKARNI Head of the Department,
IACT&CA
About the Author
CHEF AKSHAY KULKARNI Head of the Department
IACT&CA;
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