Portal:Food/Selected person
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Selected person 1
B. 28 October 1846 – d. 12 February 1935
Georges Auguste Escoffier (French: [ʒɔʁʒ oɡyst ɛskɔfje]; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur, and culinary writer who popularised and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoine Carême, one of the codifiers of French haute cuisine; Escoffier's achievement was to simplify and modernise Carême's elaborate and ornate style. In particular, he codified the recipes for the five mother sauces. Referred to by the French press as roi des cuisiniers et cuisinier des rois ("king of chefs and chef of kings"—also previously said of Carême), Escoffier was a preeminent figure in London and Paris during the 1890s and the early part of the 20th century.
Alongside the recipes, Escoffier elevated the profession. In a time when kitchens were loud, riotous places where drinking on the job was commonplace, Escoffier demanded cleanliness, discipline, and silence from his staff. In bringing order to the kitchen, he tapped into his own military experience to develop the hierarchical brigade de cuisine system for organising the kitchen staff which is still standard in many restaurants today. He worked in partnership with hotelier César Ritz, rising to prominence together at the Savoy in London serving the elite of society, and later at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and the Carlton in London. (Full article...)
Selected person 2
B. August 15, 1912 – d. August 13, 2004
Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for having brought French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963. (Full article...)
Selected person 3
B. February 11, 1926 – d. January 20, 2018
Paul François Pierre Bocuse (French pronunciation: [pɔl bɔkyz]; 11 February 1926 – 20 January 2018) was a French chef based in Lyon known for the high quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine. Dubbed "the pope of gastronomy", he was affectionately nicknamed Monsieur Paul (Mister Paul). The Bocuse d'Or, a biennial world chef championship, bears his name.
A student of Eugénie Brazier, he was one of the most prominent chefs associated with the nouvelle cuisine, which is less opulent and calorific than the traditional cuisine classique, as well as stresses the importance of fresh ingredients of the highest quality. Bocuse claimed that Henri Gault first used the term, nouvelle cuisine, to describe food prepared by Bocuse and other top chefs for the maiden flight of the Concorde airliner in 1969. (Full article...)
Selected person 4
B. November 8, 1966
Gordon James Ramsay OBE (/ˈræmzi/; born 8 November 1966) is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, television presenter, and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 17 Michelin stars overall and currently holds eight. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. After rising to fame on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1999, Ramsay became one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the world.
Ramsay's television persona is defined by his fiery temper, aggressive behaviour, strict demeanour, and frequent use of profanity, while making blunt, critical, and controversial comments, including insults and sardonic wisecracks about contestants and their cooking abilities. He combines activities in the television, film, hospitality and food industries, and has promoted and hired various chefs who have apprenticed under his wing. He is known for presenting television programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen (2004), Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (2004–2009, 2014), and The F Word (2005–2010), with Kitchen Nightmares winning the 2005 British Academy Television Award for Best Feature, and the American versions of Hell's Kitchen (2005–present), Kitchen Nightmares (2007–present), MasterChef (2010–present), and MasterChef Junior (2013–present), as well as Hotel Hell (2012–2016), Gordon Behind Bars (2012), Gordon Ramsay's 24 Hours to Hell and Back (2018–2020), and Next Level Chef (2022–present). (Full article...)
Selected person 5
Portal:Food/Selected person/5
MFK Fisher
B. July 3, 1908 – d. June 22, 1992
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede (July 3, 1908 – June 22, 1992), writing as M.F.K. Fisher, was an American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. Over her lifetime she wrote 27 books, including a translation of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored this in her writing. W. H. Auden once remarked, "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." In 1991 the New York Times editorial board went so far as to say, "Calling M.F.K. Fisher, who has just been elected to the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, a food writer is a lot like calling Mozart a tunesmith." (Full article...)
Selected person 6
Portal:Food/Selected person/6
Alain Ducasse
B. September 13th 1956
Alain Ducasse (French: [alɛ̃ dykas]; born 13 September 1956) is a French-born Monégasque chef. He operates a number of restaurants including Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester which holds three stars (the top rating) in the Michelin Guide. (Full article...)
Selected person 7
B. February 2, 1948
Ina Rosenberg Garten (/ˈaɪnə/ EYE-nə; born February 2, 1948) is an American television cook and author. She is host of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa, and was a former staff member of the Office of Management and Budget.
Among her dishes are Perfect Roast Chicken, Weeknight Bolognese, French Apple Tart, and a simplified version of beef bourguignon. Her culinary career began with her gourmet food store, Barefoot Contessa; Garten then expanded her activities to many best-selling cookbooks, magazine columns, and a popular Food Network television show. (Full article...)
Selected person 8
B. July 30, 1962
Alton Crawford Brown Jr. (born July 30, 1962) is an American television personality, food show presenter, food scientist, author, voice actor, and cinematographer. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show Good Eats that ran for 16 seasons, host of the miniseries Feasting on Asphalt and Feasting on Waves, and host and main commentator on Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen. Brown is a best-selling author of several books on food and cooking. A recap series titled Good Eats Reloaded aired on Cooking Channel, and a true sequel series, Good Eats: The Return, ran from 2019 to 2021 on Food Network. (Full article...)
Selected person 9
B. 27 May 1975
Jamie Trevor Oliver MBE OSI (born 27 May 1975) is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur and cookbook author. He is known for his casual approach to cuisine, which has led him to front numerous television shows and open many restaurants.
Oliver reached the public eye when his series The Naked Chef premiered in 1999. In 2005, he opened a campaign, Feed Me Better, to introduce schoolchildren to healthier foods, which was later backed by the government. He was the owner of a restaurant chain, Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, which opened its first restaurant, Jamie's Italian, in Oxford in 2008. The chain went into administration in May 2019. (Full article...)
Selected person 10
Portal:Food/Selected person/10
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B. January 22, 1939 – d. July 7, 2004
Jeffrey L. Smith (January 22, 1939 – July 7, 2004) was the author of several cookbooks and the host of The Frugal Gourmet, a popular American cooking show. The show began in Tacoma, Washington, as Cooking Fish Creatively on local PBS station KTPS (now KBTC), where it aired from 1973 to 1977. It then moved to WTTW in Chicago, and finally to KQED in San Francisco where it aired from 1984 to 1997. From 1972 to 1983, Smith was the owner and operator of the Chaplain's Pantry Restaurant and Gourmet Shop. (Full article...)
Selected person 11
Portal:Food/Selected person/11
B. 6 January 1960
Nigella Lucy Lawson (born 6 January 1960) is an English food writer and television cook.
After graduating from Oxford, Lawson worked as a book reviewer and restaurant critic, later becoming the deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times in 1986. She then wrote for a number of newspapers and magazines as a freelance journalist. In 1998, her first cookery book, How to Eat, was published and sold 300,000 copies, becoming a best-seller. Her second book, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, was published in 2000, winning the British Book Award for Author of the Year. (Full article...)
Selected person 12
Portal:Food/Selected person/12
B. 1618 – d. 1678
François Pierre de la Varenne (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa pjɛʁ də la vaʁɛn], 1615–1678 in Dijon), Burgundian by birth, was the author of Le Cuisinier françois (1651), one of the most influential cookbooks in early modern French cuisine. La Varenne broke with the traditions that had revolutionised medieval and Renaissance French cookery in the 16th century and early 17th century. (Full article...)
Selected person 13
Portal:Food/Selected person/13
Justin E. WilsonB. April 24, 1914 – d. September 5, 2001
"Way back when I first started as a safety engineer, I took myself pretty seriously, and I found I was putting my audiences to sleep. So having lived all my life among the Cajuns of Louisiana, and having a good memory for the patois and the type of humor Cajuns go for, I started interspersing my talks on safety with Cajun humor."
Justin Wilson
Justin Elmer Wilson (April 24, 1914 – September 5, 2001) was a Southern American chef and humorist known for his brand of Cajun-inspired cuisine, humor and storytelling. (Full article...)
Selected person 14
Portal:Food/Selected person/14
B. May 5, 1903 – d. January 21, 1985
James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 21, 1985) was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, Oregon, and lectured widely. He emphasized American cooking, prepared with fresh and wholesome American ingredients, to a country just becoming aware of its own culinary heritage. Beard taught and mentored generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts. He published more than twenty books, and his memory is honored by his foundation's annual James Beard Awards. (Full article...)
Selected person 15
Portal:Food/Selected person/15
B. September 13, 1857 – d. October 13, 1945
Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was an American chocolatier, businessman, and philanthropist.
Trained in the confectionery business, Hershey pioneered the manufacture of caramel, using fresh milk. He launched the Lancaster Caramel Company, which achieved bulk exports, and then sold it to start a new company supplying mass-produced milk chocolate, previously a luxury good. (Full article...)
Selected person 16
Portal:Food/Selected person/16
B. 10 August 1814 – d. 7 July 1890
Henri Nestlé (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi nɛsle]; born Heinrich Nestle, German: [ˈhaɪnrɪç ˈnɛstlə]; 10 August 1814 – 7 July 1890) was a German-Swiss confectioner and the founder of Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company. (Full article...)
Selected person 17
Portal:Food/Selected person/17
B. June 8, 1784 – d. January 12, 1833
Marie-Antoine Carême (French: [maʁi ɑ̃twan kaʁɛm]; 8 June 1783 or 1784 – 12 January 1833), known as Antonin Carême, was a leading French chef of the early 19th century.
Carême was born in Paris to a poor family and, when still a child, worked in a cheap restaurant. Later he became an apprentice to a leading Parisian pâtissier and quickly became known for his patisserie skills. He was deeply interested in architecture and was famous for his large pièces montées – table decorations sculpted in sugar, depicting classical buildings. (Full article...)
Selected person 18
Portal:Food/Selected person/18
B. June 25, 1956 – d. June 8, 2018
Anthony Michael Bourdain (/bɔːrˈdeɪn/ bor-DAYN; June 25, 1956 – June 8, 2018) was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition.
Bourdain was a 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of many professional kitchens during his career, which included several years spent as an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. In the late 1990s Bourdain wrote an essay about the ugly secrets of a Manhattan restaurant, but he was having difficulty getting it published. According to the New York Times, his mother Gladys—then an editor and writer at the paper—handed her son's essay to friend and fellow editor Esther B. Fein, the wife of David Remnick, editor of the magazine The New Yorker. Remnick ran Bourdain's essay in the magazine, kickstarting Bourdain's career and legitimizing the point-blank tone that would become his trademark. The success of the article was followed just a year later by the publication of a New York Times best-selling book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000). (Full article...)
Selected person 19
Portal:Food/Selected person/19
B. April 1, 1755, Belley, France – d. February 2, 1826, Paris
"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Brillat-Savarin
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ɑ̃tɛlm bʁija savaʁɛ̃], (2 April 1755 – 2 February 1826) was a French lawyer and politician, who, as the author of Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste), became celebrated for his culinary reminiscences and reflections on the craft and science of cookery and the art of eating.
Rising to modest eminence in the last years of France's Ancien Régime, Brillat-Savarin had to escape into exile when the Reign of Terror began in 1793. He spent nearly three years in the United States, teaching French and playing the violin to support himself, before returning to France when it became safe to do so, resuming his career as a lawyer, and rising to the top of the French judiciary. (Full article...)
Selected person 20
Portal:Food/Selected person/20
Jane Grigson
B. March 13, 1928 – d. March 12, 1990
Jane Grigson (born Heather Mabel Jane McIntire; 13 March 1928 – 12 March 1990) was an English cookery writer. In the latter part of the 20th century she was the author of the food column for The Observer and wrote numerous books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes. Her work proved influential in promoting British food.
Born in Gloucestershire, Grigson was raised in Sunderland, North East England, before studying at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1953 she became an editorial assistant at the publishing company Rainbird, McLean, where she was the research assistant for the poet and writer Geoffrey Grigson. They soon began a relationship which lasted until his death in 1985; they had one daughter, Sophie. Jane worked as a translator of Italian works, and co-wrote books with her husband before writing Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery in 1967. The book was well received and, on its strength, Grigson gained her position at The Observer after a recommendation by the food writer Elizabeth David. (Full article...)
Selected person 21
Portal:Food/Selected person/21 Haddon Norman Salt (born 18 October 1928) is a British–American businessman, best known for founding the fast food chain H. Salt Esq. Fish & Chips and for acting as that company's brand ambassador, spokesman, and symbol. Salt followed his father and grandfather's careers, becoming a master fish cook and purveyor of fish and chips.
"I came over not simply to start a restaurant, but to introduce America to fish and chips, as grandiose as that dream sounds now". When Salt arrived in America in 1964, Britons ate an average of 100 pounds of fish per year, while Americans ate only 10 pounds per year. Salt said, "The way some of it is handled, I can see why".
Salt opened his first fish and chips shop in California in 1965. His business was acquired by the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1969. The sale made Salt the third largest stockholder in KFC, at the time the world's largest fast-food company.
KFC was not successful in the large-scale expansion of the H. Salt Esq. chain and sold the brand and business in 1972. Salt explained the brand's failure, saying "They started lowering the standards of the quality of the fish, and so the [sales] volumes of the restaurants went down and people stopped buying franchises, so that was the end of it. And it didn't grow anymore."
Salt left the company in 1972. (Full article...)