Why So Few Women Are Great Chefs ...

[Carrot Top]

I feel like such a slut.

(Sorry, couldn't restrain myself any longer. It is still better than the other lines I had in mind...)

[Pan]

Emilymarie, are you sure Jean-Georges Vongerichten, with his ever-enlarging empire, is still mainly motivated by an "innate understanding of food and of how to put ingredients together"? At a certain point, don't fame and money (not necessarily in that order) become more important to some chefs?

And Karen, what are you talking about?!

[Gifted Gourmet]

are you sure Jean-Georges Vongerichten, with his ever-enlarging empire, is still mainly motivated by an "innate understanding of food and of how to put ingredients together"? At a certain point, don't fame and money (not necessarily in that order) become more important to some chefs?

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Ever Pan the Pragmatist ... where is the romance, for heaven's sake??

[Carrot Top]

And Karen, what are you talking about?! 

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It was meant to be read in a humorous way, Michael. Said in a mincing, defiant tone as I threw my long hair back and sort of wiggled my head and shoulders.

Low humour. Sorry, I needed a bit of it.

[Louisa Chu]

There are few places that will test your love of food more than being in a top kitchen. If you love to cook - and love to eat - don't come here - you will not really cook - or eat.

[emilymarie]

Emilymarie, are you sure Jean-Georges Vongerichten, with his ever-enlarging empire, is still mainly motivated by an "innate understanding of food and of how to put ingredients together"? At a certain point, don't fame and money (not necessarily in that order) become more important to some chefs?

And Karen, what are you talking about?! 

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Well, at some point, do people's egos grow to such extreme levels that it's no longer about the food? Yes and I am sure that many of these great chefs are motivated by money and fame, and not the desire to cut the perfect brunoise, etc.

What I was trying to say is that I think that Jean-Georges and his peers (and all great culinary innovators male and female) have some sort of innate understanding of food and cooking that, along with some other external factors including being able to judge what the public wants, made them successful.

I think that this intelligence and creativity were there when these people made the jump from cook to chef and is still there, lurking somewhere beneath the dollar bills and thousand-dollar suits. Whether or not as he's become uber-successful JG actually applies this genius/creativity is up for grabs, but that was not the point I was trying to make. Perhaps that's a matter for another thread--Why do chefs seem to move farther away from the kitchen the more successful they get?

[Carrot Top]

There is also a bit of luck and understanding of what the public is looking for and is ready to stomach, so to speak.

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More than a bit of luck, but they say one can make their own luck....

And more than a bit of understanding of what the public is looking for. This is the restaurant business after all...as you know very well, arielle...as you end the week and have to balance the books.

It must be what the public really wants, or that food is going to be sitting in the kitchen getting cold as you stare at it with no customers lining up for it...

And if we look at the making of a great meal as 'art', then it is important to remember that it is not an art that is easily translated into something that will last for all time, like a painting or a sculpture.

The food on the plate is perfect at one exact moment. It is eaten, then it is gone, but for a memory. So to hope for 'greatness' through an idea of food rather than a reality of food would seem simply moot.

But of course that notion is up for critical comment, and I daresay it could be articulated by someone that the idea is the imperative item....

Edited October 19, 2004 by Carrot Top (log)

[emilymarie]

There are few places that will test your love of food more than being in a top kitchen. If you love to cook - and love to eat - don't come here - you will not really cook - or eat.

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Me again--

So, may I ask, why do you do it still? What brought you into the business and why do you continue? I'm being completely sincere here, by the way. I'm very interested in your thoughts as someone who's been doing this for awhile (or so it appears)--and certainly longer than I have.

I harbor no delusions about the job being easy, carefree, not full of stress..I know I'm not going to get to sit all day (at all) or float about the kitchen doing whatever I want. I know what to expect but I'm still holding onto my whole striving for perfection and desire to learn thing--even tho I know I'm going to have to do it while getting my ass kicked and maybe myself spit on...

[pidge]

i've been browsing this discussion for a few days now, and though i think that there are many interesting and cogent points being made, i think there are some other ones that are being overlooked.

i am a working woman chef. i have been in the industry for 25 years, went to cooking school in 1985, and have been working in various types of kitchens since. i have been a chef de partie or executive chef for most of that time. i worked under many truly great male chefs, and with many wonderful male cooks, many of whom have gone on tobecome "famous", even in the parlance of today's media, publicity and celebrity chef culture. they're all terrific guys who would give a tremendous amount of credit to any and all the people they've worked with, regardless of gender. that being said, when i was a cook in the 80's, i was invariably the only woman in the kitchen, or at least the only one who stuck it out. the work was hard...it still is and i'm the exec...and the hours were abominable. in all that time i worked for only one woman (who was, btw, perhaps more demanding than any of the men). There are very few high profile jobs in this industry that don't require a 100% commitment, and just based on the traditional gender roles in society, i think it was then, and still is now, very difficult for a woman to find the kind of support that would allow her to put in the 3-5 years at 6-7 days a week 14 hours a day that 4 star and european style kitchens require. my male friends were generally making more money than the females, they had a mom or girlfriend who would take care of the groceries and laundry, they were not the principal care-givers for their children and they had more socialization within the culture than most of the women (girls didn't just go to bars alone at the end of the shift at 2 am then and meet up with the guys from the restaurant down the block). this is in no way meant to sound whiny or self pitying...i did after all hang around, and i do have a pretty nice life, but for years i shared an employee bathroom and locker room with 15 guys....i learned an awful lot.

i guess my point then is that 20 years ago, there was barely a chef culture whatsoever. when it suddenly became sexy to be a chef, there weren't that many women around to begin with, and the female chef role model was julia child...not the female version of wolfgang puck or jacques pepin. there were very few mentors and moreover, those that were were probably more interested in running a great kitchen than fostering their gender (not that there's anything wrong with that, by any means). the guys who've become "famous" ...because i really believe that that's what this conversation is about, great being so subjective a term, have simply had that much more time and that many more opportunities to hone themselves.

now, with all that being said, i think that within the next few years, especially in the states, working women chefs will start to emerge and get their due. their are a number of (well, i'll say it) great women who are mentoring other women, and the culture has become more secure and humane. i don't believe per se that great chefs just appear...the c.v.s of anyof the great chefs or food celebrities may start with a love of food, but generally also show a lot of hard work under demanding masters, in various kitchens with various disciplines -and whether a person has the intelligence, creativity, drive and personality to turn that into their own vision is quite another thing, regardless of gender.

[chefette]

Well, I admit that I was oversimplifying - to a degree in the comments I made. But - and I ask you to seriously ponder this in the depths of your soul:

Are the people that you name as Great Chefs great because of their innate understanding of food and incredible cooking ability?

Really? Really?????????

Being a good chef is really about being a good manager - of oneself, of the establishment, and of the personnel in the kitchen. Most people with innate understanding of food who are loving, creative cooks just cook and most people never really know they are there. They are what make great chefs great. You are the people who do your work.

Now you are getting down to great cooks - as in wow - great food I could die and go to heaven happy now that I have had the ultimate meal

and great chefs - I acknowledge and admire your stellar culinary resume and assume that you have astounding skills - love your book - great photos by the way ( I KNOW, I cannot help being all cynical and tongue in cheek - its just part of my quirky sense of humor and emperor has no clothes outlook on life)

And as Carrot Top originally asked - what is the whole great thing anyway? I know there was an answer - but it just does not seem satisfactory here since the perception about great anything is widespread recognition and acknowledgement of accomplishment.

I think that if you go by your oddly elastic definition of greatness then there is no lack of great women chefs - is there a shortage of widely publicized famous women chefs? Why yes there is - and shame on all you male food writers for failing to recognize greatness when you get it put before you on that plate and give us the accolades that are our due. Plenty of the great food that you see and taste and thereby use as proof to support the greatness of some celebrity chef du jour got cooked up for you by a great woman chef in the back of the house. Is greatness a personal decision, a localized assumption, does it require a good review in the newspaper? Must Gourmet Magazine select you as a rising chef? Need one publish a glossy book? Must you move beyond cooking books to the coffee table book status in order to be considered great?

Name the people - male and female who are great chefs - we went through this about a year ago and some people wrote down the tried and true list of well knowns (regardless of whether they had ever sampled their cooking or seen them in action) and some people wrote of chefs that they knew personally - worked with or for, or whose establishments they frequented. So is this about celebrity or cooking ability, and how does celebrity status equate with cooking ability? How exactly does cooking ability become celebrity? How many people have to know your food and say it is great before you become a great chef?

Where are all the great women truck drivers? waiters? construction site managers? Why don't we care about that? Do we just care about the disparity of recognition in the chef world because within the last 10 years it has become well publicized and sort of sexy and wishful (God only knows why) as a profession?

Maybe I am secretly a red head too Carrot Top. As Sinclair is saying in several of her posts I think that part of the problem is that women do tend to pursue cooking for the satisfaction and love of the cooking whereas (and again - slight oversimplification coming) men go for the glory - cooking is but a means to an end.

[Boris_A]

Why do chefs seem to move farther away from the kitchen the more successful they get?

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What chefs, that's the question here.

Bocuse was considerably more famous than Chapel. (And let's ask Robert Brown about their status regarding the art of coooking, as I'm not an eye witness and Chapel is dead now. I'm sure he has an answer).

Bocuse was the prototype of the modern chef engaged in many, partly industrial activities and a predecessor in this regard of, for example, Ducasse.

There are really considerable differences. For example, Chapel, the teacher of the most famous cooks of the present, refers in his book to two absolutely unknown cooks, but doesn't write a single word about the superstar chef Point, where he worked as a disciple. A matter of character, I think.

Therefore, I believe we have to make a distinction between en vogue great chefs who are acting along present paradigms, and great chefs who are going their way, rather unimpressed by media hype and circus and are doing a unspecatcular, yet very precise work. The second kind is much harder to detect, but surely not because they weren't great cooks (or chefs).

If this my thesis is correct, then it's maybe worthwhile to examine whether there are mechanisms which promotes much more male chefs within the first category.

Edited October 19, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[Busboy]

Well, I admit that I was oversimplifying - to a degree in the comments I made.  But - and I ask you to seriously ponder this in the depths of your soul:

Are the people that you name as Great Chefs great because of their innate understanding of food and incredible cooking ability? 

Really?  Really?????????

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Yes. Absolutely. By definition.

One can be a great manager without being a great cook. One cannot be a great chef without being one. One can probably be a great chef and be a shitty manager -- great chef's lose their restaurants all the time. In DC, Yannick Cam has lost, what, three? Roberto Donna is struggling to keep his place out of the clutches of the tax man, and Carole Greenwood is on attempt number three.

[Daniel Rogov]

Chefette, Hi…

Responding to several of your points.

(a) Of course those that I would list as "great chefs" are not great only because of their innate (or developed) understanding of food and incredible cooking ability, but without those, no matter how good managers they may be (men or women), and no matter how good they are at playing the system, they never would have been thought of or acknowledged as "great". In a phrase, no matter how much Marvin Shanken loves you, without talent it simply isn't going to coalesce.

(b) I think we have to make a distinction between those people who are great cooks and those who are great chefs. The cooks deserve enormous credit (often when dining I will ask permission to enter the kitchen not to thank the chef but to thank the brigade)

© In general I would concur that greatness is defined as "widespread recognition…" but that does not have to be necessarily so.

(d) I'll take just a wee bit of umbrage in your charge that all of us male food writers fail to recognize greatness when it is produced by a woman. First of all, let's keep in mind that some of the most influential food writers and critics of the late 20th and early 21st century are women. Second, agreed there are plenty of chauvinists out there and a great many of them are men venting their fears and hostilities against women. Not all of us though. Some of us actually think of ourselves not always as men or women but as people.

(e) As to all of the glossy books printed by wannabe (I've always liked that term) great chefs, heck, I've got bookshelves full of them and can't for the love of me find out where, if at all, many of those chefs are now working. Glssy books are neither a requirement nor a permit. Nor does celebrity necessarily connect with greatness. Correlation and causation do not at all walk hand in hand. In this case we are talking not about rejects but those great chefs waiting yet to be discovered. Its all something like intelligence – no product, no intelligence (that's Piaget, not me)

(f) As to the great women truck drivers or construction site managers – we don't care about that here because this is a culinary site. If we don't care about it in reality and everyday life, however, we have a problem.

(g) You are very possibly correct about the recognition of the chef in the last decade, but in that primarily if you are referring to the United States. France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, China and other countries were well "into" the concept of chefs as admired stars long, long ago.

(h) As to your self admitted "slight simplification" – sorry but I'll disagree again….I know a heckuva lot of male chefs who pursue their profession for the satisfaction and love of food, cooking and the culinary arts. Now of course we're getting into the question of when the ego of the chef (or the person in any profession for that matter) outgrows their physical being and their talents.

On that note, please see me reach out to you with an olive branch.

[Boris_A]

(d) I'll take just a wee bit of umbrage in your charge that all of us male food writers fail to recognize greatness when it is produced by a woman.  First of all, let's keep in mind that some of the most influential food writers and critics of the late 20th and early 21st century are women. 

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Daniel, in an earlier post I tried to show that this cirsumstance unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean that these women are less proned to dismiss the due credit to the work of women. In my example, sadly au contraire.

[Squeat Mungry]

I wonder, what, if anything, is different and unique to the San Francisco Bay Area in this regard? I ask because when I saw this topic, I thought, "Huh! Lots, if not most, of my favorite local chefs are women!" The following immediately sprang to mind:

Alice Waters (And I beg to differ with those who do not consider her a chef. She opened Chez Panisse a few years before she became hands-on chef in the kitchen. It was not until then that the place really began to get the attention of the critics and the culinary world. She was and is primarily a teacher, but she certainly is a chef.)

Judy Rodgers

Nancy Oakes

Mary Jo Thoresen

Annie Somerville

Traci des Jardins

Jacqueline Margulis

Lindsey Shere

Melissa Perello

Sue Conley and Peggy Smith

Suzanne Goin (now in LA)

Each of these women fits Rogov's definition of "eminent, distinguished, illustrious and possibly even important". These are the names at the helm of some of the San Francisco area's most famous and esteemed restaurants. I haven't tried, but I'm not sure I could come up with that many local male chefs who I think fit that definition off the top of my head. (Well, okay, I probably could, but not a whole lot more.)

Actually, I think at least part of the answer to my question above is Waters herself. At least three of the others listed are CP alumnae.

I don't know how many of these women have raised or are raising families. I do know that Waters has cited her daughter as one of many reasons she never decided to expand CP into a "culinary empire" of many restaurants. And yet look at how much else she has been able to accomplish.

I think there is one woman, though, to whom all present-day women chefs, at least in major American cities, owe a debt of gratitude, and that is the late Leslie Revsin, because prior to the '70s I don't think it can reasonably be denied that there was indeed a "glass ceiling" for women at the upper echelons of high-end restaurant kitchens.

Also, though I have not read the entire book (just glanced through it at the library), Chef Ann Cooper's A Woman's Place is in the Kitchen: The Evolution of Women Chefs examines this very topic in depth, including a look at the effect of the brigade system as being rooted in (male) military regimentation, and the family/professional duties balancing act.

Cheers,

Squeat

Edit: Oops! I see Cooper's book has already been cited. Carry on.

Edited October 19, 2004 by Squeat Mungry (log)

[Carrot Top]

Well...if we can agree to agree that The American Heritage Dictionary might have some useful definitions...what the heck. Disagree if you want. Here are the definitions anyway.

Great 1. Very large in size. 2. Larger in size than others of the same kind. 3. Large in quantity or number. 4. Extensive in time or distance. 5. Remarkable or outstanding in magnitude . 6. Of outstanding significance or importance. 7. Chief or principal. 8. Superior in quality or character; noble . 9. Powerful, influential . 10. Eminent, distinguished . 11. Grand, aristocratic.

I italicized the definitions that seemed meaningful, to me. The others were amusing, though.

Chef A cook, especially the chief cook of a large kitchen staff (French, short for chef de cuisine, head of the kitchen).

Woman I think this can be figured out.

I like dictionaries.

Edited October 20, 2004 by Carrot Top (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

I think there is one woman, though, to whom all present-day women chefs, at least in major American cities, owe a debt of gratitude, and that is the late Leslie Revsin, because prior to the '70s I don't think it can reasonably be denied that there was indeed a "glass ceiling" for women at the upper echelons of high-end restaurant kitchens.

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Thank you for reminding us about Leslie Revsin in this thread ... this is highly appropriate.....lovely thread on the culinary achievements of Leslie Revsin

she was quite a fine example of a great woman chef and she not only will be missed but I imagine already has been by her devoted admirers.

[Carrot Top]

Yes, Melissa. In agreeement. And thank you, Squeat, for a really nice list there.

My horoscope warns of disharmonious lack of agreement today (yeah, that's how it was phrased...a double whammy), but so what. You can't escape your horoscope, now, can you.... So I'll post and wait to see if I've said anything terribly wrong...

What is a chef in the first place?

Someone who cooks professionally. To take it a bit further, the difference between the term 'cook' and 'chef' is the implication that a chef leads others in the kitchen and assumes responsibility for the final product while having the authority to make decisions that will define and/or create what form the final product actually will take.

Besides the capacity for physical strength and stamina which we've discussed, there are the other things that go into being a chef that define that professional title. Those characteristics exist in differing levels in different people. To my mind, they break into four main categories.

1.Technical skill and interest. There must be a certain level of technical skill to start with, but certain individuals excel at this. They have a focus on the foodstuffs and how they interact in a scientific way with each other, with heat, with cold, with timing, with differing methods of putting together....etc etc.

2. Creativity. There must be some of this in any chef just to manage a kitchen in a practical manner. Food is a perishable item...it is alive....and based on what the practical demands of useage are, there will be some foods that will be left over at the end of the day that must be creatively used to make something appealing and delicious, unless one wants to just toss them...which is not good for keeping a business financially afloat. The only way one can avoid this is to have such a tightly knit production schedule that most of the foodstuffs purchased would be approaching the taste and holding ability of cardboard.

3. Knowledge of what the person at table is likely to be interested in eating.

Interest in making the intellectual or emotional connection with the food produced, that will lead to the diner's satisfaction.

4. Management and teaching skills. The title of chef holds the notion that one is going to be in charge of others besides themselves. There has to be some ability in training, mentoring, leading, teaching or the staff will be sitting around lost and wondering what to do...and the chef will be unable to accomplish the translation of his/her ideas out to the food at table.

Administrative skills should be added in here too, for food orders must be placed based on useage requirements, inventories must be taken and understood, standardized recipes created and written out to provide consistency...(if there are any amount of staff at all or any amount of staff turnover at all either...), scheduling of staff based on production must be done correctly along with of course, daily production schedules for all stations that exist in the kitchen.

That's what I see, that defines 'chef' in a basic professional sense....not adding on the idea of 'great' or even 'successful'.

Edited October 20, 2004 by Carrot Top (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

There are few places that will test your love of food more than being in a top kitchen. If you love to cook - and love to eat - don't come here - you will not really cook - or eat.

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So understated, so right! Eventually a persons modivation to remain in the kitchen grows past "I love to cook. Or. I cook to show love.". I think many females do enter this career with that emotion flowing through their blood. But years down the line it becomes something far deeper then that. Those that don't work past that emotion don't remain in the kitchen. The work/hours/life style gets the better of them........henseforth the large number of people who enter this field but don't remain.

I can't find the right words to explain why I'm still here in this profession (long after my peers have left), perhap one of our other female chefs can better explain this? It's sort of an obsession, a drive to learn, to better myself, to explore a subject thats really fasinating and ever changing, I'm a craftsman driven to turn this into my art- or at least find the art before I die. This is a personal journey for me. I made the leap in previous posts to assume that others feel the same way (male or female). We work quitely to satisfy ourselves, that's who we work for.

There are tons of great chefs working with-out recieving any notable recognition............recognition is a seperate goal one must work toward. The best of the best aren't always well known to the public. As Cheffette eluded to. Sometimes it's the squeakie wheel that gets noticed. I was shocked at first to learn that chefs hire pr companies............I had no idea. This really is a business and there are MANY chefs who don't work that angle, don't care about that angle. They work quitely for their own personal satisfaction and no critic or title will mean more to them then knowing in their own heart- that they are good.

Of course there are always exceptions! I still say that in general women think/act differently then men when it comes to their career and personal life (even what we seek as emotional forfillment).

The example of SF having many great female chefs is what I believe the beginning of our future. When there are more women, there will be more recognition, acceptance, mentoring, etc......

[Steve Klc]

I'm glad to see chefette, my wife, expand this already amazing, incredibly civil thread a little bit further, and she took it into some areas I too thought weren't being touched on--namely the perception of greatness past some sort of quantifiable and/or inherent understanding of cooking or the ability to cook--the food media's role in establishing greatness either in an historical sense or in the modern sense of the term. I've read this all the way through in one sitting and am glad I did. As a reasoned, thought-provoking and historical article, Daniel, I think you've succeeded valiantly--but that success only goes so far; I'm afraid it stops short with:

"Nor has there been great progress in our own, more "enlightened times". While it is true that more women have entered the lower ranks of the profession (sous-chefs, conditores, dessert chefs), there has precious little increase in France, England, the United States or Israel in the ranks of women who have risen to the top of the chefs' profession."

You drop that there, which I guess helps eG because it's left for us to pick up here, but I think it hurts the impact and cohesiveness of your piece overall--if you were going to state that I think you had to make of the case for its validity. That struck me as a decades-old assumption, unsubstantiated--and also wrong--at least as far as the United States is concerned. I think we have seen a substantial increase in the ranks of women who have risen to the top of the chefs' profession--or are at least on their way, way past the levels of sous chef and pastry chefs. I also think that doesn't necessarily correlate with greatness.

A thought before I forget, as an example of reverse mentoring, father/daughter, doesn't Arzak of Spain, a michelin 3 star, have his daughter at the helm now?

On or about page 4 it was mentioned that diners may play a role in this--preferring perhaps to shake a man's hand after a meal or revere a male chef, and I think you also have to ask how much of chef-worship has not been gender-blind but been male worship? In the simplistic way there are fans of male rock stars and boy bands and different fans of all girl bands, with a little overlap of course when it came to Chrissie Hynde and Blondie--are we gender blind when it comes to those we elevate to greatness? And no matter how I try, I keep coming back to media--it's the hardest influence on greatness to assess and hardest to track, as a working pastry chef I think it plays an outsized role in how "greatness" is codified and perceived, as each and every one of chefette's five points play--of her 5, the networking/mentoring and to some extent the connections/schmoozing angle was very well-discussed on this thread. It's why women started doing for other women only relatively recently. If you can't open the doors yourself, if the opportunities didn't exist historically, you need some help and I suspect like many on this thread that we've only just begun to see the payoff of these doors opening.

Some other random thoughts this exchange provoked in me, at least in this modern US era and what's happening to modern food:

1) there's more of a premium to get on the celebrity chef track earlier and at a younger age or self-select out of the fast media-schmoozing track--and I think men and women equally slot themselves accordingly, men and women equally and consciously decide whether to pursue the appearance of "greatness." This is the learning how to play the game angle and it is apart from actually cooking--and many male chefs just don't have the patience or tools to play this game. We've talked previously on eG about the tendency of women culinary students and young cooks to allow themselves to be slotted in pastry--stereotyped into pastry--and the ramifications of such a choice. The quantifiable result without drawing any inference: most of the nominees for and all of the James Beard best pastry chef winners in recent years have been women;

2) I believe the physically demanding job argument keeps as many men out of the regular restaurant kitchen as it does women. I know it's one factor amongst several which keeps me from ever being the fulltime pastry chef of a single restaurant--and that's my choice regardless of its effect on my perceived pretty-goodness within my local city and nationally;

3) how many great food writers or influential editors are men or women? is there (or was there) a causal relationship with the chefs they promote, champion and elevate? (not cookbook writers, but food writers, critics and the media chroniclers of chef greatness?) Does this, or a sense of political correctness, help explain why certain cities may seem to be more or less female chef-friendly? Seems to me at least as much speculation should be devoted to those professionals who write about chefs and chef greatness as to those chefs pursuing a path toward greatness, or not;

4) how many women are nominated for and subsequently win Beard awards and has the supposed gender imbalance changed at all over time? is there a causal relationship which can be traced, since only the previous winners receive ballots to vote in the years after they've won--can any aspect of this supposed greatness imbalance be somewhat self-perpetuating?

5) I'd suggest perhaps it is now equally as hard for a male to become a great chef--the tables have been more levelled--though it's still a very small circle of greatness depending on how you define it and how the media defines it. The current "great" ones want to stay atop the mountain as long as they can and aren't in any hurry to cede space at the table. Depending on how I draw my own parameters for chef greatness my list could only be two deep: Adria and Ducasse. But if I draw my parameters differently, I could make the case that Emeril is the "greatest" chef ever.

This weekend chefette and I had dinner twice at the California Grill in Disneyworld, a very special restaurant, and we sat at the chef's counter peering into the open kitchen just feet away, the late 20's/early 30's chef at the pass for our first dinner there last week exuded complete competence, calm and control--she just happened to be a woman surrounded by men at all the hot line, saute, grill and fry stations; to our left Yoshie the head sushi chef there is female, an older woman, early 50's probably, and has been the head sushi chef (and a woman) since the restaurant opened--female sous chefs are well represented elsewhere on property: there's also a female sous at the property's second best restaurant currently--Le Cellier in Canada/Epcot--where we ate twice also. None of these female chefs will ever be perceived as "great" in the wider scheme of things media or social or historical or even in the narrower Disney chain of command externally-promotable sense, none of the male chefs working with them those nights (nor the two male executive chefs--Brian Piasecki and John State) will be perceived as "great" either; yet they and their teams were just that--great--depending on how you want to define it. There's is a sustained excellence, a consummate excellence, if not greatness, in the face of difficult odds in a challenging workplace that also occurs daily all over the country that you rarely hear about and rarely read about.

My wife and I had just cooked for 800 people at a Disneyworld gala that weekend. 5 of the 8 pastry chefs invited were female; I counted 5 female chefs of the 24 chefs invited. That's 10 of 32, not that that necessarily matters. The single best dish of the night, the only clearly "great" dish to my palate and sensibility, was by a woman, not that that matters, Ximena Mariscal of the Maricu Centro de Artes Culinarias of Mexico, it was "Cuitlacoche and filet mignon crepes with corn souffle and chile poblano sauce."

Yet of the 32 total chef professionals showcased, only 3 would probably rate according to the national food media as "great" albeit for different mixes of reasons --Roberto Donna of Galileo in DC, Hiro Sone of Terra in Napa and Melissa Kelly of Primo in Rockland, Maine. So in that grouping gender-wise it is 1 in 3.

Just thinking out loud, maybe that balance is correct, maybe men and women are making their own choices and per capita this is how the numbers will continue to shake out. From an historical and sociological perspective I do think it is valid to explore why so few women "are great chefs," because in Europe there was a system you had to come up through, but in the US currently perhaps the answers have a lot more to do with the "mechanisms," as Boris A astutely suggests, like 1) the relationship between greatness and celebrity, 2) the perception of greatness by the media and its influence on us 3) the very definitions a chef, writer, diner chooses to determine greatness in a chef. And those are some pretty big hurdles to get past or even agree on--though in your last post Daniel you do a "great" job attempting to flesh those out more.

[arielle]

QUOTE(Daniel Rogov @ Oct 19 2004, 11:49 PM)

(d) I'll take just a wee bit of umbrage in your charge that all of us male food writers fail to recognize greatness when it is produced by a woman. First of all, let's keep in mind that some of the most influential food writers and critics of the late 20th and early 21st century are women.

Quoting Boris-A's response to Rogov:

"Daniel, in an earlier post I tried to show that this cirsumstance unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean that these women are less proned to dismiss the due credit to the work of women. In my example, sadly au contraire. "

Daniel - Karen and I have both expressed our disappointment with the relatively negative attitudes of a lot of women when it comes to interaction with someone (another woman) perceived as having more status. I find that for men competition is often a healthy, fun way of living and working, and that at the end of the week two male 'rivals' can go and share a beer.......unfortunately, many women are not like that, they involve the personal with the professional. Personally, I don't think that it matters if you don't like the people you work with, as long as you respect their work ethic and feel that they are good at what they do. Men are usually better at doing this than women, hence a few friends of mine who did their apprenticeships under chefs who would regularly abuse them both verbally and physically (one chef grabbed his apprentice's hand and pushed it palm down onto the flat-top whilst it was on! and then made him work out his shift before letting him go to the hospital to treat the burn) and they were willing to put up with that sort of treatment. Most women I know would not be ready to deal with that.

Actually, I think that the abuse factor is a very important one for us, because most women I know were raised to stand up for themselves, or to remove themselves from situations in which abuse may have been a risk. We were brought up to know that no man or other person had the right to hit us, or to abuse us in any way etc etc......so now we aren't willing to stand for it in any situation......What do you ladies think about this?

Quoting Carrot Top:

"Woman - I think this can be figured out."

Karen - Come on, you should have put the definition in just to help the poor blokes out there - you know, the ones who think that it's actually WOMAN: inflatable companion to MAN (n. see defn. in M); displays tendency to open mouth like this , prefers lying down lith legs and arms akimbo. Intellectually is vastly inferior to MAN.

Edited October 20, 2004 by arielle (log)

[emilymarie]

So understated, so right! Eventually a persons modivation to remain in the kitchen grows past "I love to cook. Or. I cook to show love.". I think many females do enter this career with that emotion flowing through their blood. But years down the line it becomes something far deeper then that. Those that don't work past that emotion don't remain in the kitchen. The work/hours/life style gets the better of them........henseforth the large number of people who enter this field but don't remain.

I can't find the right words to explain why I'm still here in this profession (long after my peers have left), perhap one of our other female chefs can better explain this? It's sort of an obsession, a drive to learn, to better myself, to explore a subject thats really fasinating and ever changing, I'm a craftsman driven to turn this into my art- or at least find the art before I die. This is a personal journey for me. I made the leap in previous posts to assume that others feel the same way (male or female). We work quitely to satisfy ourselves, that's who we work for.

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Sinclair, thanks for answering my question (though you may have inadvertently) about why you continue to do the job. I think what you've said here about why you do it is exactly why I want to do it. I know plenty of people who love to cook and who cook all of the time at home and for friends and family, and while I love to cook as well, it's something more than that which draws me to the kitchen. As I wrote many posts ago, you could call this passion or, as you do Sinclair, a sort of obsession. It's the pursuit of learning and of bettering myself, of trying to be consistent and perfect as often as possible. (I think that the ongoing posts from Grant Achatz and the creation of the new menu at his restaurant, Alinea, are a very good illustration of what Sinclair is talking about here--really exciting stuff there!)

My grandmother got me interested in food and her desire to want to feed me constantly because she loves me is what drew me to all of this--but it's not what makes me want to keep going.

And I finally understand what you meant when you said that women work for themselves and quietly. I at first misinterpreted this to mean quietly as in, in the background and associated what you said with women being weaker or meek in some way and not wanting to move ahead. But now it's clear to me what you were saying--why you do this is because of a personal goal/mission you have set for yourself.

My two cents. And to Arielle--funny.

[Carrot Top]

"Woman - I think this can be figured out."

Karen - Come on, you should have put the definition in just to help the poor blokes out there - you know, the ones who think that it's actually WOMAN: inflatable companion to MAN (n. see defn. in M); displays tendency to open mouth like this , prefers lying down lith legs and arms akimbo. Intellectually vastly inferior to MAN.

     

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arielle....There is so much to think about both on the subject of 'great woman chefs' and just plain men and women interacting.

The men have anger about certain things...and certainly so do we.

I must tell you though, that anger kills. I saw it eat my mother alive, all in the name of 'Feminism'. She never managed to accomplish the professional goals she set for herself...and also never managed to find her way out into the world of friendships and relationships through her rage.

Anger kills. From the inside out. Hesitating to even hint at a word that has religious connotations here, I will say clearly that this word I use now is not used in any religious way...But anger is The Devil.

So when I do get angry (as every human being on earth does, and many and often for good reason)...I have to change it into something else internally. I have to get the best of it rather than it get the best of me.

Anger, internalized, and not re-built into something else, of course leads to depression. And one can not move if afflicted by this disease. One withers away into a little lump of puddled misery.

There are still a lot of things to talk about on this thread....there is a lot of all categories of both external and subliminal stuff going on. And it is challenging to us all. I hope we make it through carrying more out than we brought in with all our thoughts and feelings.

As you said before...one step at a time.

And maybe a glass of mulled wine inbetween, now and again....

[arielle]

arielle....There is so much to think about both on the subject of 'great woman chefs' and just plain men and women interacting.

The men have anger about certain things...and certainly so do we.

I must tell you though, that anger kills. I saw it eat my mother alive, all in the name of 'Feminism'. She never managed to accomplish the professional goals she set for herself...and also never managed to find her way out into the world of friendships and relationships through her rage.

Anger kills. From the inside out. Hesitating to even hint at a word that has religious connotations here, I will say clearly that this word I use now is not used in any religious way...But anger is The Devil.

So when I do get angry (as every human being on earth does, and many and often for good reason)...I have to change it into something else internally. I have to get the best of it rather than it get the best of me.

Anger, internalized, and not re-built into something else, of course leads to depression. And one can not move if afflicted by this disease. One withers away into a little lump of puddled misery.

There are still a lot of things to talk about on this thread....there is a lot of all categories of both external and subliminal stuff going on. And it is challenging to us all. I hope we make it through carrying more out than we brought in with all our thoughts and feelings.

As you said before...one step at  a time.

And maybe a glass of mulled wine inbetween, now and again....

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Oh Karen,

I agree with you, I was just taking the proverbial....

I think that there's plenty of racism, sexism, homophobia to go around out there, and I don't want to contributed by becoming some embittered, militant feminist who destroys her capacity to do good and to be successful by poisoning her mind and wasting her time being uselessly angry.

I agree with the teachings of the Dalai Lama, who states (in a nutshell) that the best way to live your life is to understand when you are being hurt, but to be sufficiently self-aware and controlled to respond to the hurt in a constructive way; trying to hurt that person back will not solve your problem, and if you are a consciencious, sentient being, such retaliation will only hurt you more......

Having said that, I can laugh at myself, and I think others should too.....so I inflict this humour upon them on a regular basis.

SOE-PA: patience; tolerance; forbearance (in Tibetan)

[Carrot Top]

  i am a working woman chef.  i have been in the industry for 25 years, went to cooking school in 1985, and have been working in various types of kitchens since.  i have been a chef de partie or executive chef for most of that time.  i worked under many truly great male chefs, and with many wonderful male cooks, many of whom have gone on tobecome "famous", even in the parlance of today's media, publicity and celebrity chef culture.  they're all terrific guys who would give a tremendous amount of credit to any and all the people they've worked with, regardless of gender.  that being said, when i was a cook in the 80's, i was invariably the only woman in the kitchen, or at least the only one who stuck it out.  the work was hard...it still is and i'm the exec...and the hours were abominable.  in all that time i worked for only one woman (who was, btw, perhaps more demanding than any of the men).  There are very few high profile jobs in this industry that don't require a 100% commitment, and just based on the traditional gender roles in society, i think it was then, and still is now, very difficult for a woman to find the kind of support that would allow her to put in the 3-5 years at 6-7 days a week 14 hours a day that 4 star and european style kitchens require.  my male friends were generally making more money than the females, they had a mom or girlfriend who would take care of the groceries and laundry, they were not the principal care-givers for their children and they had more socialization within the culture than most of the women (girls didn't just go to bars alone at the end of the shift at 2 am then and meet up with the guys from the restaurant down the block).  this is in no way meant to sound whiny or self pitying...i did after all hang around, and i do have a pretty nice life, but for years i shared an employee bathroom and locker room with 15 guys....i learned an awful lot.

 

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pidge, thank you for telling us of your experiences. I do agree with you that a woman boss can be perhaps more demanding than a man sometimes.

Do you still enjoy the work? Which is the part of it that you enjoy the most (besides a paycheck, which is a good thing to have )?

Was there ever a time when you said "Forget this, I won't do this"...but then sort of went through an inner trial by fire and decided to stick to it?