TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/061989/06198900.051

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 9KB | 160 lines

FOOD, Page 67

When Women Man the Stockpots

After ages laboring in the kitchen, females are earning the title

of chef

By Mimi Sheraton


    Men are chefs. Women are cooks. Or at least that was once the
conventional view. No longer. Now, whether in their own restaurants
or as employees, women across the U.S. have earned their toques as
chefs: the leaders of kitchen staffs, not merely cooks who work at
their own stations. To suggest a woman as chef even ten years ago
would have prompted laughter. Women, went the old calumny, are not
creative enough to be chefs. And anyway, how could they lift those
hot 60-qt. stockpots? "Very carefully," says Joan Woodhull, 20, a
recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park,
N.Y., where 25% of the 1,850 students are women.

    Slowly and after considerable struggle, this band of feisty
and talented women, mostly in the U.S. but also in France and
England, have wrested for themselves the full title of chef. To be
sure, female cooks in restaurants have a long and honored history.
They were the keepers of the flame who always produced traditional
dishes without deviation, both in American mom-and-pop eateries and
especially in France, where the cuisine de femme (woman's cooking)
was celebrated by Escoffier.

    But these women were accorded little status precisely because
they never altered dishes. Top honors went to the male chefs, who
had undergone long classical training either as apprentices or in
professional schools, and who were celebrated for their creativity
and inventiveness with new dishes. A case in point: La Mere Blanc
in Vonnas, France, was long a famous cuisine de femme restaurant,
but it earned Michelin's three-star rating only after Georges Blanc
took over from his mother and began to dream up nouvelle haute
cuisine.

    As in other arenas, women seeking full status in the kitchen
have had to prove themselves by beating men at their own game. Most
neither requested nor accepted help along the way. Mary Sue
Milliken, who with her chef-partner Susan Feniger owns the
Mexico-inspired Border Grill and the Oriental-eclectic City
Restaurant in Los Angeles, recalls that in earlier kitchen jobs,
"I insisted on hand-whisking 80 quarts of hollandaise sauce made
with two cases of egg yolks."

    No one paid heavier dues than tiny, 5-ft.-tall Anne Rosenzweig,
who during her first unpaid apprenticeship was made to lift all
the stockpots alone, even though men in the kitchen helped one
another. "The European chef there was miserable and kept saying
that women had no strength, no stamina and no concentration," says
Rosenzweig, who went on to become the controversial vice chairman
at Manhattan's exclusive "21" Club, as well as chef-partner at her
own New York City restaurant, Arcadia. Overprotectiveness, not
abuse, was what almost undermined Leslie Revsin, a chef at the
Barbizon Hotel in Manhattan. She recalls that men rushed to help
her with any heavy task, even when she didn't need help. Revsin
managed, however, and in 1972 became the first female "kitchen man"
and then chef at the Waldorf-Astoria, an event that prompted
headlines in local newspapers.

    Many women chefs have discovered exquisitely simple solutions
to problems that arise because of their lack of the male's physical
strength. Culinary Institute graduate Woodhull's is possibly the
most obvious. "It's more stupid to do something dangerous in the
kitchen than to ask for help. And asking for help doesn't mean
you're not a good cook," she points out. On the other hand, advises
Lynn Sheehan, a student at San Francisco's California Culinary
Academy, where nearly half the 400 students are women, "if you feel
you need more upper-body strength, go work out." Elizabeth Terry,
the chef-owner of Elizabeth on 37th in Savannah, advises the women
in her kitchen: "If you can't handle the garbage can when it's
full, empty it when it's half full."

    If physical weakness has not prevented women from becoming bona
fide chefs, what about their alleged lack of creativity? Judging
by the menus of prominent women chefs around the U.S., pure
tradition has gone the way of hand-rolled dough. For though most
draw upon certain ethnic and regional influences, all feature the
new American cooking, with its free association of international
dishes and ingredients and its basically French cooking techniques.
Whether such food is prepared by men or women, it is most
successful when the surprise of novelty is tempered by a sense of
familiarity, a feeling that though the dish is recognizably new,
it evokes past flavor associations.

    Few chefs have shown more culinary flair than Rosenzweig. Among
her classic dishes: chimney-smoked lobster glossed with tarragon
butter and buttressed against a crisp cake of threadlike Chinese
noodles; roast quail with rhubarb bedded down on dandelion greens;
and homespun corn cakes topped with caviar and creme fraiche.
Similarly, Joyce Goldstein, chef-owner of the stylish Square One
in San Francisco, creates an aura of flavor unity on a menu that
may offer crusty Italian bread, Russian mushroom soup, pungent
Korean steak and a very American spiced persimmon pudding.

    Beginning with Alice Waters, the first female chef to gain
national renown -- in 1971 after opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley,
where she gives a light, decorative California interpretation to
the dishes of Provence and Italy -- the best women chefs have
stayed away from traditional mamma fare. Newcomer Caprial Pence
combines Oriental condiments with European dishes and local
products at Fullers in the Seattle Sheraton Hotel; Hong Kong-born
Jackie Shen, chef-owner of Jackie's in Chicago, decks out fillet
of fish sauteed with papaya, avocado and orchids.

    In nearby Evanston, Ill., Leslee Reis at her enchanting Cafe
Provencal underlines sauteed foie gras with mango puree and
cushions roast pheasant on mushroom ravioli. The menu at Lydia
Shire's Boston restaurant, Biba, which is due to open this month,
will feature dishes as stylistically diverse as Thai green-curry
lobster soup, salad of rock crab and sashimi, and lambs' tongues
with fava beans and cilantro. Even in New Orleans, where locals
still favor their own Creole-Cajun kitchen, Susan Spicer, of the
Bistro at Maison de Ville, has won converts with her Provencal
improvisations.

    Judging by the food one samples around the U.S., there is
little difference in the performance of male and female chefs
discernible to the eye or palate. Badly conceived culinary
high-wire acts are as unappetizing when practiced by men as by
women, as are slowness, uneven pacing of courses and sloppy
presentation. "I hate this whole question," says Los Angeles'
Milliken, "because it emphasizes differences, and women can only
really succeed if there are none."

    But some still do discern shadings of difference. "I find men
tend to be more classically trained and are less flexible about
trying new techniques," says San Francisco's Goldstein. "Women are
less academic in their approach and so are more flexible." Observes
Evanston's Reis: "Men are more aggressive about putting forward
their ideas and suggestions. Women tend to be shy about speaking
up." Shen feels that women let their personal problems interfere
with their work and are therefore not as useful to her. "Men seem
better able to keep their private lives separate."

    Chefs and educators all seem to agree that women have more
patience with minute detail, especially in pastry work, a startling
finding when one considers that the two most inspired pastry chefs
in the U.S. are Albert Kumin and Dieter Schorner, both obviously
men with patience enough to produce cakes that are intricate works
of art. But perhaps their female counterparts will emerge as more
women wield whisks and pastry tubes. There are already two in New
York City who show considerable promise: Joan Winters, whose
confections reflect an Italian-American down-home blend at the
Duane Park Cafe; and Susan Lantizus, who does stylish Italian
innovations at San Domenico.

    Whatever the merits of the male-female debate, women chefs seem
to have no difficulty handling male crews. Waters puts it quite
crisply. "I can do more than they can," she says. "I can fire
them." Even so, despite the years of sex discrimination, these
women seem to forgive if not totally forget. "I love men so much,"
says Milliken. "I forgive them their attitudes toward women. It's
only what their grandmothers and mothers brought them up to
believe."

    It is inevitable and encouraging that women have joined the
list of culinary creators. But it also raises questions: Who will
be the keepers of the flame? Or will our beloved traditional
dishes, ignored by creative chefs, simply disappear?


-- JoAnn Lum/New York, with other bureaus