TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/061989/06198900.051

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.9 KB | 175 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