The Woman That Changed the Face of Cooking

Although I was not there for the presentation about women in the culinary business, I feel like the
videos and the articles really taught me about what it's like to be a women in that business. I was
astonished to learn that only 7% of head chefs are women even though at least 50% of the
graduates from culinary schools are women. Thinking about this deeper, I thought about the
restaurant I work at. I work at a little pizza restaurant in Manchester called Bravo. The head chef
is my cousin Nick, who is male. The head chef before Nick worked there was a man named Oscar.
Although this is just one tiny restaurant, it just shows how many head chefs are indeed male. 

Watching the videos, I also got to learn a lot about Julia Child who is an inspirational women chef
who changed the face of cooking in the United States. Julia Child started off her cooking career
when she was stationed in Asia for World War 2. There, she was introduced to Chinese food and
instantly loved it. She then moved to Paris and was looking for a career which led her to Le Cordon
Bleu. She was able to go into her new job and not only succeed as a woman, but as an American
woman and create a revolution. She moved back to the United States and wrote a cookbook
called Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961 where she used a step-by-step approach to
make it easier for people to follow her recipes. Not only did she write a cookbook, she also taught
cooking lessons from her own kitchen. By 1966 she had introduced America to French cuisine
and became the face of cooking. Along with being an amazing chef, she showed that women can
cook outside of the home. After her cookbook became so popular on a television show, she was
asked back to create her own. Her show followed her own principles which were above all have a
good time in the kitchen, enjoy it, and recover from your mistakes. Her show became extremely
popular and influenced many. In 1993 she was the first woman inducted into the Culinary Institute
hall of fame and in 2000 had her kitchen made into a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian
National Museum of American History. 

When Julia Child was becoming a chef, cooking revolved around fast food and cooking with no
reparation. Because of the influence she drew from her television show and her cookbook, she
returned people to the kitchen. She also helped "spark an outcry for better ingredients" by using
sustainable and organic ingredients in her cooking. Julia Child overall changed the way Americans
viewed cooking, not as a job but as an enjoyable activity to do with friends and family. This made
me think about my own family and our cooking. My mom's side is 100% Italian and cooking with
family is one of our favorite things to do. Before holidays my family goes over to my grandparents
and we all make pasta from scratch blasting whatever music is playing. This goes to show that
Julia Child was right when she meant that cooking is enjoyable because I can see it in my own
family many years later.