Influential Women

Some members you may have seen before: Joanna Weir has a PBS series on cooking; Lidia Bastianich also has a show on PBS; Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken starred in a show on the Food Network. Others you may have heard of: Marion Cunningham, who became “the new Fannie Farmer”; Alice Waters, chef of the unique Berkeley, California, restaurant Chez Panisse, open since 1971; Gina Batali, sister of celebrity chef Mario Batali. Many have published cookbooks that you may have in your kitchen.

Les Dames d’Escoffier grew up in the early 1970s, during the feminist movement, when, according to the group’s Web site, opportunities for women in the restaurant industry were limited. “There were no prominent women chefs or sommeliers, few female restaurateurs and no women allowed as wait staff in fine dining establishments. In the rare cases where women toiled behind the stoves in the kitchens of small eateries, they were cooks. Men alone were chefs.”

Carol Brock, then Sunday food editor at the New York Daily News, along with five other influential women food professionals, put together plans for a group that would help open the industry to women, providing them with education, mentoring, and networking opportunities, and that would showcase the women’s talents and achievements. The New York chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier Society started in 1973, and Les Dames d’Escoffier International was created in 1986.

Julia Child was a Dame and received her chapter’s first award in 1977, honoring her contributions to culinary excellence. Dame Leslie Revsin became the first woman to wear a toque in a major New York hotel kitchen when she was named Chef de Cuisine at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Dame M. F. K. Fisher was a renowned 20th-century writer on gastronomy.