Acknowledging Women’s Work

While her work kept her active in the culinary world, the industry itself offered few opportunities for women at that time. Men were the chefs and waited tables and owned the restaurants. Brock noticed this, and learned of a women’s group in Boston that had been formed in response to an all-male dining association. In 1973, she got a charter for “the Ladies’ Chapter of New York.” It became Les Dames d’Escoffier, named for Auguste Escoffier, a late 19th-century chef who played a major role in reshaping the food and hospitality industry.

Brock worked for the next three years looking for accomplished women who were “stars in the food field” to induct into the group. She asked men in the culinary industry for names of women who would be qualified to join. “In 1973, they couldn’t think of one woman in all of New York who was qualified. The next year, they could think of one or two. The next year, they could think of three.”

By 1976, she and five other women she had enlisted to help define Les Dames had found 50 professionals in food, wine, and hospitality, and the group was under way. Over the years, they awarded 20 as “Grande Dames,” those who were extraordinary in their contributions to the field—among them, Julia Child, Alice Waters, M. F. K. Fisher, Leslie Revsin, Abigail Kirsch, and Ella Brennan.

Many of today’s leading chefs, restaurateurs, wine makers, and other stars in the industry belong to the group. There are more than 1,300 members in 27 chapters across the United States and Canada. With educational and philanthropic goals, Les Dames offers grants and scholarships (almost $4 million to date), mentoring, and community service programs. All of that grew from Brock’s desire to give women their due.

“I wasn’t thinking women’s lib,” she said simply. “I didn’t want to turn the world upside down. I wanted to do it in a ladylike way.”