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22 Biographies
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Paula Deen
American chef
Paula Deen is an American chef who popularized the cuisine of the American South through restaurants, cookbooks, and television programs. Aside from her culinary creations, her appeal lay largely in her...
Ferran Adrià
Catalan chef
Ferran Adrià is a Catalan chef who, as the creative force behind the restaurant El Bulli (closed in 2011), pioneered the influential culinary trend known as molecular gastronomy, which uses precise scientific...
Julia Child
American cook and author
Julia Child was an American cooking expert, author, and television personality noted for her promotion of traditional French cuisine, especially through her programs on public TV. Julia McWilliams was...
Alice Waters
American restaurateur, chef, and activist
Alice Waters is an American restaurateur, chef, and food activist who was a leading proponent of the “slow food” movement, which billed itself as the healthy antithesis to fast food. Waters studied French...
Mario Batali
American chef, television personality, and author
Mario Batali is an American chef, television personality, author, and restaurateur who was one of the most well-known food celebrities of the early 21st century. Batali developed a passion for cooking...
British chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay
Scottish chef and restaurateur
Gordon Ramsay is a Scottish chef and restaurateur known for his highly acclaimed restaurants and cookbooks but perhaps best known in the early 21st century for the profanity and fiery temper that he freely...
Anthony Bourdain
American chef, author, and television personality
Anthony Bourdain was an American chef, author, and television personality who helped popularize “foodie” culture in the early 21st century through his books and television programs. Raised in New Jersey,...
Jamie Oliver
British chef
Jamie Oliver is a British chef who achieved worldwide fame with his television shows The Naked Chef (1999) and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (2010–11) and as author of a number of cookbooks with a variety...
Rachael Ray
American chef and television personality
Rachael Ray is an American chef and television personality, who promotes quick, easy-to-prepare meals through her television programs, lifestyle magazine, and extensive line of cookbooks. Ray had experience...
Emeril Lagasse
American chef
Emeril Lagasse is an American celebrity chef, author, and television personality who by the early 21st century was one of the most recognizable chefs in the United States, known as much for his cooking...
American welfare worker
Lizzie Black Kander was an American welfare worker who created a popular cookbook that became a highly profitable fund-raising tool for the institution she served. Lizzie Black graduated from Milwaukee...
American editor
Fannie Farmer was an American cookery expert, originator of what is today the renowned Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Farmer grew up in Boston and in Medford, Massachusetts. She suffered a paralytic stroke during...
Escoffier, Auguste
French chef
Auguste Escoffier was a French culinary artist, known as “the king of chefs and the chef of kings,” who earned a worldwide reputation as director of the kitchens at the Savoy Hotel (1890–99) and afterward...
Grant Achatz
American chef
Grant Achatz is an American chef whose culinary innovations made him a leader in the cuisine inspired by molecular gastronomy. Achatz grew up in a small town in eastern Michigan, where he worked at his...
French chef
Marie-Antoine Carême was a French chef who served the royalty of Europe, wrote several classic works on cuisine, and advanced the notion of cuisine as both an art and a science. He is often cited as the...
Japanese chef
Kurihara Harumi is a Japanese chef, lifestyle expert, and television personality who in 1994 founded the media and home furnishing corporation Yutori no Kūkan (“A Place to Relax”). Kurihara was taught...
Keith Floyd
British chef, restaurateur, and television personality
Keith Floyd, was a British chef, restaurateur, and television personality who starred in a score of TV programs, beginning with Floyd on Fish (1985), and created a more spontaneous, improvisational style...
René Redzepi
Danish chef and restaurateur
René Redzepi is a Danish chef recognized internationally for his unique reinterpretation of Scandinavian cuisine; his recipes are characterized by distinctly Nordic locally sourced ingredients. Redzepi’s...
American author and chef
Edna Lewis was an African American author and chef, renowned for her traditional Southern cooking that emphasized fresh and locally grown foods and later in life for her recipes. Having encountered racial...
Nicolas Appert
French chef
Nicolas Appert was a French chef, confectioner, and distiller who invented the method of preserving food by enclosing it in hermetically sealed containers. Inspired by the French Directory’s offer of a...
Paul Bocuse
French chef
Paul Bocuse was a French chef and restaurateur known for introducing and championing a lighter style of cooking. Scion of a long line of restaurateurs, Bocuse apprenticed under several prominent chefs...
American culinary expert and cookbook author
James Beard was an American culinary expert who championed simple American and English dishes and wrote one of the first serious books on outdoor cooking. In 1945, he became the first chef to demonstrate...