This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page.
As a young chef in the 1950s, I had a bit of a complex about not having an education. I had left school at the age of 13 and learned my trade in the kitchen. I was traveling to New York City in 1959, looking to expand my horizons, when someone on my boat mentioned Columbia University as the best school in the city. A week after I arrived, I took the subway uptown to Columbia’s campus.
I would go on to study at Columbia from the fall of 1959 to the spring of 1972. During my time there, I proposed a doctoral dissertation on the history of French cooking in the context of history and literature. I was amazed by how many of the great French works contained references to food, eating and the art of the table. The wedding feast in Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” is meticulously depicted, and in Colette’s “Chéri,” breakfast becomes an important ritual with sexual overtones. My proposal was turned down. The subject was too menial, too simple — not worth the intellectual pursuit. I dropped out.
For many years, the work of cooking was indeed considered too menial. A chef was a physical laborer in a basement kitchen dealing with food, fat and dirty dishes, doing nothing more than creating sustenance. But there is nothing more worthy of intellectual pursuit and respect than food. Not only is it a part of history, it also actively shapes and reflects it. Indeed, my whole life, my history, was molded by it.
I was born in 1935, on the eve of World War II. Life was simpler then. The Michelin Guide, whose prestigious designations are now sought by chefs around the world, had only begun awarding stars to restaurants in 1926 and was exclusively the domain of the French. It would be decades before a Michelin star was granted to a restaurant outside of France. Our history — and what we ate — was defined by and limited to our own place and time.
When I was 6, and the war had spread to France, my mother took me to a farm for the summer months. She knew I would be safer and better fed there than I would have been at home in Bourg-en-Bresse, the town where I was born. After my mother left, the farmer’s wife took me to the barn to milk the cow. The taste of that glass of foaming, lukewarm milk would stay with me forever. The next Sunday I joined my brother, who was at another farm with a big stone oven. There, twice a month on Sundays, the farmers would meet to make miche — large, round loaves of bread that would last for the next two weeks. We knew little of the war that was raging in our own country or in those around us. What we had was the rich smell and taste of that bread.
I was 10 when the war finally ended in 1945. We followed the American tanks and the soldiers who gave out candy bars. I got one, took a bite and experienced the silky richness of milk chocolate.
I finished primary school three years later, and I had two choices: become a cabinet maker, like my father, or a cook, like my mother. I found the kitchen more exciting.
My mother was both talented and thrifty. She wasted nothing. I remember the taste of the stale bread she soaked in milk or water and fried in pork or chicken fat. Or, if she was able to get some eggs, the taste of her famous eggs Jeannette, a recipe I still make and enjoy. Hard-boiled eggs, the yolk crushed and combined with garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and a little bit of milk. She would restuff the egg whites (making sure to reserve a little bit of the stuffing) and then brown them, stuffed side down, in a skillet with a little bit of oil or butter. They would be served with a sauce, made with the remaining stuffing, mustard, salt, pepper and oil. Served lukewarm, stuffed side up, drizzled with the silky sauce on top.
I began my apprenticeship at 13. I went back to Bourg-en-Bresse to work at the Grand Hotel de l’Europe. I then moved on to Paris to work in the prestigious and classic kitchens at the Hôtel Meurice, the Plaza Athénée and Fouquet’s. Eventually, I ended up at the Hôtel Matignon, the official residence of the French prime minister, cooking for Félix Gaillard and Charles de Gaulle.
Food was a vessel through which I understood, accepted and appreciated my world. But I had been in the kitchen for 10 years, and my palate had been limited to mostly French cuisine. America intrigued me. I was curious about the lack of rules at the table, the freedom of eating a hot dog in the street at any time of the day, the acceptance of other culinary cultures and styles.
So I set off. I lived on East 50th Street, where I discovered my first supermarket, one block away. There was a lot of packaging and not much fresh food, except for meat and, surprisingly, lobster. And the produce department carried only one type of lettuce: iceberg. No leeks, no shallots, no herbs and few vegetables. Still, I thought it was a great idea to have everything in one location instead of going to individual stores for your milk, fish, bread and produce.
Those many different ingredients all in one place represented a sort of open horizon — the possibilities just ahead.
In France, in the late 1960s, a new style of cooking called “nouvelle cuisine” appeared. It was a liberation from the old, classic discipline of French cooking. It promised new ingredients, different techniques, more freedom and more creativity. This inspired me and blended well with what I was learning from my new country.
In America, we saw a renewed emphasis on domestic life, including organic gardening, home cooking and entertaining. We also witnessed a women’s movement at a time when the world of professional chefs was still dominated by men. Julia Child’s program had premiered on public television in 1962, and over the following decades, she made French food accessible to many. The Silver Palate, started by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, and Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa went from being tiny storefronts in New York City and Long Island to hugely influential food brands and cookbook franchises by the 1980s.
In the 1990s, Julia joined me to teach at Boston University, and we spoke about trying to make the study of food both worthy of respect and part of a college degree. John Silber, the president of the university at the time, agreed. In 1991, the Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy degree was offered for the first time, and it is still taught today. The study of food in the context of history, an idea I had proposed at Columbia 20 years earlier, had finally been validated.
Today, more than 260 restaurants in the United States have Michelin stars, including 14 with three stars, the top rating. Chefs have moved up the social scale — now, somehow, we are geniuses. Our access to new food and new ideas is not limited by geography or range. But we should never forget how at the end of the day, we are shaped by the simple ritual of preparing and sharing meals. And we are all better for it.
Jacques Pépin is a chef, television personality, culinary educator and artist. In 2016 he created the Jacques Pépin Foundation, along with his daughter and son-in-law. His newest book, “The Art of Jacques Pépin,” will be published this fall.
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