When Women Man the Stockpots

By Mimi Sheraton

Men are chefs. Women are cooks. Or at least that was once the conventional view. No longer. Now, whether in their own restaurants or as employees, women across the U.S. have earned their toques as chefs: the leaders of kitchen staffs, not merely cooks who work at their own stations. To suggest a woman as chef even ten years ago would have prompted laughter. Women, went the old calumny, are not creative enough to be chefs. And anyway, how could they lift those hot 60-qt. stockpots? "Very carefully," says Joan Woodhull, 20, a recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., where 25% of the 1,850 students are women.

Slowly and after considerable struggle, this band of feisty and talented women, mostly in the U.S. but also in France and England, have wrested for themselves the full title of chef. To be sure, female cooks in restaurants have a long and honored history. They were the keepers of the flame who always produced traditional dishes without deviation, both in American mom-and-pop eateries and especially in France, where the cuisine de femme (woman's cooking) was celebrated by Escoffier.

But these women were accorded little status precisely because they never altered dishes. Top honors went to the male chefs, who had undergone long classical training either as apprentices or in professional schools, and who were celebrated for their creativity and inventiveness with new dishes. A case in point: La Mere Blanc in Vonnas, France, was long a famous cuisine de femme restaurant, but it earned Michelin's three-star rating only after Georges Blanc took over from his mother and began to dream up nouvelle haute cuisine.

As in other arenas, women seeking full status in the kitchen have had to prove themselves by beating men at their own game. Most neither requested nor accepted help along the way. Mary Sue Milliken, who with her chef-partner Susan Feniger owns the Mexico-inspired Border Grill and the Oriental-eclectic City Restaurant in Los Angeles, recalls that in earlier kitchen jobs, "I insisted on hand-whisking 80 quarts of hollandaise sauce made with two cases of egg yolks."

No one paid heavier dues than tiny, 5-ft.-tall Anne Rosenzweig, who during her first unpaid apprenticeship was made to lift all the stockpots alone, even though men in the kitchen helped one another. "The European chef there was miserable and kept saying that women had no strength, no stamina and no concentration," says Rosenzweig, who went on to become the controversial vice chairman at Manhattan's exclusive "21" Club, as well as chef-partner at her own New York City restaurant, Arcadia. Overprotectiveness, not abuse, was what almost undermined Leslie Revsin, a chef at the Barbizon Hotel in Manhattan. She recalls that men rushed to help her with any heavy task, even when she didn't need help. Revsin managed, however, and in 1972 became the first female "kitchen man" and then chef at the Waldorf-Astoria, an event that prompted headlines in local newspapers.

Many women chefs have discovered exquisitely simple solutions to problems that arise because of their lack of the male's physical strength. Culinary Institute graduate Woodhull's is possibly the most obvious. "It's more stupid to do something dangerous in the kitchen than to ask for help. And asking for help doesn't mean you're not a good cook," she points out. On the other hand, advises Lynn Sheehan, a student at San Francisco's California Culinary Academy, where nearly half the 400 students are women, "if you feel you need more upper-body strength, go work out." Elizabeth Terry, the chef-owner of Elizabeth on 37th in Savannah, advises the women in her kitchen: "If you can't handle the garbage can when it's full, empty it when it's half full."

If physical weakness has not prevented women from becoming bona fide chefs, what about their alleged lack of creativity? Judging by the menus of prominent women chefs around the U.S., pure tradition has gone the way of hand-rolled dough. For though most draw upon certain ethnic and regional influences, all feature the new American cooking, with its free association of international dishes and ingredients and its basically French cooking techniques. Whether such food is prepared by men or women, it is most successful when the surprise of novelty is tempered by a sense of familiarity, a feeling that though the dish is recognizably new, it evokes past flavor associations.

Few chefs have shown more culinary flair than Rosenzweig. Among her classic dishes: chimney-smoked lobster glossed with tarragon butter and buttressed against a crisp cake of threadlike Chinese noodles; roast quail with rhubarb bedded down on dandelion greens; and homespun corn cakes topped with caviar and creme fraiche. Similarly, Joyce Goldstein, chef-owner of the stylish Square One in San Francisco, creates an aura of flavor unity on a menu that may offer crusty Italian bread, Russian mushroom soup, pungent Korean steak and a very American spiced persimmon pudding.

Beginning with Alice Waters, the first female chef to gain national renown -- in 1971 after opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley, where she gives a light, decorative California interpretation to the dishes of Provence and Italy -- the best women chefs have stayed away from traditional mamma fare. Newcomer Caprial Pence combines Oriental condiments with European dishes and local products at Fullers in the Seattle Sheraton Hotel; Hong Kong-born Jackie Shen, chef-owner of Jackie's in Chicago, decks out fillet of fish sauteed with papaya, avocado and orchids.

In nearby Evanston, Ill., Leslee Reis at her enchanting Cafe Provencal underlines sauteed foie gras with mango puree and cushions roast pheasant on mushroom ravioli. The menu at Lydia Shire's Boston restaurant, Biba, which is due to open this month, will feature dishes as stylistically diverse as Thai green-curry lobster soup, salad of rock crab and sashimi, and lambs' tongues with fava beans and cilantro. Even in New Orleans, where locals still favor their own Creole-Cajun kitchen, Susan Spicer, of the Bistro at Maison de Ville, has won converts with her Provencal improvisations.

Judging by the food one samples around the U.S., there is little difference in the performance of male and female chefs discernible to the eye or palate. Badly conceived culinary high-wire acts are as unappetizing when practiced by men as by women, as are slowness, uneven pacing of courses and sloppy presentation. "I hate this whole question," says Los Angeles' Milliken, "because it emphasizes differences, and women can only really succeed if there are none."

But some still do discern shadings of difference. "I find men tend to be more classically trained and are less flexible about trying new techniques," says San Francisco's Goldstein. "Women are less academic in their approach and so are more flexible." Observes Evanston's Reis: "Men are more aggressive about putting forward their ideas and suggestions. Women tend to be shy about speaking up." Shen feels that women let their personal problems interfere with their work and are therefore not as useful to her. "Men seem better able to keep their private lives separate."

Chefs and educators all seem to agree that women have more patience with minute detail, especially in pastry work, a startling finding when one considers that the two most inspired pastry chefs in the U.S. are Albert Kumin and Dieter Schorner, both obviously men with patience enough to produce cakes that are intricate works of art. But perhaps their female counterparts will emerge as more women wield whisks and pastry tubes. There are already two in New York City who show considerable promise: Joan Winters, whose confections reflect an Italian-American down-home blend at the Duane Park Cafe; and Susan Lantizus, who does stylish Italian innovations at San Domenico.

Whatever the merits of the male-female debate, women chefs seem to have no difficulty handling male crews. Waters puts it quite crisply. "I can do more than they can," she says. "I can fire them." Even so, despite the years of sex discrimination, these women seem to forgive if not totally forget. "I love men so much," says Milliken. "I forgive them their attitudes toward women. It's only what their grandmothers and mothers brought them up to believe."

It is inevitable and encouraging that women have joined the list of culinary creators. But it also raises questions: Who will be the keepers of the flame? Or will our beloved traditional dishes, ignored by creative chefs, simply disappear?

With reporting by JoAnn Lum/New York, with other bureaus