By Adam Rabiner
Those who read last month’s Linewaiters Gazette review of the Plow to Plate Film Series’ March screening of Julia! America’s Favorite Chef knows that Julia Child is ranked number one on Thrillist.com’s article, The 25 Most Influential TV Chefs of All Time, Ranked. What they don’t know is that Julia Child is one of only nine women and seventeen men listed (26 individuals because the #20 spot is shared by husband-wife duo Pat and Geena Neely). Vérane Frédiani’s 2016 documentary, The Goddesses of Food, attempts to answer the question, how come so few women chefs earn international fame or appear on covers of Food and Wine Magazine or Time’s The Gods of Food?
Frédiani senses an injustice. She knows that while women chefs may not frequently grace the covers or pages of magazines, they are everywhere. And in her native France, many of the small bistros dating back to the early 20th century were owned and run by women who got their start as maids and cooks for early industrialists. Some of these women even trained and influenced France’s most famous male chefs.
So are contemporary female chefs being overlooked because they have lost their influence or are no longer innovative? Could it be they’re victims of sexism - not getting credit where credit is due? Or are we simply not looking hard enough to find them? In search of an answer, she travels the globe interviewing men and women chefs and others in the food industry. The answers are not cut and dry. Rather, Goddesses of Food serves as a wide open exploration of the intersectionality of food, culture, gender, and economics.
You know that Frédiani has broadened the frame of reference in an early scene featuring street-food vendors, establishing that talented women, like the Empanada Lady working out of a food truck, can be found in the humblest of settings, and questioning the industry’s fixation on Michelin starred restaurants or “up and coming talent.” Her point is that excellent women cooks have always been here. Why isn’t this acknowledged more often?
Frédiani also interviews women who have achieved fame and influence, like Alice Waters. Waters, largely credited with the Farm-to-Table movement in the United States, reveals that she did not feel discrimination when she was opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley in the early 1970s. She didn’t think much about this issue until she was questioned about it but believes that men and women bring different qualities to cooking and that the best restaurants have a balanced kitchen.
While a male organizer of the Omnivore Food Festival who claims not to be a chauvinist insists there is no formula for selecting top chefs, another observes that “famous men more than unknown women sell magazines.” Often, commerce, advertising, marketing, and publicity, not talent, are what drive things, which is a real Catch 22. How can women become “celebrity chefs” if they rarely appear in the glossies? And in an era when investors look to celebrities to reduce risk, it’s harder for women to open restaurants. Men simply have an easier time doing all the things necessary to get to the top - bringing people in, networking among fellow chefs, associating with and visiting each other's’ restaurants, getting press, receiving invitations to conferences, and winning awards - a vicious circle.
The Goddesses of Food explores many factors holding women back, from the lack of institutions, ladders, technical support, and capital that help men, to cultural and environmental conditions that work against the aspirations of would-be women chefs. The film suggests these hurdles cause women to work harder than men and persist longer, because they have something more to prove. Argentinian Paz Levinson, born and bred in a culture where chivalry dictates that men pick up the tabs and pick out the wine, faced longer odds than most on her road to becoming a renowned sommelier. A Congolese working in Europe notes that in Africa chefs receive little respect and are viewed no better than poorly paid cooks. A Chinese woman similarly states that she had to overcome the view that her profession was blue collar, like being a driver or a servant. An Indian architecture student went against her parents’ wishes and received no encouragement or support when she switched careers to become a baker.
Women are taking things into their own hands and beginning to establish the institutions that will begin to change these societal and familial norms. The Goddesses of Food profiles several of these such as pop-up restaurant Mazi Mas in London which hires immigrant women as chefs or a coed cooking school in La Paz, Bolivia with a focus on gender, race, and equality.
The Goddesses of Food makes clear that there is no simple or single explanation to the question Vérane Frédiani set out to explore. But because of that, she was able to make a remarkably broad and multi-faceted film.
Those who read last month’s Linewaiters Gazette review of the Plow to Plate Film Series’ March screening of Julia! America’s Favorite Chef knows that Julia Child is ranked number one on Thrillist.com’s article, The 25 Most Influential TV Chefs of All Time, Ranked. What they don’t know is that Julia Child is one of only nine women and seventeen men listed (26 individuals because the #20 spot is shared by husband-wife duo Pat and Geena Neely). Vérane Frédiani’s 2016 documentary, The Goddesses of Food, attempts to answer the question, how come so few women chefs earn international fame or appear on covers of Food and Wine Magazine or Time’s The Gods of Food?
Frédiani senses an injustice. She knows that while women chefs may not frequently grace the covers or pages of magazines, they are everywhere. And in her native France, many of the small bistros dating back to the early 20th century were owned and run by women who got their start as maids and cooks for early industrialists. Some of these women even trained and influenced France’s most famous male chefs.
So are contemporary female chefs being overlooked because they have lost their influence or are no longer innovative? Could it be they’re victims of sexism - not getting credit where credit is due? Or are we simply not looking hard enough to find them? In search of an answer, she travels the globe interviewing men and women chefs and others in the food industry. The answers are not cut and dry. Rather, Goddesses of Food serves as a wide open exploration of the intersectionality of food, culture, gender, and economics.
You know that Frédiani has broadened the frame of reference in an early scene featuring street-food vendors, establishing that talented women, like the Empanada Lady working out of a food truck, can be found in the humblest of settings, and questioning the industry’s fixation on Michelin starred restaurants or “up and coming talent.” Her point is that excellent women cooks have always been here. Why isn’t this acknowledged more often?
Frédiani also interviews women who have achieved fame and influence, like Alice Waters. Waters, largely credited with the Farm-to-Table movement in the United States, reveals that she did not feel discrimination when she was opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley in the early 1970s. She didn’t think much about this issue until she was questioned about it but believes that men and women bring different qualities to cooking and that the best restaurants have a balanced kitchen.
While a male organizer of the Omnivore Food Festival who claims not to be a chauvinist insists there is no formula for selecting top chefs, another observes that “famous men more than unknown women sell magazines.” Often, commerce, advertising, marketing, and publicity, not talent, are what drive things, which is a real Catch 22. How can women become “celebrity chefs” if they rarely appear in the glossies? And in an era when investors look to celebrities to reduce risk, it’s harder for women to open restaurants. Men simply have an easier time doing all the things necessary to get to the top - bringing people in, networking among fellow chefs, associating with and visiting each other's’ restaurants, getting press, receiving invitations to conferences, and winning awards - a vicious circle.
The Goddesses of Food explores many factors holding women back, from the lack of institutions, ladders, technical support, and capital that help men, to cultural and environmental conditions that work against the aspirations of would-be women chefs. The film suggests these hurdles cause women to work harder than men and persist longer, because they have something more to prove. Argentinian Paz Levinson, born and bred in a culture where chivalry dictates that men pick up the tabs and pick out the wine, faced longer odds than most on her road to becoming a renowned sommelier. A Congolese working in Europe notes that in Africa chefs receive little respect and are viewed no better than poorly paid cooks. A Chinese woman similarly states that she had to overcome the view that her profession was blue collar, like being a driver or a servant. An Indian architecture student went against her parents’ wishes and received no encouragement or support when she switched careers to become a baker.
Women are taking things into their own hands and beginning to establish the institutions that will begin to change these societal and familial norms. The Goddesses of Food profiles several of these such as pop-up restaurant Mazi Mas in London which hires immigrant women as chefs or a coed cooking school in La Paz, Bolivia with a focus on gender, race, and equality.
The Goddesses of Food makes clear that there is no simple or single explanation to the question Vérane Frédiani set out to explore. But because of that, she was able to make a remarkably broad and multi-faceted film.