Happy International Women’s Day! Celebrated since 1911, International Women’s Day seeks to honor women’s achievements world-wide economically, socially, and politically as well as inspire change for a continued push for gender equality worldwide. Everyday Cooking Adventures would like to take this opportunity today to celebrate just a few of the women who have gained notoriety through food and cooking:

Julia Child, CreativeCommonsImage

1) Of course, what first comes to mind for me is Julia Child. She wrote the extremely famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking and 18 other books. In 1963, she debuted the TV show, The French Chef, which to date is still the most successful TV cooking show. Thanks to her, French cooking became possible for the masses.

Alice Waters, Photo Courtesy www.chezpanisse.com

2) Famous for beginning the farm-to-table movement, Alice Waters, opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Cailfornia in the 1970s. Since then she has stuck closely to using organic food from her gardens within her restaurant. She was the first female chef to win the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef in 1992. She is also responsible for starting the Edible Schoolyard Project which finds places in public and private schools for gardens that children spend time working in and learning from and then eating the food in their cafeteria lunches. When I taught in San Francisco, I got this started at my own elementary school.

Public Domain Image: Le Cordon Bleu 1896

3) Did you know the creator of the Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris, France was a woman? Well she was! Marthe Distel in 1894 started a cooking magazine called La Cuisinière Cordon Bleu and had the fabulous PR idea of offering cooking classes where everyday people could watch professional chefs cooking dishes shown in the magazine. This school was called Le Cordon Bleu and it is also where Julia Child learned to cook in the mid-20th century.

Ruth Wakefield, Photo from wikipedia.com

4) If not for women, we would be without two delicious indulgences, chocolate chips and ready-made mayonnaise. In 1905, Mrs. Hellmann, wife of a deli owner in New York City, sold her creation of already-made mayo for customers to buy for take-out. This later became Hellmann’s jarred mayonnaise, now owned by Best Foods. In the 1920s, Ruth Wakefield ran a country inn called, Toll House Inn, sound familiar? That’s because it is where she first cut up a Nestle chocolate bar to use in her cookie recipe. It was a hit and she teamed up with Nestle to invent the chocolate chip! Yum!

Diego Velazquez, Old Woman Frying Eggs, 1618

5) Mothers and grandmothers everywhere. Across the world, women cook for their families. This isn’t a sexist comment, but rather a nod of gratitude to all the women who for centuries, millenniums really, have stood over wood fires, stovetops, and ovens making food to sustain their children and families. Recipes passed down from generation to generation are so special and a wonderful form of oral history that carries on even in this technology-driven age. I am thankful to all the women who have taken on the tradition of finding inventive ways to serve up food cheaply or fancily or creatively or all three! Love is made in and shown through what is done in our kitchens.

BONUS FACT: Do you know who taught us to eat with a fork? A woman of course…Catherine de Medici of France in the 1500s.