In the culinary world these last two weeks, the e-mail messages have flowed like wine. French chef Alain Ducasse has accomplished the seemingly impossible by being awarded an incredible six stars--three apiece for his two restaurants--in the newest Guide Michelin. Many called it an unprecedented feat.
But more than 60 years ago, another French chef was also awarded Michelin's top rating for two restaurants. And that chef was a woman.
Eugenie Brazier was propelled into the highest ranks of French cuisine when each of her two restaurants--La Mere Brazier in Lyons and La Mere Brazier in Le Col de la Luere, in the mountainous countryside 12 miles outside the city--received three stars. That year, she became the first woman to receive Michelin's three-star ranking and the first French chef to receive the top ranking for two different restaurants. Her six-star record held until this month.
Brazier's restaurants emphasized fresh, simple cuisine. Imaginative combinations of light, natural ingredients pleased this warm, robust cook; rich sauces and flashy presentations did not.
"It would be stretching things to call her the spiritual grandmother of all the good young cooks," said Gault-Millau guidebook co-founder Christian Millau at the time of her death in 1977. "But she was an anti-big restaurant, anti-big cuisine person, and their spirit is the same."
The menus at her two restaurants were the same and stayed the same during Brazier's career. Each meal began with a plate of local sausage. The fish course was quenelles de brochet, then came her famous poularde en demi-deuil (chicken in half-mourning) and, after, fonds d'artichauts au foie gras (artichoke hearts with foie gras), which was usually served with a young Beaujolais.
Elizabeth David, the famous English cookery writer, once called Brazier's artichoke dish "a perfectly simple and straightforward salad" and "one of the most delicious salads I have ever eaten."
Born in the Burgundian village of Bourg-en-Bresse in 1895, Brazier became an orphan at age 10 and was sent to work on a farm. At 19, she left for Lyons, where she worked as a domestic and then in the restaurant of Mere Fillioux, the celebrated provincial chef--called by some the greatest of all cuisinieres--who employed only women.
At the time, French women chefs were rare. But in Lyons there was a tradition of women kitchen professionals. The "meres" of Lyons were renowned.
