James Beard
James Andrew Beard ( born May 5, 1903 in Portland (Oregon ), † 21 January 1985 in New York City ) was an American chef and cookbook author.
Considered together with MFK Fisher, Craig Claiborne and Julia Child as one of the personalities who influenced 1930-1970 American cuisine and food culture significantly. James Beard is regarded as the person who made familiar, especially in the 1950s, the American middle and upper classes with French cuisine. To his life's work includes twenty books and numerous articles on food culture. To remember the James Beard Foundation was established in 1986, whose awarded annually awards as the Oscars are the kitchen.
Unlike MFK Fisher, Craig Claiborne and James Beard Julia Child not collected his first formative culinary experiences abroad. His mother, who was a gifted cook, resulted in a Portland hotel and in the next the other a Chinese cook was busy with names Let. James Beard grew accordingly to under the influence of two very different culinary traditions. Both his mother and Let could fall back in Portland on a very large range of fresh food. Between 1923 and 1927 James Beard lived in Europe, where he met the French bistro cuisine in particular. He returned in 1927 to the USA. He initially worked as an actor and also appeared in radio spots. Its irregular salary as an actor, he improved on as a cook and eventually went with friends with a catering service in New York independently. The opening of the company fell into a period in which cocktails were popular. It is customary to serve the drinks nibbles and canapés was. Made a name for the company primarily through a strongly differing from the competing offer. Betty Fussel describes this in her short biography Beards as He-man stuff: artichoke bottoms stuffed with caviar, which at this time even more unusual salmon sandwiches, onion rings in brioche dough and products like fine cuisine. According to James Beard's first, published in 1940 cookbook Hors d' oeuvres & Canapés dealt exclusively with dishes that could be served at such parties. Cook also it outdoors, which appeared two years later, occupied a niche in the American cookbook market and is considered the first American cookbook that seriously dealt with a culinary art, which took place outside of a normal kitchen. After the end of World War 2, he appeared in the first commercial cooking show, which was produced for the American market. His most famous cookbook James Beard cookbook was published in 1959.
James Beard was occasionally criticized for his close cooperation with the food industry. He has worked closely with the company Omaha Steaks together, the meat and seafood markets.