10 Fun facts : Chefs & Culinary Arts

  1. Fine dining was created in France. After the French Revolution, chefs that had worked for nobility were out of a job, so they opened up their own restaurants where people could come for a fine meal. Eventually this style of dining spread to England and then to the U.S.
  2. Le Cordon Blue, one of the world’s most renowned cooking schools, opened in Paris in 1895. The school also had a long history of publishing a food magazine filled with recipes.

  1. In 1879, the first U.S. cooking school (Boston Cooking School) opened in Boston.
  2. Boston is also home to the oldest restaurant in the U.S: The Union Oyster House, which opened in 1826.
  3. The first cookbook was published in 1896: Fannie Merritt Farmer’s Original Boston Cooking School Cookbook. You can still buy it today!
  4. The earliest recorded cookbook was written on clay tablets, dating back to 1700 BC. The Yale Culinary Tablets include lists of ingredients written in cuneiform, an ancient writing system.
  5. The word “restaurant” is French for “restoring.” It refers to a rich, fortifying broth that French taverns would serve to their patrons.  The word “restaurant” was first used in English in 1806. Before that the term “eating-house” was used.

  1. The first culinary school to conduct career-oriented courses on culinary arts was the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), founded in the late 1960s at Yale University. (CIA has since moved to New York.)
  2. The patron saint of cooks is St. Martha.
  3. July 25th is National Culinarian’s Day, marked to honor all chefs and cooks.