This issue's food article, written by Oliver Strand, covers the Michelin three-star French restaurant of Anne-Sophie Pic, located in Valence, France. This restaurant is named Maison Pic, a family legacy. Strand depicts Pic as quiet and graceful in her mannerisms and chef skills, which is how she is viewed in the two photos of her provided in the article.
When Strand arrived at Maison Pic to interview Anne-Sophie, he found the kitchen unlike most we know of in the world--quiet. When Pic took over the restaurant for her father, one thing she wanted to change was the environment. She believed that yelling and being aggressive in the kitchen was distracting the cooks and resulting in less than adequate dishes. She began promoting only the quieter employees, and eventually the yelling dissipated. Today, you can walk into her kitchen and find yourself in a practically mute environment where employees focus solely on their work and communicate only through looks and motions. As a result of this discipline and control, Pic is known as the only woman in her country to have earned her restaurant three Michelin stars, and one of the five women in the world to hold this rating.
Being a person with little to no interest in culinary arts, I was not aware before reading this article that so few women excel in this field. I find it ironic that although there are a countless number of jokes involving women, kitchens, and sandwiches, women are discriminated against in the professional culinary world. Strand quotes Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet, revealing that "there's still a bias against women in the kitchen. Kitchens are remarkably macho places." This statement completely caught me off guard; I had no idea that this was a big issue in the culinary field.
I think this article speaks for itself when it comes to how it represents power. It is centered around the most powerful French woman in the art of cooking, and one of the five most powerful female chefs in the entire world. Although there are apparently many biases against a woman's ability to prepare a proper meal, Pic has achieved respect.
Something else this article brings to light is that to many people, food is actually considered an art. Many readers of Vogue simply see food as something to eat when they are hungry. To people like Anne-Sophie Pic, food is so much more. It is a way for Pic to make a name for herself. Pic works hard to uniquely put together a course of meal that reflects her beliefs, her hard work, and herself. This is something most people don't think of when eating, but it is how Pic and her colleagues view food. They see it as a deeper, symbolic form of art and that is fascinating to me. This article proves to the world that power can be found absolutely anywhere; you just have to find it in something you are the most passionate about, and I don't think Strand could have picked a better chef to write about. From the legacy of her family to her unique management styles in the kitchen, Pic exudes power and passion; she has found her own way to make a great impact on our world.
Things I Might Have Done Differently:
- Perhaps it would have been beneficial to describe her actual meal courses with a little more depth; after all, it is what the article is mainly about. The background story of Pic and of women in the kitchen is romantic and fascinating, but I feel as though the reader would be able to be seduced by the story even more so if he had more of an idea of Pic's menu. Most people reading American Vogue aren't familiar enough with French food to understand the art of it very well.
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