Jacques Pépin

1935 -

Jacques Pépin (born December 18, 1935)[1] is a French-born American chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist.[2] Since the late 1980s, he has appeared on American television and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He has authored over 30 cookbooks, some of which have become best sellers. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He has been honored with 24 James Beard Foundation Awards,[3] five honorary doctoral degrees, the American Public Television’s lifetime achievement award, the Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2019[4] and the Légion d'honneur, France's highest order of merit in 2004.[5]

Since 1989, Pépin has taught in the Culinary Arts Program at Boston University and served as dean of special programs at the International Culinary Center in New York City.[5] In 2016, with his daughter, Claudine Pépin and his son-in-law, Rollie Wesen, Pépin created the Jacques Pépin Foundation to support culinary education for adults with barriers to employment.[6] He has lived in Connecticut since 1975.

Pépin was born in 1935 in Bourg-en-Bresse, France.[1] Pépin was the second of three sons born to Jeannette and Jean-Victor Pépin. After World War II, his parents opened a restaurant called Le Pélican, where Pépin worked as a child, and later became known for his love for food.[1] At the age of thirteen, he started his apprenticeship at Le Grand Hôtel de l'Europe in Bourg-en-Bresse. At age sixteen, he went on to work in Paris, training under Lucien Diat at the Plaza Athénée. From 1956 to 1958, during his military service, Pépin was recognized for his culinary training and skill and was ordered to work in the Office of the Treasury, where he met his long-time cooking partner, Jean-Claude Szurdak, and eventually became the personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle.[7][8]

In 1959, Pépin went to the United States to work at the restaurant Le Pavillon. Wanting to complete his education, he enrolled in English for foreign students, a GED equivalent and eventually General Studies classes toward a Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University. Soon after his arrival, The New York Times's food editor Craig Claiborne introduced Pépin to James Beard and Helen McCully. McCully introduced Pépin to Julia Child, who became a lifelong friend and collaborator. In 1961, after Pépin had declined an offer from John F. Kennedyand Jacqueline Kennedy to serve as chef at the White House, Howard Johnson, a regular Le Pavillon customer, hired him to work alongside fellow Frenchman Pierre Franey to develop food lines for his chain of Howard Johnson's restaurants, where Pépin served as the director of research and development for a decade. In 1970, Pépin earned his Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University's School of General Studies, and in 1972, his Masters of Arts in French literature from the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.[7][9] Pépin entered into a doctoral program at Columbia, but his proposed thesis on French food in literature was rejected for being "too frivolous for serious academic pursuit" (Pépin, para. 3).[10]

In 1970, Pépin opened a specialty soup restaurant and lunch counter on Manhattan's 5th Avenue called La Potagerie, and began to enjoy popular success with appearances on talk shows such as What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth. Pépin's career as a restaurant chef ended abruptly with a near fatal car accident in 1974.[1]

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Pépin reinvented himself as an educator, author and eventually a television personality. Pépin worked as a consultant for restaurateur Joe Baum on his Windows on the World project, and offered classes at small cooking schools and cookware shops around the United States. In 1976, Pépin authored his cookbook La Technique, followed by La Methode in 1979. The use of thousands of photographs, illustrating the techniques and methods required to achieve certain culinary results, provided a window into the art of cooking. The books are credited by chef Tom Colicchio and others as helping them to learn the craft of cooking.[11]

In 1982, along with Alain Saihlac and André Soltner, Pépin was invited by Dorothy Cann Hamilton to become one of the deans at the newly formed culinary school, the French Culinary Institute, in New York City, now known as the International Culinary Center (ICC). Also in 1982, he filmed his first television series, with PBS local station WJCT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida, and published a companion cookbook entitled Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pépin. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, Pépin was published as a columnist for The New York Times, and a guest author for Gourmet, Food & Wine and many others. He authored several more cookbooks, including The Art of Cooking, volumes 1 and 2, and The Short-Cut Cook.

In 1989, Pépin partnered with Julia Child and Rebecca Alssid to create a culinary certificate program within the Metropolitan College at Boston University (BU). This effort eventually led to the first, and still one of the few, Master's degrees in Gastronomy.[12] Pépin's 1991 television series Today’s Gourmet, filmed at KQED studios in San Francisco was created from recipes from several books, brought together in the companion cookbook Jacques Pépin's Table. In 1994 and 1996, Pepin and Julia Child appeared in 90 minute PBS specials, Cooking In Concert and More Cooking In Concert, filmed live before a Boston audience as part of the PBS annual fund drives for those years. In 1996, Pépin introduced his then 27-year-old daughter Claudine, in three television series and companion books: Cooking with Claudine, Encore with Claudine and Jacques Pépin Celebrates. The father to daughter relationship, combined with an instructor to culinary novice relationship, demonstrated Pépin's work as a chef and teacher. Each of the three series earned the pair James Beard Foundation Awards. In 1999, Pépin teamed up with Julia Child for the series and companion book Jacques and Julia Cooking at Home. The TV series, produced by Susie Heller, won a Daytime Emmy Award and a James Beard Foundation Award. In 2003, Pépin published his autobiography, The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen.

In the 21st century, Pépin continues to cook, write, publish, film for television, paint and take on new projects. Throughout his career, he has toured and taught on cruise ships including the Queen Elizabeth 2, and the Crystal Cruisesand Princess Cruises lines. In 2003, he was named the executive culinary director of Oceania Cruises, and "is credited with helping it achieve its reputation for culinary excellence and style".[13] Pépin continues to teach at the ICC and at BU, and offers book signings, culinary demonstrations and classes on Oceania cruises and at various locations across the US, several times per year.

Since his time as a student at Columbia University, Pépin has dabbled in and enjoyed drawing and painting. In recent years, he has committed more time to his art, and enjoyed some success with commercial sales on his website, Jacques Pépin Art, and juried shows.[14] In the first decade of the 2000s, Pépin published several more cookbooks including Fast Food My Way and More Fast Food My Way, which were paired with television series of the same name, produced by Tina Salter, and Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of a Cook, that significantly featured Pépin's art. In 2011, Pépin filmed the series Essential Pépin at KQED studios and published a companion cookbook with over 700 recipes and a set of technique-oriented videos. In 2012, he published New Complete Techniques, which combined and updated his important earlier works La Technique and La Methode.

In 2015 Pépin, 79, recovered at his home in Connecticut after suffering a minor stroke. He canceled his appearance at the annual International Association of Culinary Professionals conference in Washington D.C., but otherwise insisted on returning to his normal schedule, according to the Associated Press. "Oh my god, he made soup this morning", Pépin's daughter Claudine told the Associated Press. "I will do my best to lighten the load, but he's not of the mind to cancel anything. Honestly, he wanted to go to IACP. He's like, 'I'm talking. I can walk. Let's go.'"[15]

In 2016, with his daughter Claudine Pépin and son-in-law Rollie Wesen, Jacques created his eponymous, non-profit, organization the Jacques Pépin Foundation (JPF). The mission of the foundation is to support organizations that provide culinary training to adults and youths with barriers to employment such as low-income, low-skills, homelessness, issues with substance abuse and previous incarceration. The JPF provides grants, independent research, source and curricular materials, equipment, direct teaching and video instruction to community-based culinary training programs around the USA.[16]

In 2017, Pépin published a cookbook with his granddaughter Shorey Wesen, entitled A Grandfather's Lessons. In the same year, Pépin received an honorary doctorate from the Columbia University School of General Studies. Pépin resided in Connecticut with his wife Gloria,[17] until her death in 2020.[18][19]

The success of Pépin's book La Technique, used as a textbook for teaching the fundamentals of French cuisine, prompted him to launch a televised version resulting in a 1997 PBS series, The Complete Pépin. Relaunched on PBS ten years after its initial run, the series included a new introduction by Pépin where he stressed that the secret to being a successful chef and not a mere line cook lies in knowing and using the proper technique.[20][21]

In 1999, Pépin co-starred in the PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home alongside Julia Child. The program was awarded a Daytime Emmy in 2001.[20]

His show Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way (based on his 2004 book of the same name) ran on PBS, and Jacques Pépin: More Fast Food My Way was broadcast on PBS' Create. In Essential Pépin (2011), Pépin brings modern touches to some of his favorite recipes from his career. In the 26-part public television series, Pépin demonstrates more than 125 dishes while the companion book, published by Houghton-Mifflin, contains more than 700 recipes. In this series, Pépin cooks with his daughter, Claudine, wife of chef Rolland Wesen. All of his programs have been produced by KQED-TV in San Francisco.

Pépin was a guest judge on season five of the Bravo television show Top Chef, which aired in 2008. He stated that his ideal "final meal" would be roast squab and fresh peas. Pépin was a guest on the television show Wahlburgers episode called "Pauli Day". Donnie Wahlberg arranged for Pépin to surprise his brother Paul Wahlberg for his birthday.

In 2015, his television series Jacques Pépin Heart & Soul began airing. According to its producer, Tina Salter KQED-TV, the series would be his "most personal and special, revealing a man – a legend – whose lust for life, love of food, family and friends continues". The series premiered on KQED on September 12, 2015, and nationally on September 19.

A documentary about his life, Jacques Pépin: The Art of Craft,[22] aired as part of the PBS series American Masters, premiering May 26, 2017.[23] The film, narrated by Stanley Tucci, was produced and directed by Peter L. Stein, who had produced several of Pépin's early television cooking series at KQED in the 1990s.[24]