The rebellion of the cooks of Spain: "There are women, lack recognition"

This report was not going to deal with gender inequality in haute cuisine or discrimination against women in gastronomy.

It was going to be a showcase of great cooks.

No more than a dozen in Spain.

How many names do you remember of famous chefs?

Carmen Ruscalleda and Elena Arzak?

Is there a female equivalent to Ferran Adrià or Dabiz Muñoz?

How many present a program or star in an advertisement?

This report did not seek those answers.

It was intended to perpetuate the uniqueness of a handful of women at the top of the culinary industry, who have risen to the rank of chefs for their heroic work;

without giving up and practicing tightrope walking to reconcile.

We were going to portray them irreducible in their designer stoves.

They were a rarity, the minimum female quota,

almost intrusive in a masculine territory since gastronomy became synonymous with popularity, power and glamour.

And no one seemed surprised.

Because the

of the culinary show have been them: iconoclasts, provocateurs and visionaries, according to critics.

Those who have made money in a sector that accounts for 5% of Spain's GDP.

Those who govern the brigade with a military style, according to the commandments of the guru of modern gastronomy, Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), who completely separated the concept of domestic cooking (specific to women, according to his vision) from the professional one ( of men).

Master Escoffier believed that "

man can never be as good as a woman cooking for the family."

According to that reasoning, the ideal was for them to continue at home.

And, if they worked in a restaurant, they didn't show their faces.

Paul Bocuse (1926-2018), the patriarch of

gastronomy

, reinforced it in a 1975 interview with

co-creator of nouvelle cuisine and inspiration of the New Basque Cuisine, which from 1976 transformed the extremely poor landscape of Spanish restaurants thanks to names such as Arzak, Subijana or Arguiñano.

In that group of 16 renovators there was only one woman, Tatus Fombellida, who was not a cook, but the owner of the Panier Fleuri restaurant in Errenteria, which she later moved to San Sebastián.

In 1976, wasn't there a chef in the Basque Country (land of the matriarchy in the kitchen) with the stature to be part of the group?

A year earlier, Bocuse had told

“Women lack instinct for the great kitchen.

(…) Those who become chefs have a limit.

They prepare one or two dishes very well, but they are not innovative”.

magazine must have thought something similar

when it dedicated its November 18, 2013 cover to the Gods of food: they were three cooks.

They had even forgotten the quota (of the 13 characters that appeared inside the magazine, only four were women and none of them were chefs).

Let us also not forget that the French Eugénie Brazier (1895-1977), the first cook to obtain three Michelin stars, in 1933, and teacher of the illustrious Bocuse, was unknown and there is no evidence that she was interviewed in her entire life.

Elena Arzak and Cynthia Yabe (her right hand) at the Arzak restaurant in San Sebastián.

The chef affirms, "we cooks have not had time for public relations."James Rajotte

Two referents of Basque cuisine, Luisa Tellería (professor and for years

of Juan Mari Arzak) and Onintza Mokoroa (member of the Basque Gastronomy Brotherhood), agree in their conclusion: “What is not talked about, does not exist” .

Onintza goes a little further: “We cook to feed and they cook for success”.

Tellería goes back to its genesis, to 1981, when she entered the Hospitality School: “The first day, the boys were given a very elegant jacket and a tall hat, and the girls, a cap and a blouse like those of Soviet workers. .

I refused.

They finally gave us the jacket, but it was too big for us and our mothers had to put them on us.

The cooks have been very unsympathetic to us.”

Sara Cucala, responsible for the magazine

and who directed the documentary ¿Heard?

They, the voice of gastronomy, contribute another element: “The media have not brought them to light either.

Due to ignorance or lack of interest, we have never paid attention to them;

we have been the first to keep them anonymous.

And there are still hardly any women who do gastronomic criticism”.

Elena Arzak, the only woman in Spain with three Michelin stars and three Repsol suns, and daughter of the legendary Juan Mari Arzak, concludes: “We cooks haven't had time for public relations.

It has taken me years for them to take me seriously and for people to understand that I wanted to continue with this.

When you are a woman and you have a father like mine, it is difficult for them to consider you at their level.

"Do you and your father cook differently?"

—My father is of more elements.

I reduced them and have put more intensity into the products and sauces.

I have gone to a simplification.

The trend is to have the best product and get sparks out of it.

But, it is curious, when some saw flowers on one of our plates they said: “How feminine, it must be an invention of the daughter”.

And they belonged to my father.

One of Elena Arzak's great creations, the "blue corn on the cob" appetizer.

Patra the chef, "the trend is to have the best product and get sparks out of it."James Rajotte

During the making of this article, reality was in charge of breaking the previous scheme and turning the tables.

From the first interview with a chef to meetings with social and historical researchers, to debates with cooks in their twenties and even with grandmothers who never left the kitchen.

"We didn't like to be in the photos," recalls María José Artano, who created the Elkano restaurant in Getaria (Gipuzkoa), today one of the best in the world, with her husband, Pedro Arregi, starting from a pinchos tavern that they opened in 1964. “I never wanted to be in the front or seek prominence, it didn't matter to me;

the women never left the kitchen.”

The sum of their testimonies shows that they are not an exception in a territory of men.

However, either we don't know about them or the stairs leading to the summit have been found broken.

As Blanca García Henche, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Alcalá and author, together with Professor Pedro Cuesta, of the report

“There are 51% women in gastronomy, but not 51% of chefs are women.

I don't think they go above 15%.

Then something happens."

"Laurel leaf with its emulsions", a dish from Les Cols, in Olot (Girona).

"We make a kitchen from here with an avant-garde language", says Fina Puigdevall.James Rajotte

The reality was imposing itself until reaching the key questions of this report: why women, who for thousands of years had been responsible for feeding the family, those in charge of transmitting the techniques and elaborations, and the guardians of the cookbooks, products and seasons;

of which, apparently, due to the patriarchal division of roles, the kitchen was the natural territory, continued to be out of focus;

absent from the congresses (in the last Madrid Fusión they were less than 10% in the stellar presentations), the media, the classifications and the prizes?

Is there an inequality of opportunities for them to achieve leadership?

Do they have female references, mentors and the support of investors?

And if there are good cooks, why aren't they famous and recognized by the great culinary guides?

María José San Román, chef at Monastrell, in Alicante, and founder of the Women in Gastronomy lobby and meeting point, photographed in her garden with her son.

"The woman is at the base of gastronomy, she is the one who started cooking and the one who has transmitted it, the problem is that she has never left the base".

james rajotte

Of the 42 Spanish restaurants rated by the Repsol Guide with its highest level of three soles, only three have female chefs (Elena Arzak, Fina Puigdevall and Macarena Castro).

In the Michelin Guide the percentage is similar: of 11 restaurants decorated with three stars, only one is run by a woman (Elena Arzak);

and of the 33 with two stars, there is only one other, Fina Puigdevall herself, who, on the contrary, has won three Repsol suns.

“And Michelin has not given her the third star because she is her aunt;

her restaurant, Les Cols, is the best, like those of many other women, but they are not as well known as some inferior ones run by men”, says María José San Román, the chef of the Alicante restaurant Monastrell, facing the sea, and

founder

Women in Gastronomy.

In short, less than 10% of the restaurants with stars in Spain have a woman in charge.

Fina Puigdevall, chef at Les Cols, with her three daughters Clara, Martina and Carlota Puigvert, from left to right.

james rajotte

The director of the Repsol Guide, María Ritter, analyzes the phenomenon: “Suddenly, in the 1990s, Spain became number one in gastronomy, but the sector came from very low down and maintained structures from the old regime: family micro-businesses , with little professionalization, capital and minimal training.

In Olympus there were some

and gastronomic critics, men, older and very literary, and what I call the

.

Three basic concepts in any modern organization did not exist in kitchens: democracy, professionalization and feminism.

And in that breeding ground, women were left behind.

It was an unappetizing sector for them, where they were harassed, they were not promoted and it was impossible for them to reconcile.

They competed unequally.

—Are you committed to positive discrimination?

'There must be.

The function of our guide is to put the focus on women, find them, encourage them and give them a field.

And we have received criticism for awarding two soles to cooks, because there were men who felt they had more merit.

And we don't care, because our system is not designed lightly, but by the Basque Culinary Center.

We practice positive discrimination, but with an academic foundation.

It is a question of equality.

What does this new generation of women bring?

—A local cuisine, from its land, its products, its tradition;

they don't want to look like any famous chef.

The issue of qualifications has become old.

And they are willing to bet on new paths.

Maria Ritter, director of the Repsol Guide, for her, "the function of our guide is to put the spotlight on women, find them, encourage them and give them a chance."James Rajotte

"What happens in gastronomy is the amplified reflection of what happens in other sectors", analyzes Purificación García Segovia, biochemist and professor of Food Technology at the Valencia Polytechnic.

For García Segovia, who directed one of the best theses on the subject, Barriers and gender facilitators faced by women chefs in the field of gastronomy and the Haute Cusine, by Majd Haddaji, "the professionalization of a activity (especially if it has been attributed to the female gender) lowers women to an inferior status.

There are several reasons: from their lack of real integration in the labor market to the fact that it is very difficult for them to reconcile and that they lack female references.

And for there to be, you have to claim them and give them a name.

Because a kid wants to look like Dabiz Muñoz,

Chef Begoña Rodrigo, whose restaurant La Salita, a romantic chalet in the Valencian neighborhood of Ruzafa scented by orange trees, has two Repsol suns and one Michelin star, trained in Engineering and won MasterChef in 2013. “For my generation, that of the seventies, that a woman dedicated herself to this was not respected;

it was a backward, stale profession.

And we didn't want to be like our mothers, totally free in the kitchen.

Being a cook or a dressmaker or a hairdresser seemed the worst to us, becoming invisible.

And if you got off the kitchen car for a year because you gave birth, you didn't get back on it, ”she says.

"And how did you get into this mess then?"

“To travel and survive.

And because those two hours of stress in the kitchen every day put a lot on me.

Begoña Rodrigo, chef at La Salita restaurant, in Valencia, "I believe in setting up your business; training yourself, being brave and going for it all". James Rajotte

The paradox is that many great chefs fill their mouths recounting how they learned to cook with their mothers, grandmothers and aunts.

In some cases it seems to be pure

family

component

is key in the luxury industry.

It gives the product an imprint of respectability and tradition.

When the culinary activity became more professional, that mother and that grandmother and that aunt went into the background on many occasions.

That is why it is necessary to remember the name of the pioneers, the mothers of Juan Mari Arzak, Berasategui or the Roca.

Arzak's, Paquita Arratibel, a widow since she was young, a cook since she was a child, always wearing her apron, laid the foundations for the Arzak myth;

Berasategui's, Gabriela Olazabal, was at the helm of the Bodegón Alejandro, in San Sebastián, until the end, and the Roca's is called Montserrat Fontané.

Montserrat Fontané, cook at Can Roca and mother of the Roca brothers, in her restaurant: "For them to succeed in the kitchen they have to leave many things behind," she says.James Rajotte

Fontane is 86 years old.

He receives us in his old restaurant Can Roca, on the outskirts of Girona, after the meal service.

He lives upstairs.

He comes from the hairdresser and complains about his leg.

“My goodness, I have worked so much…, in the summer the heat in the kitchen was terrible;

I'm small, but I took some tremendous pots that couldn't even be between two men.

She worked 16 hours a day;

she prepared the menus for the following day at night.

Don't tell me we can't take it."

Here, between cannelloni and battered squid, table football and TV, the legend of her children was created: Joan, Josep and Jordi: the Rocas, who have won all the culinary awards on the planet.

Montse never went to school;

she scrubbed floors, she started cooking at age 13;

her older sister, María, was her only reference.

In 1967 he took over an old barbershop where he put this restaurant on the menu for the workers of an alluvial neighborhood.

She alone.

Her husband, Josep, was a bus driver.

Her children did their homework at a bar table and learned the trade.

“The woman is better at cooking,” explains the matriarch, “but the men are luckier.

They have supported each other, and we women have to deal with our children.

Cooking is a lot of sacrifice and for them to succeed they have to leave many things behind”.

and we women have to deal with the children.

Cooking is a lot of sacrifice and for them to succeed they have to leave many things behind”.

and we women have to deal with the children.

Cooking is a lot of sacrifice and for them to succeed they have to leave many things behind”.

"And work three times as much as they do," adds Eli Nolla, 32, chef at the Normal restaurant (also owned by the Rocas), in the center of Girona, with his chin furrowed by a recent burn from an oven tray.

“I spend many hours on it;

however, my style is not dictatorial.

It's quiet, like our dishes.

In the kitchen there must be order, but without shouting or discrimination.

You have to lead with logic and order.

But in many kitchens the macho style has been sucked in and now it is very difficult to change it”, explains Nolla between aromas of slow cooking, good wines and recipes handed down from mothers to daughters.

Eli Nolla, chef at Normal restaurant, in Girona.

"Many kitchens have sucked the macho style and now it is very difficult to change it."James Rajotte

Where did those great cooks remain for centuries?

Bibliographer Carmen Simón Palmer immersed herself in the archives of the Palacio de Oriente to learn about the work of royal chefs.

Her surprise was that they had no names.

“Since the 16th century they did not appear in the organization chart.

However, the queens had their cooks.

They were called 'gift', 'secret' or 'indoors'.

Formally they were not, but they existed: María Teresa Echerin and Ana María Zechin;

Maria Silna or Francisca Sanchez.

And in later centuries they still couldn't rub shoulders with men: she wasn't

to be a tavern”, she concludes.

Today we know that this invisibility is due to a vicious division between the public space (the restaurant) and the private space (the home) typical of gender inequality.

The public, valued, cultured, creative and well paid, was inherent in men;

the private, family, invisible, ignored and unpaid, to women.

And going from private to public meant transgressing the norm: “The innkeepers were frowned upon, they were considered witches and prostitutes;

many were widows, they had their own money, and the patriarchal society did not like that”, explains Pablo Orduna, historian and specialist in ethnogastronomy.

Orduna has investigated these anonymous cooks through their handwritten cookbooks: “Of the 10 that are preserved in the National Library, none was printed.

They were silenced.

Women have been considered the preserver of the palate and tradition, but not the promoter of the avant-garde or renewal.

And that has been one of her stumbling blocks.

She has spoiled them as cooks, but not as gastronomes”.

A scarce recognition that, according to Professor García Henche, is mainly due "to the fact that they lacked education".

“Women have not had time or permission to train or associate.

But now most of the cooks have higher education.

And they are in contact with each other.

They will play on equal terms.

And they are very active on social media.

The change is going to be brutal”, he predicts.

In 11 years, from its San Sebastian campus, the Basque Culinary Center has transformed this landscape of gastronomy.

Its student body, of 29 nationalities, is made up of 57% men and 43% women, who are the majority in the specialty of management, but only a third in pure and simple cooking.

The stigma seems to perpetuate itself.

Does being a cook still put you off?

Claudia Polo cook and 'Soul in The Kitchen instagramer': "My idea is to cook but also have a life outside; set up a good and tiny restaurant, sustainable and humane, that allows you to live from it even if it doesn't have stars."James Rajotte

In one of its classrooms with a touch of Nordic interior design, we met with six of its quarry.

They are under 30 years old.

There is Claudia Polo, instagrammer and writer, who passed through kitchens in Sweden and Denmark;

and also Inés Castañeda, a graduate in Law and Politics, with a restaurant in Dubai and former intern at elBulli1846;

and Patricia Jurado, who also went through that Ferran Adrià innovation factory and also taught at Harvard.

Definitive phrases emerge from our dialogue: "There are aunts, recognition is lacking."

"The role of women in gastronomy is broader than having stars."

"I would not be the head of the kitchen, I would be the leader."

“You arrive at a restaurant again and the chef tells you: 'I'm going to put you in pastry and the guy in meat', which already assumes that you're a damsel”.

"We all have stories of discrimination in the kitchen."

After a couple of hours of conversation, ideas for the future sprout: “We cooks have to get together and support each other;

create a community."

"Our model must be a collective reference, not a goddess and the rest, outcasts."

"All this should permeate simple restaurants and cooks of 40 and 50 years."

"The ratings are outdated."

"Society has to recognize that gastronomic heritage belongs to women."

The vegetable garden of the Les Cols restaurant, in Olot (Girona), which supplies local products to the restaurant.James Rajotte

"My mother has been a leader and has not educated us to be submissive, but to work hard, travel, see, listen and explain," says Martina Puigvert, who also passed through the Basque.

Today, less than 30 years old, she is head chef at Les Cols, a restaurant designed by the RCR studio (Pritzker Prize in 2017) in Olot, in the province of Girona.

She was created by her mother, Fina Puigdevall, in 1990, at the age of 22, against all odds;

with family opposition and the misunderstanding of critics: "Being a cook was not glamorous," she explains.

Today Les Cols is one of the best restaurants in Spain, sensitive, sober and elegant.

“We exalt the humble;

we make a kitchen from here with avant-garde language”, explains Fina Puigdevall.

“I always carried a sense of guilt for having dedicated more time to the restaurant than to my daughters.

One day I asked them and they told me that she had been a good mother.

And I got excited.

The surprise is that they have continued with this: Clara with the wines, Martina as cook and Carlota with the desserts.

And it is not an easy job.

They have not behaved well with me;

I was not invited to conferences.

But it is changing.

And it is key that women take charge of the management and not just the kitchen.

And, from there, create a new model, where life and work are balanced;

closing two days in a row and giving dinner earlier in the day”.

Something that Martina, monastic in black uniform and tall hat, emphasizes: “It's about being sustainable, but that sustainability must also be applied to people.

And that's up to us women."

Martina as cook and Carlota in the desserts.

And it is not an easy job.

They have not behaved well with me;

I was not invited to conferences.

But it is changing.

And it is key that women take charge of the management and not just the kitchen.

And, from there, create a new model, where life and work are balanced;

closing two days in a row and giving dinner earlier in the day”.

Something that Martina, monastic in black uniform and tall hat, emphasizes: “It's about being sustainable, but that sustainability must also be applied to people.

And that's up to us women."

Martina as cook and Carlota in the desserts.

And it is not an easy job.

They have not behaved well with me;

I was not invited to conferences.

But it is changing.

And it is key that women take charge of the management and not just the kitchen.

And, from there, create a new model, where life and work are balanced;

closing two days in a row and giving dinner earlier in the day”.

Something that Martina, monastic in black uniform and tall hat, emphasizes: “It's about being sustainable, but that sustainability must also be applied to people.

And that's up to us women."

where life and work are balanced;

closing two days in a row and giving dinner earlier in the day”.

Something that Martina, monastic in black uniform and tall hat, emphasizes: “It's about being sustainable, but that sustainability must also be applied to people.

And that's up to us women."

where life and work are balanced;

closing two days in a row and giving dinner earlier in the day”.

Something that Martina, monastic in black uniform and tall hat, emphasizes: “It's about being sustainable, but that sustainability must also be applied to people.

And that's up to us women."

For young cooks, an antidote to inequality is to become their own bosses;

create their restaurants apart from mentors and guides.

Corroborates Begoña Rodrigo: “I believe in setting up your business;

train yourself, be brave and go for it all.

It is a form of freedom and you can be the springboard for many women.”

Rebeca Barainca chef at her Galerna restaurant, San Sebastián.

"I have never had references and no one lent me a euro; I never studied, I learned cooking. Galerna is my home; I don't get overwhelmed, I manage, I work a lot, but it is my passion and I am happy."James Rajotte

Watching Rebeca Barainca, 31, in the kitchen of her Galerna restaurant, in San Sebastián, is a spectacle;

from the grill to the brine;

from the torch to the oyster.

She does everything except serve the seven tables.

"I want to get to where I want to go."

In an hour everything is played.

“This is my home, I painted and upholstered it.

And here my philosophy is followed, because this is not just about feeding.

I have never had references nor did anyone lend me a euro;

I never studied, I learned cooking.

Galerna is my home;

I don't get overwhelmed, I manage, I work a lot, but it's my passion and I'm happy”.

Lucia Gravalos, chef.

"In this you have to be strong physically, but above all mentally. I don't want to make other people's recipes. I intend to do my kitchen, pull the car and create teams."James Rajotte

Lucía Grávalos, from La Rioja, of the same age in Madrid, has followed a similar path until now in Mentica (she is starting a new project).

Her style is a modern and sincere compliment to her grandmother's cooking, which is the one she loves and dominates: from pudding and ear to up-to-date stew.

“In this you have to be strong physically, but above all mentally.

I don't want to make other people's recipes.

I intend to make my kitchen, pull the car and create teams”.

Onintza Mokoroa, in the Basque Gastronomy Brotherhood.

james rajotte

In the Old Town of San Sebastián, hidden behind the Basilica of Nuestra Señora del Coro, is the Basque Gastronomy Brotherhood, headed by Onintza Mokoroa.

In 2019, she created GastroAndere to discover, make visible and pay tribute to the cooks prior to the New Basque Cuisine.

He collected 22 names.

“They didn't give themselves any importance;

They told us: 'But what have I done?

Why are you going to pay me a tribute?” Mokoroa recalls.

"They didn't know each other.

They were embarrassed to appear.

They were humble and currantas.

But they have been empowered.

They do things together and they want to be taken into account.

Her dream is to pass on that great legacy of cooking to other women”.

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