Famous Foodies Posters: Chefs, Cooks & Gourmets “A...-B...-”
for classrooms, kitchens and restaurants.

Notable chefs and cooks ~

Apicius
b. 1st century AD; Rome

Apicius was a gourmet and lover of luxury who lived sometime during the reign of Tiberius. The mention of his name has come to mean gluttony and “excessively refined love of food”.

It was reported by Seneca that “having spent a fortune of 100 million sestertii in his kitchen, spent all the gifts he had received from the Imperial court, and thus swallowed up his income in lavish hospitality, ... he had only 10 million sestertii left. Afraid of dying in relative poverty, he poisoned himself. Consolatio ad Helviam 10.

The Roman cookbook Apicius Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome is incorrectly attributed to him.

Nicolas Appert
b. 11-17-1749; Châlons-en-Champagne, Marne, France
d. 6-1-1841; Massy, France

Nicolas Appert, inventor of airtight food preservation is known as the “father of canning”. As a chef and confectioner in Paris he began experimenting when Napoleon Bonaparte offered an award of 12,000 francs to the inventor of a practical way of food preservation for armies on the march. Appert won the prize in 1810 and published his Book for All Households: or the Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances for Many Years

Lidia Bastianich
née Matticchio
b. 2-21-1947; Pola, Istria (Croatia)

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich is a chef, businesswoman and restaurateur noted for her Italian and Croatian cuisine featured on her PBS cooking shows and restaurants in Manhattan, Kansas City and Pittsburgh.

Mario Batali
b. 9-9-1960; Yakima, WA

Mario Batali is chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality.

James A. Beard
b. 5-5-1903; Portland, OR
d. 1-21-1985; NYC

Chef, connoisseur, and food writer James Beard is considered by many the father of American-style gourmet cooking.

Beard was the author of twenty books and numerous writings and his foundation provides scholarships to aspiring food professional as well as presenting annual Beard Awards in various culinary genres.

James A. Beard quotes ~
• “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”

Clarence Birdseye
b. 12-9-1886; Brooklyn, NY
d. 10-7-1956; Manhattan (heart attack)

While on a field assignment to Labrador, Canada, Clarence Birdseye became interested in food presevation by freezing when he observed the fine quality of thawed fish that were frozen almost intantly in the -40ºC weather. His methods of duplicating the weather effects resulted in the frozen food industry.

Norman Ernest Borlaug
b. 3-25-1914; Cresco, Iowa
d. 12-12-2009; Dallas, TX

Norman Borlaug, an agricultural scientist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate, has been called the “father of the Green Revolution”.

Norman Borlaug quote ~
• “You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery”.
• “There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.”.

• grain posters

Alton Brown
b. 7-30-1962; Los Angeles, CA

Alton Brown is a chef, cinematographer, author, actor and creator of the television show Good Eats where he focused on the science underlying processes of cooking. He is also a “play-by-play announcer” for the competitive cooking show Iron Chef.

Alton Brown quote ~
• “The kitchen's a laboratory, and everything that happens there has to do with science. It's biology, chemistry, physics. Yes, there's history. Yes, there's artistry. Yes, to all of that. But what happened there, what actually happens to the food is all science.”