This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2010)

Jacques Pépin

Jacques Pépin at the Aspen Food and Wine Classic 2006
Born	(1935-12-18) December 18, 1935 (age 76) Bourg-en-Bresse, France
Cooking style	French
Education	Columbia University School of General Studies (B.A., 1970) Columbia University (M.A., 1972)
Previous restaurant(s) Howard Johnson Restaurants
Television show(s) The Complete Pépin (PBS; originally aired 1997; relaunched 2007) Fast Food My Way More Fast Food My Way
Award(s) won Legion d'Honneur (2004) L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1997) L'Ordre du Mérite Agricole (1992)
Official website
jacquespepin.net

Jacques Pépin (born December 18, 1935^[1]) is an internationally recognized French chef, television personality, and author working in the United States. At the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, he appeared on French and American T.V. and wrote an array of cookbooks that became best sellers.

Early life[link]

Pépin, the second of three sons, was born in 1935 in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon in France.^[2] After World War II, his parents, Jeanne and Jean-Victor Pépin, owned the restaurant, Le Pelican,^[3] where Pépin worked and later became known for his love for food. He went on to work in Paris, training under Lucien Diat at the Plaza Athénée. From 1956 to 1958, Pépin was the personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle. In 1959 Pépin came to the United States to work at the restaurant Le Pavillon. Eight months later, In 1961, Howard Johnson, a regular Le Pavillon customer, hired Pépin to work along side fellow Frenchman Pierre Franey to develop food lines for his chain of Howard Johnson's restaurants, while Pépin was attending Columbia University. Pépin received his B.A. degree from Columbia’s School of General Studies in 1970 and went on to earn a master’s degree in French literature at Columbia in 1972.^[4][5]

Television[link]

Pépin has starred in numerous television shows. Pépin co-starred in the 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home with Julia Child. The program was awarded a Daytime Emmy in 2001.

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 is currently being broadcast on PBS' Create Channel. All of his programs have been produced by KQED-TV in San Francisco.

In another series, Pépin cooked with his daughter, Claudine, wife of chef Rolland Wesen.

In "Essential Pepin" (2011), Pépin brings modern touches to some of his favorite recipes from his career. In the 26-part public television series, produced by KQED/San Francisco, Pépin demonstrates more than 125 dishes while the companion book, published by Houghton-Mifflin, contains more than 700 recipes. His La Technique is used to this day as a textbook for teaching the fundamentals of French cuisine. The success of La Technique prompted him to launch a televised version of the book, resulting in an acclaimed 1997 PBS series, The Complete Pépin. Recently relaunched on PBS ten years after its initial run, the series included a new introduction by Pépin where he stressed that now more than ever the secret to being a successful chef and not a mere line cook lies in knowing and using the proper technique.

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 today[link]

Pépin serves as Dean of Special Programs at the French Culinary Institute, part of the International Culinary Center, in New York City. He is also an active contributor to the Gastronomy department at Boston University, where he teaches an online class on the cuisine and culture of France along with professor Kyri Claflin of Boston University's history department. Pépin also writes a quarterly column for Food & Wine and offers an amateur class each semester based on varied culinary topics.

Pépin currently resides with his wife, Gloria, in Madison, Connecticut.^[6]

Awards and honors[link]

In addition to the Daytime Emmy Award won with Julia Child, Pépin has received two of the French government's highest honors: He is a Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1997) and a Chevalier de L'Ordre du Mérite Agricole (1992). In October 2004, he received France's ultimate civilian recognition, the Légion d'honneur.

On May 13, 2010, Pépin, along with other chefs from The French Culinary Institute, Alain Sailhac, Jacques Torres and André Soltner, prepared a $30,000-per-couple dinner for President Barack Obama’s fund-raiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at Manhattan’s St. Regis Hotel.^[7]

On February 5, 2010, during the christening of Oceania Marina, Pépin was named an honorary commodore of the Oceania Cruises fleet,^[8] for which he serves as Executive Culinary Director.^[9]

He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Boston University on May 22, 2011. In October 2011, Pépin was the recipient of the first-ever tribute dinner at the New York Food and Wine Festival. Cooking for Pépin at the event, hosted by Martha Stewart, were some of America's best-known French chefs including Alain Ducasse, Daniel Boulud, and others.

Selected bibliography[link]

• Jacques Pépin: A French Chef Cooks at Home (1975)
• La Technique (1976)
• La Methode (1979)
• Everyday Cooking With Jacques Pepin (1982)
• The Art of Cooking, Vol 1 (1987)
• The Art of Cooking, Vol 2 (1988)
• Short-Cut Cook (1990)
• Today's Gourmet (1991)
• Cuisine Economique (1992)
• Today's Gourmet II (1992)
• Jacques Pépin's Table (1995)
• Jacques Pépin's Kitchen: Cooking with Claudine (1996)
• The Complete Pépin (1997; relaunched in 2007)
• The French Culinary Institute's Salute to Healthy Cooking (1998) (with Alain Sailhac, Andre Soltner, and Jacques Torres)
• Jacques Pépin's Kitchen: Encore with Claudine (1998)
• Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home (1999) (with Julia Child and David Nussbaum)
• Jacques Pépin Celebrates (2001)
• The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (2003)
• Fast Food My Way (2004)
• Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of a Cook (with Tom Hopkins, 2007)
• More Fast Food My Way (2008)
• Essential Pepin (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• French Culinary Institute
• Pépin's Howard Johnson's Apprenticeship
• Jacques Pépin Celebrates
• KQED: Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way
• Boston University Gastronomy
• Jacques Pepin at the Internet Movie Database