On International Women's Day we Celebrate Eugénie Brazier

On International Women's Day we celebrate the 'mother of modern French cooking' Eugénie Brazier, the first woman to be awarded three Michelin stars, and the first person in the world to hold six Michelin stars simultaneously - a record which the French chef held for over six decades.

On a day that celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world, we remember Brazier as one of the most formidable and influential, yet often overlooked, chefs in history, who helped shape gastronomy into what we know today. 

Take a look at archive footage of Brazier, an early pioneer of gastronomy, whose accomplishments were extraordinary.

Who was Eugénie Brazier?

Born on 12 June 1895, Brazier spent much of her childhood working on farms near Lyon where she knew little in the way of formal education, although she did start to learn how to cook from her mother, who died when she was just ten years old. Brazier said she had "never eaten better" than a broth of leeks and vegetables cooked in milk and water, enriched with eggs, and poured over stale bread brought to her by her mother while she was tending pigs in the pasture. 

At age 19, Brazier became an unmarried mother to Gaston, and entered domestic service with a large Lyon family, where she soon found herself in the kitchen mastering classics like hollandaise sauce.

Her first job in a professional kitchen came at the end of the second world war, when Brazier was taken on by Françoise Fillioux (or Filloux), a leading restaurateur in Lyon, at Le Bistrot Fillioux, alongside an all-female team. Here, under Madame's demanding tutelage, she learnt to cook specialities including volaille truffée demi-deuil (truffled chicken in half-mourning), a dish of a Bresse chicken poached in chicken stock, with slices of black truffle inserted under the skin.

In 1921, and at the age of 21, Brazier opened her first restaurant, La Mere Brazier, in Lyon, where she soon became well known for her meticulous attention to detail and simple, classic cooking. Elizabeth David recalled the food, like everything else chez La Mère Brazier, as "best described as of a sumptuous simplicity, but lighthearted and somehow all of a piece."