Pépin, Jacques

Much like his late colleague and television costar Julia Child, Jacques Pépin (1935–) has taken his French culinary ambassadorship to all corners of the United States. Pépin has combined techniques acquired over half a century as a professional cook, and writing skills that have produced a host of cookbooks, some of them considered landmarks. He is also considered by colleagues to be one of the finest craftspeople of all cooking teachers.

Pépin was born on 18 December 1935 in Bourg-en-Bresse, France. He and his two brothers helped his mother, Jeannette, a self-taught cook, in a series of small restaurants after World War II. At the age of thirteen, Pépin left the family business to embark on a formal apprenticeship at the Grand Hotel de L’Europe in the gastronomically rich city of Lyon. Still in his teens, Pépin moved to Paris to work at the Meurice and then the Hôtel Plaza-Athénée, under renowned chef Lucien Diat. Pépin was assigned to serve as personal chef to three French heads of state, the last being Charles de Gaulle. Eager to expand his knowledge, Pépin immigrated to New York in 1959, speaking no English.