THE FOUNTAIN OF RUTH By Sarah Baird
T
he concept of steak as a “masculine” food has been seared into America’s public consciousness for decades, back-slapping and handshaking its way into the culinary zeitgeist ever since the first cowboy novels depicted their rootin’-tootin’ heroes as steer wranglers who butchered beef by hand then cooked it up around a fire with their fellow Stetson-wearers. Steakhouses—the first of which was established in Manhattan in 1868—soon followed suit, marketing themselves over the course of the 20th century as spaces where men could mingle freely, wheeling and dealing over expensive filets in burgundy-and-leather clad rooms thick with cigar smoke and the clink of highball glasses. Can you imagine, after all, Mad Men without Don Draper frequenting Keen’s Steakhouse or The Palm for a ribeye and a martini (or five)? Didn’t think so. Even through the mid-2000s, the trope that women do not order red meat—particularly on a first date—was still so prevalent that The New York Times believed it to be worthy of a trend-piece that women were (gasp!) springing for steak over a few limp lettuce leaves.
“Salad, it seems, is out. Gusto, medium rare, is in,” writes Allen Salkin in a 2007 piece with the galling headline, “Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye.” One particularly riveting passage from the article: “[Some] say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness. ‘It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,’ said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. ‘I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.’ Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of ‘I am woman, hear me chew.’”
Above, Ruth's Chris Steak House logo. Today, there are over 150 Ruth’s Chris outposts across the globe from Puerto Rico to Toronto and everywhere in-between; opposite page, Ruth Fertel poses with a variety of steakhouse offerings.
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“I’ve been shocked at the number of women actually ordering steak,” Michael Stillman, vice president of concept development for the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, says further down in the same article. “The meat is appealing to them, much more than what I saw two or three years ago… they are going for our bone-in sirloin and our cowboy-cut rib steak.” In New Orleans, though—a city with serious old-school steakhouse culture, from the bright neon of Crescent City Steaks on Broad to 1930s neighborhood gem
Charlie’s Steak House—women have long been central to the furtive, curtained booths and carnivorous appetites of the city’s meatiest establishments. And chief among them is the whip-smart, tenacious founder of Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Ruth Fertel. “New Orleans is a city of aristocracies, both competing and intertwined...[and] the culinary aristocracy’s stature comes not from bloodlines but from sweat,” writes Ruth’s son, Randy Fertel, in his 2011 book, The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir. “All bowed, when hungry and thirsty, to the three queens of New Orleans cuisine: Ella Brennan of Commander's Palace, Leah Chase of Dooky Chase’s and Ruth Fertel of Ruth's Chris, my mother. Only these three women, earthy and hard-working, seemed not to care a whit about pretense. Which increased their power. You need to talk to Miz Ruth? Well, here she is.” Born Ruth Udstad in Happy Jack, Louisiana, in 1925, Ruth displayed the kind of competitive quick-wittedness from a young age that would eventually help her succeed in going toe-to-toe with the inflated male egos of the restaurant business, all while ensuring customer service—whether her guests were governors, groundskeepers or grocers—was always paramount. “Mom grew up a tomboy, determined never to be outdone by her big brother,” Fertel writes. “She skipped two grades...learning, she explained, by listening in on the grades ahead of her. She always claimed she got her competitive spirit from her dad. Just tell me I can't do something, and I will do everything in the world to do it.” Prior to launching her restaurant empire, Ruth lived several entirely full, unique lifetimes: graduating from LSU at the ripe old age of 19 with a degree in chemistry and taking a whirlwind honeymoon with her new husband, Rodney Fertel; becoming licensed as the first female thoroughbred trainer in Louisiana with two young sons in tow; and, after her divorce, working as a lab technician at Tulane Medical School. It was during this time that she stumbled upon a listing in the classifieds that announced the sale of a well-known New Orleans steakhouse— a business that had been turned over (and back) multiple times before, though Fertel was unaware of its history. She was immediately attracted to the concept.
