Breaking Down Barriers: forward 6 |

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Julia Childs

From the kitchen to National television, Julia Childs taught Americans how to make traditional French cuisine in their households. Her love for French cuisine began after she and her husband, Paul Childs, lived in Paris. While there, she enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu’s cooking school, met a few other women, and created a cookbook together. When she returned to the states in the 1960s, she was approached about hosting a television show based on the success of her book. Because of the opportunity, she was one of the first women to host a cooking show, causing her to win countless awards. Following the show’s success, Childs hosted more television shows and published more cookbooks worldwide.

Edna Lewis

Everyone loves southern cooking, and Edna Lewis helped redefine what that looked like. She was among the first African Americans to write a cookbook that did not hide her race or gender. She began her culinary career at Cafe Nicholson as the head chef in 1949 in New York, where people all over fell in love with her southern-style meals. Three years later, Lewis left as head chef and transitioned to a restaurant business partner while she began creating her cookbook to be distributed. Her cookbooks included stories from her childhood and African American heritage to connect the reader to the recipes.

Gabriela Camara

With restaurants, cookbooks, and Netflix television shows, Gabriela Camara is dominating the culinary world. Her maternal grandmother inspired Camara at a young age to learn as much as possible about the skill. In 1998, she opened her first restaurant in Mexico City, which specialized in seafood called Contramar. Her journey continued, and in 2015 she opened another restaurant in San Francisco called Cala. Recently, she was featured on the Netflix show Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, where she competes to see who the better chef is.