Entertainers and athletes become famous overnight. Cooks rarely do.
Make an exception for Susan Weaver, industrious but little-known sous chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here.
Next month, in Lyon, France, Weaver, 27, will be the sole representative of the United States at a brand new world cooking championship. She will compete against chefs from 23 other nations before a jury of the world`s most famous chefs, including Switzerland`s Fredy Girardet, Great Britain`s Albert Roux and Japan`s Masakichi Ono.
At stake is first prize money of $10,000 and possession of a statue, Le Bocuse d`Or. Inspired by the Motion Picture Academy`s Oscar, it is a gold likeness of French chef Paul Bocuse, president of the jury.
Weaver is a protege of Ritz-Carlton executive chef Fernand Gutierrez, who sounds like a cross between Knute Rockne and Burgess Meredith as Rocky Balboa`s manager in ”Rocky I” as he describes the competition.
”Only one cook from each country!” he declaims. ”Judges of such high caliber! The level is . . . (He looks toward heaven). For us this is the Olympics. We really are shooting for the moon!”
Weaver, tall, slender and clean cut, is properly modest, yet eager, at the idea of doing battle with array of supertalented international chefs.
”I`m confident we can come up with an entry we can all be proud of,”
she says, then explains that she chose cooking as a career because ”I like the harmony of using my mind and hands and creativity to produce something that makes people happy.”
”She`s a dreamer,” whispers Gutierrez, who goes on to cite her attitude, endurance, dedication and love of cooking as reasons why she will carry the Stars and Stripes with distinction.
”She`s into food 200 percent,” her manager continues. ”She dreams about cooking. We`re 99 percent sure she will be the only woman. She knows she has to fight harder.”
”When push comes to shove,” Weaver says with a grin, ”I`ll shove.”
So Joan of Arc may be reincarnated as a spunky American female. But how did she win this honor, and what is the competition?
It`s a classic French tale, with opportunism, egotism, diplomacy and luck intertwined to the end of reaffirming the (French) theory that the culinary sun rises and sets in France.
There is another world competition, the Culinary Olympics, but it is seen by French cuisineres as having two great flaws: It isn`t held in France, but in Frankfort, Germany, and France doesn`t win.
Someone connected with the giant food trade fair EUREXPO, held annually in Lyon, wasn`t above borrowing the concept. In a public relations stroke of genius, the competition was changed from national teams to individuals, and local hero Bocuse was enlisted to put his personality and prestige behind a world contest to find ”the best chef in the world.”
The French contestant may not win in Lyon, either, but the competition will be held in France and will be played by French rules. The cooks will work with products from the markets of Lyon.
The Chicago culinary establishment learned of the new contest last spring during a visit to the city by Bocuse and a group of French chefs.
Jean Banchet of Le Francais, in Wheeling, a Lyon native, was named co-president of the U.S. selection committee. His friend Gutierrez nominated Weaver. A number of other names and resumes were put forward (Gutierrez does not know how many), but there was no trial competition. The entry form states merely that the chef must be between ages 25 and 40, and the stipulation was added that he or she must be a native of the country he or she represents. Weaver learned last week that her nomination had been confirmed.
In Lyon the 24 chefs will compete in a semifinal heat Jan. 26. The challenge will be to create, in four hours, eight servings of a hot salmon dish with four garnishings. Scoring, on a 40 point system, will award a maximum of 10 points for originality, 10 points for presentation and 20 points for taste. This represents a dramatic departure from tradition. At most culinary competitions the entries are cold and not judged for taste.
The 10 highest scorers will return the next day to prepare two Bresse chickens with ingredients chosen by the contestants during a dawn visit to the Lyon market. In addition to the Bocuse d`Or, silver and bronze statues will be awarded to the 2d and 3d place finishers along with cash awards of $5,000 and $2,000 respectively.
Already Weaver and her corner men, Gutierrez, Banchet and chef Gabino Satelino, of Ambria, are brainstorming in search of a winning way with salmon. As a judge, Banchet`s advisory role may seem to be a conflict of interest. In the cut-throat environment of international culinary competitions, however, other judges will be coaching their national representatives, too.
”We are squeezed,” Gutierrez explains. ”We need to find something that is American but pleasing to the French. Most important, it has to be something Susan feels comfortable with, or the execution won`t be good enough to get her to the finals.”
Weaver grew up in Boston, ”eating Kraft macaroni and cheese and Oreos,” and was headed for a career as a video technician when a two-month trip to Europe stretched into two years. At one point she took a job as a dishwasher and soon gravitated to cooking.
”From the dishwasher station, the work the chef was doing looked real glamorous,” she recalls.
Back home, Gutierrez gave Weaver her first real kitchen job at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel in 1980. She worked for him at the Inn on the Park in Houston as well. When Gutierrez moved to the Ritz-Carlton in late 1983, she was cooking in Paris. He desperately needed a chef garde manger and called her.
”She was here in my kitchen within two weeks,” the chef says, ”and until we got things turned around she worked 18-hour days.”
That sort of loyalty is difficult to repay, but Gutierrez has found a way.
”I`m very proud,” he says. ”She`s going to do something I can`t do because I`m a French native living in America, and I know she is going to do it very well.”
As a symbol of good luck, he points to the recent achievement of Weaver`s husband, Marcel Flori. A captain at the Ritz-Carlton dining room, Flori won this year`s Somelier of the Year competition in Chicago and placed 3d in the nationals in New York.
”If she wins,” Gutierrez says gleefully, ”what a future they have as a couple. Can you imagine?”
Stay tuned.
