Craig Claiborne - Personal life, The $4000 Meal, Books, Quote

Chef and writer, born in Sunflower, Mississippi, USA. A lover of food, accomplished cook, and trained journalist, he became food editor of the New York Times in 1957, and his stylish but impartial restaurant reviews set a new standard for food reporting. His cookbooks include the best-selling New York Times Cook Book (1961) and Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking (1987).

Craig Claiborne (September 4, 1920 – January 22, 2000) was a restaurant critic, food writer and former food editor of the New York Times. Career

Born in Sunflower, Mississippi, and raised on the region's storied cuisine in the kitchen of his mother's boarding house, Claiborne served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean conflict and after deciding that his true passion lay in cooking, used his G.I. Returning from Europe, he worked his way up in the food publishing business in New York as a contributer to Gourmet Magazine, a food products publicist and finally food editor of the New York Times in 1957. Claiborne was the first man to supervise the food page at a major American newspaper and is credited with broadening the Times' coverage of new restaurants and innovative chefs. Claiborne brought his expert knowledge of cuisine and own passion for food to the pages, transforming it into an important cultural and social bellwether for New York and the nation at large.

Claiborne's columns, reviews and cookbooks introduced a generation of Americans to a variety of ethnic cuisines -- particularly Asian and Mexican -- at a time when average Americans had fairly staid, conservative tastes in food and what little gourmet cooking was available in cities like New York was exclusively French (and, Claiborne observed, not terribly high quality). Fisher, Claiborne also enjoyed documenting his own eating experiences and the discovery of new talent and new culinary trends across the country and across the world. Along with Julia Child, Claiborne has been credited with making the often intimitading world of French and other ethnic cuisine accessible to an American audience and American tastes. Claiborne authored or edited over 20 cookbooks on a wide range of foods and culinary styles, including some of the first best-selling cookbooks dedicated to healthy, low-sodium and low-cholesterol diets.

Personal life

Claiborne was a fixture of the New York social scene for decades. In his 1982 autobiography, A Feast Made for Laughter, Claiborne described a bizarre, almost Faulknerian, childhood and adolescence in small-town Mississippi where he was mocked by schoolmates for his meek temperament and dislike of sports and had explicit sexual contact with his own father on at least one occasion. The young Claiborne often sought solace in the company of his mother's Black kitchen and housekeeping staff, whose food, humor and culture he came to love.

Claiborne, who suffered from a variety of health problems in his later years, died at age 79 on January 22, 2000.

The $4000 Meal

One of the most famous episodes in Claiborne's career occurred in 1975 when he placed a $300 winning bid at a charity auction for a no price-limit dinner for two at any restaurant of the winner's choice, sponsored by the American Express company. When Claiborne later wrote about the experience in his Times column, the paper received a deluge of reader mail expressing outrage at such an extravagance at a time when so many in the world went without. Despite its scale and expense, Claiborne gave the meal a mixed review, noting that several dishes fell short in terms of conception, presentation or quality.

Books

The New York Times Cookbook A Feast Made for Laughter (autobiography) Craig Claiborne's Kitchen Primer

Quote

"Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. -- Craig Claiborne

"I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write.