Le Cercle des Gourmettes

Last updated
Le Cercle des Gourmettes
Formation1929
FounderPaulette Edlinger
Legal statusDisbanded
PurposeGourmet food appreciation
Location
  • Paris
Membership
Exclusive
Official language
French
Key people
Julia Child, Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle
1938 greeting card from the Cercle des Gourmettes Cercle Gourmettes 1.jpg
1938 greeting card from the Cercle des Gourmettes

Le Cercle des Gourmettes was an exclusive club or "circle" of women in Paris devoted to gourmet food. The circle was started in 1929 by an American, Paulette Edlinger, and the name may have been a bon mot in protest of the non-feminine form of the word gourmet. [1] [2]

The club began at a time of economic prosperity just prior to the Great Depression in France. It was started by the wives of members of Club des Cent and convened on alternate Fridays to enjoy lunches and dinners at the electric company headquarters in Paris, Electricité et Gaz. [3] The club's most famous members were Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle. Each joined the club in the late 1940s.

Versions of the club later existed in Canada and Switzerland.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enrico Bombieri</span> Italian mathematician (born 1940)

Enrico Bombieri is an Italian mathematician, known for his work in analytic number theory, Diophantine geometry, complex analysis, and group theory. Bombieri is currently Professor Emeritus in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Bombieri won the Fields Medal in 1974 for his contributions to large sieve mathematics, conceptualized by Linnick 1941, and its application to the distribution of prime numbers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Child</span> American cooking personality (1912–2004)

Julia Carolyn Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Kristeva</span> Bulgarian philosopher (born 1941)

Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and novelist who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She has taught at Columbia University, and is now a professor emerita at Université Paris Cité. The author of more than 30 books, including Powers of Horror, Tales of Love, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Proust and the Sense of Time, and the trilogy Female Genius, she has been awarded Commander of the Legion of Honor, Commander of the Order of Merit, the Holberg International Memorial Prize, the Hannah Arendt Prize, and the Vision 97 Foundation Prize, awarded by the Havel Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Beck</span> French cooking author and teacher (1904–1991)

Simone "Simca" Beck was a French cookbook writer and cooking teacher who, along with colleagues Julia Child and Louisette Bertholle, played a significant role in the introduction of French cooking technique and recipes into American kitchens.

<i>Mastering the Art of French Cooking</i> Cookbook by Beck, Bertholle, and Child

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a two-volume French cookbook written by Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, both from France, and Julia Child, from the United States. The book was written for the American market and published by Knopf in 1961 and 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vichyssoise</span> Type of soup

Vichyssoise is a soup made of cooked and puréed leeks, potatoes, onions and cream. It is served chilled and garnished with chopped chives. It was invented in the first quarter of the 20th century by Louis Diat, a French-born cook working as head chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curnonsky</span> French food writer

Maurice Edmond Sailland, better known by his pen-name Curnonsky, and dubbed the Prince of Gastronomy, was one of the most celebrated writers on gastronomy in France in the 20th century. He wrote or ghost-wrote many books in diverse genres and many newspaper columns. He is often considered the inventor of gastronomic motor-tourism as popularized by Michelin, though he himself could not drive. He was a student of Henri-Paul Pellaprat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Rouff</span> French food writer

Marcel Rouff was a Swiss novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, historian, and gastronomic writer. With Curnonsky he wrote the multi-volume work La France gastronomique, guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises. He may be best known today for his novel about the fictional gourmet Dodin-Bouffant, La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet, which was first published in 1924 and dedicated to his friend Curnonsky and the great nineteenth-century French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Rouff's novel was adapted for French television in 1973 by Jean Ferniot and in a 2023 feature-length movie by Trần Anh Hùng, The Taste of Things.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Mendy</span> French footballer (born 1981)

Bernard Mendy is a French former professional footballer who played as a right-back. He was known for his blistering pace and constant overlapping runs. He most recently served as the assistant manager of Paris Saint-Germain Féminine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender</span> Usage of wording balanced in its treatment of the genders in a non-grammatical sense

Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender is the usage of wording that is balanced in its treatment of the genders in a non-grammatical sense. For example, advocates of gender-neutral language challenge the traditional use of masculine nouns and pronouns when referring to two or more genders or to a person of an unknown gender in most Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages. This stance is often inspired by feminist ideas about gender equality. Gender neutrality is also used colloquially when one wishes to be inclusive of people who identify as non-binary genders or as genderless.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (women)</span> Womens department of Paris Saint-Germain

Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain or simply PSG, are a French professional women's football club based in Paris. Founded in 1971, they compete in the Première Ligue, the top division of French football. Their home ground is the Stade Jean-Bouin. They are the women's department of Paris Saint-Germain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisette Bertholle</span> French chef and author (1905–1999)

Louisette Bertholle was a French cooking teacher and writer, best known as one of the three authors of the bestselling cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amel Majri</span> Footballer (born 1993)

Amel Majri is a professional footballer who plays as a winger and left-back for Première Ligue club Lyon and the France national team. With Lyon, she has won thirteen league titles and eight UEFA Women's Champions League titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingsley Coman</span> French footballer (born 1996)

Kingsley Junior Coman is a French professional footballer who plays as a winger for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and the France national team.

Madeleine Kamman was a French chef and restaurateur, cookery teacher and author of seven cookbooks, who spent most of her working life in America bringing the rigors of French technique to American ingredients and audiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sakina Karchaoui</span> French footballer (born 1996)

Sakina Karchaoui is a French professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Première Ligue club Paris Saint-Germain and the France national team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Geyoro</span> French footballer (born 1997)

Onema Grace Geyoro is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for French Première Ligue club Paris Saint-Germain, which she also captains. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she plays for the France national team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Estelle Cascarino</span> French footballer

Estelle Cascarino is a French professional footballer who plays as a defender for Serie A club Juventus and the France national team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandy Baltimore</span> French footballer (born 2000)

Sandy Madeleine Baltimore is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for Women's Super League club Chelsea and the France national team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GPSO 92 Issy</span> French womens football club based in Issy-les-Moulineaux

Grand Paris Seine Ouest 92 Issy are a French women's football team based in Issy-les-Moulineaux. The club currently compete in Division 2 Féminine, the Second Division of women's football in France. The team was founded in 1997 as EuroPeru, and was known as FF Issy from 2001 until 2020.

References

  1. See Le Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé, where gourmet is a masculine noun meaning foodie, but gourmette is a feminine word for bling or bracelet.
  2. Guagnini, Enrico (September 1996), "Gourmettes", Grand Gourmet (in Italian) reprinted in Guagnini, Enrico (April 11, 2010), "LE GOUREMETTES CAMBIANO DIZIONARIO" (PDF), Bolgher News (in Italian), 2 (12): 4, archived from the original (PDF) on August 10, 2014, retrieved August 9, 2014
  3. Child, Julia; Prud'homme, Alex (2006). My Life in France . New York: Anchor Books (Knoph Doubleday). p. 133.