Hannah Glasse was an eighteenth-century Englishwoman whose book, The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, became essential reading when it was published in 1747. It was also popular with American settlers and presidents. One of the first English language books to feature a recipe for curry, Glasses’s butter chicken included the then-exotic turmeric, ginger and pepper.
Isabella Beeton was only 22 when, in 1861, she wrote the bestselling Book of Household Management. It soon became the must-have guide for every self-respecting Victorian woman in England. Her recipe for Victoria sandwiches pays homage to the English queen. Today, the sponge is present on countless afternoon tea platters around the UK, although it’s less well known in the US. Give it a try with this easy-to-follow recipe.
The father of modern French cuisine was responsible for updating and promoting many traditional French dishes and cooking techniques, for reorganizing professional kitchens and for honoring VIPs with dishes such as peach Melba (for opera singer Nellie Melba) and cherries Jubilee (for Queen Victoria). His recognition of the importance of meat stock as a flavor was an early example of the savory, or umami, ‘fifth taste’.
The Caesar salad remains one of Tinseltown’s favourite dishes. Invented in the 1920s by an Italian immigrant from what was available in his restaurant kitchen at the time, the Caesar salad was plugged by stars such as Clark Gable. Bruce Springsteen reportedly has a fondness for the one served at Dan Tana’s, a restaurant on the Santa Monica Boulevard that claims to serve “the most in town, about 150 a night”. We love this barbecue Caesar recipe with avocado.
Harland Sander’s Kentucky fried chicken is as synonymous with American gastronomy as apple pie, and just as well known. The former service station manager started serving fried chicken coated in eleven herbs and spices in the 1930s. Then – eyeing an opportunity – the savvy businessman franchised his secret recipe in 1952. As of late 2017, KFC was the fourth most valuable fast food brand in the world.
The California-born TV chef is credited with persuading Americans to appreciate, cook and eat French food. Her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was published in the US in 1961 (a second volume appeared in 1970), and featured Gallic classics such as coq au vin, French onion soup and beef bourguignon – the latter featured in Child’s first TV series, The French Chef and, as a consequence, at a million dinner parties.
The Julia Child of England, Elizabeth David brightened the lives of food-rationed post-war Brits with her captivating books and continental recipes. By the 1950s she’d popularized Mediterranean, French and Italian cuisine and made cookery writing respectable. Although David was faithful to dishes she discovered on her travels she wasn’t adverse to breaking from tradition. Her paella, for example, contained chicken and shrimp, which isn’t the customary way to serve the Spanish classic.
Although McDonald’s had been operating franchises since 1953 its famous Big Mac didn’t appear until 1967, when franchisee Jim Delligatti started selling it in the Pittsburgh area. It was rolled out nationwide a year later. Consisting of a three-layer sesame bun, two beef patties, cheese, iceberg lettuce, pickles, onions and ‘special sauce’, these days it's loved around the world.
Known in the UK for her no-nonsense approach to home cooking, Delia Smith is responsible for teaching the basics to generations of Brits, including how to soft boil an egg and make a decent omelette. Smith’s chicken Basque recipe also introduced a grateful public to the wonders of chorizo and sun-dried tomatoes.
Harry’s Bar in Venice is renowned not just for giving the world the Bellini cocktail but for carpaccio – very thinly-sliced raw meat or seafood with lemon, olive oil and Parmesan shavings that’s now an omnipresent appetizer. It’s attributed to Harry’s Bar founder Giuseppe Cipriani and was named after the painter Vittore Carpaccio, who was recognized for his works in red and white.
The chocolate fondant or molten chocolate cake, though tricky to perfect, is nevertheless one of the most common desserts on restaurant menus today. In 1981 the French chef Michel Bras patented his chocolate coolant and today he’s widely regarded as the creator, though it’s arguably Jean-Georges Vongerichten that popularized the pud in late 1980s New York. It's easier to make at home than you might think.
Arzak transformed Basque cooking with skills he’d learned from the nouvelle cuisine movement and, in turn, inspired the likes of El Bulli’s Ferran Adrià. Many regard Arzak’s hake in green sauce with clams as his signature dish but it’s his beautiful egg poached in plastic wrap that will forever bear his name.
In the late 1980s and 1990s Nobu Matsuhisa made Japanese cuisine glamorous with his celebrity-frequented restaurants and his signature dish – black cod with miso – a dish of such exquisite umami loveliness it’s spawned countless recreations.
The ‘chef’s chef’ has a reputation for the best ever roast chicken recipe. His modern classic features in Roast Chicken and Other Stories, Hopkinson’s 1994 award-winning cookbook that still rates highly in the world’s best cookery book lists.
Ramsay has won an array of Michelin stars and other accolades for his British and European cooking and his take on a classic English beef Wellington is regarded as one of his most famous dishes – the Gordon Ramsay Steakhouse in Las Vegas alone at one point sold a minimum of seventy orders of Wellington a night.
By using the spherification process to create liquid olives out of olive juice, calcium chloride and xantham gum, Spanish chef Adrià's passion for molecular gastronomy became a worldwide craze copied by chefs and keen home cooks.
Heston Blumenthal is another molecular gastronomist whose Fat Duck restaurant in England has become legendary for bacon and egg ice cream and snail porridge. But it’s Heston’s triple cooked chips that he’ll be remembered for by home cooks.
Former sculptor-turned-New York baker Jim Lahey developed an existing recipe for no-knead bread that caught the attention of prominent food writer and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman and inspired a revolution in baking in the mid-2000s. The recipe has since been described as one of those that “literally change the culinary scene”.
Australia’s café culture embraced the avo craze long before the rest of the Western world fell in love with the idea. Although avocados and bread have been eaten together before it’s when it featured on the menu at Bill Granger's Sydney café Bill’s (and in his subsequent cookbook, Sydney Food) in the early 1990s that the now-Instagrammable dish took off, fueled by the clean living movement and celebrity endorsements.
The steamed pork bun has been an NYC favorite for more than a decade and it’s largely down to chef David Chang, whose Momofuku eatery offered a version customers went crazy for. Chang, who’s also responsible for propagating the wonders of ramen in the US, admits “we wouldn't be where we are today if not for the pork bun.”
When is a fried egg not a fried egg? When it’s Noma chef and founder Redzepi’s take on one. His unique dishes have included cabbage and live ants, and radish, soil and grass but Redzepi re-invented the wheel when he gave Noma diners instructions to cook their own wild duck egg in hay oil, thyme butter and herbs. The result was, according to the Wall Street Journal, the “best fried egg of your life.”