There was much (well-deserved) hullabaloo over Gerard Craft’s winning a James Beard award last year, of course – but we had a query from a reader asking if he was really our first James Beard Best Chef award. Wasn’t there another one we’d seemingly forgotten about?
It was, of course, Richard Perry, the first St. Louis chef to make America look St. Louis’ way. But had he won a Beard award? Weren’t they established after he moved away from St. Louis? Examination of the James Beard Foundation’s website seemed to prove this correct. But still, something nagged at us. Could it be correct? Could we actually be wrong?
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Finally it dawned on us: Ask Richard Perry.
Perry is retired and living on the East Side, is working on a book and does a little consulting work from time to time. And he was gracious enough to help us out.
In an email, Perry informs us that he was “a Beard Award recipient…among the inaugural class in 1984.” The award ceremony was called Cook’s Magazine’s “Who’s Who of Cooking in America,” and the magazine named the honorees at an event the chef describes as “rather modest compared to today’s hoopla”. Perry says it occurred only a few weeks before Beard’s death but, “I did get to meet him and shake his hand, although he was quite frail.”
A few years later, the recognition was changed to “James Beard Foundation Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America,” a list that still exists today, but a different distinction than the peer-selected James Beard Foundation Awards that were founded in 1990 (the award that Gerard Craft won last year for “Best Chef: Midwest”).
Regardless, consider the other members of the class of 1984:
Len Allison
Colman Andrews
Richard Arrowood
Ella Brennan
Dick Brennan
Laura Chenel
Julia Child
Craig Claiborne
Marion Cunningham
Marcel Desaulniers
Paul Draper
Dafne Engstrom
Mats Engstrom
Michael Foley
Larry Forgione
Richard Graff
Jeff Hvid
Barbara Kafka
Paul Keyser
Edna Lewis
Michael McCarty
Mark Miller
Robert Mondavi
Marian Morash
Hames Nassikas
Patrick O’Connell
Steve Poses
Paul Prudhomme
Wolfgang Puck
Justin Rashid
Ruth Reichl
Seppi Renggli
William Rice
Michael Roberts
Judy Rodgers
Jimmy Schmidt
John Sedlar
Lydia Shire
Gordon Sinclair
Jeremiah Tower
William Tuttle
Patricia Unterman
Alice Waters
Jonathan Waxman
Nahum Wasman
Jasper White
Barry Wine
Not bad company. And it includes another St. Louisan, this one a native. Judy Rodgers was born and grew up here. (Horton Watkins, if you must know.) She opened and ran San Francisco’s Zuni Cafe and her New York Times obituary was headlined “Chef of Refined Simplicity”.
Editor’s note: The original text was changed to reflect that Perry’s 1984 award, while significant, was a precursor to the categorical awards given out by the James Beard Foundation after 1990.
