Chef Brazier was only 26 when she opened her first restaurant
Chef Brazier became the first woman to earn three Michelin stars back in 1933 and played a fundamental role in transforming the French city of Lyon into a hub of gastronomy.
The chef was born a country girl in the hills of Bresse before starting her first restaurant dubbed La Mère Brazier in 1921.
The culinary expert later became known as "la mère Brazier” in honour of the restaurant.
Chef Brazier was only 26 when she opened her first restaurant.
Eugénie Brazier, the first woman to be awarded three Michelin stars, is widely regarded the "mother of modern French cooking".
Born on 12 June 1895, Brazier opened her first restaurant in a former grocery store in Lyon at the age of 26 and soon built a reputation for simple, elegant food.
Her cooking at La Mere Brazier would attract celebrities like Marlene Dietrich and Charles de Gaulle but Brazier never wanted to be a "celebrity chef" unlike her male peers such as the "King of Cooks" Alexandre Dumaine.
Brazier's most famous dishes include "beautiful dawn lobster", featuring brandy and cream, and "poultry in half mourning', in which truffle slices are inserted between the meat and the skin before the bird is poached.
Here are five things you should know about Eugénie Brazier.
1. She turned down a French legion of honour
Brazier modestly claimed that the medal "should be given out for doing more important things than cooking well and doing the job as you're supposed to."
2. Her favourite ever meal was cooked by her mother
Orphaned at the age of ten, Brazier said she had "never eaten better" than a broth of leeks and vegetables cooked in milk and water, enriched with eggs, and poured over stale bread.
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3. She was the first person to hold six Michelin stars simultaneously
Brazier earned three stars at each of her two restaurants, one in Lyon and the other in a hunting camp in the Alpine foothills at Col de la Luere.
4. Paul Bocuse, one of the best known French chefs, was her student
Legend has it that Bocuse was first put to work ironing napkins.
He later described Brazier as a "tough and modest woman who knew instinctively how to select the best of us".
5. Her first and only recipe book was published posthumously
Brazier began work on the cookbook two years before she died in 1977 but never finished it and it was only printed with the help of her family in 2009.
Eugenie Brazier was a French chef who defied her own tough childhood and the male-dominated world of Michelin star cookery (Picture: Getty)
Forget the likes of Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson and Ruby Tandoh.
Female chefs don’t come much more authentic, badass and fiercely talented than the late, great Eugenie Brazier.
The French cook went from being an orphaned farm worker with nothing to her name, to becoming the first woman in history to achieve three Michelin stars.
Here is what we know about her amazing life and career, as she’s honoured with a Google Doodle on 12 June 2018, which would have been her 123rd birthday.
Google has honoured Brazier with this doodle today (Picture: Google)
Eugenie was born in La Tranclière, Ain, France, in 1895. At the age of 10 she was orphaned, and soon began work as a farm hand.
She then moved to Lyon at the age of 19 and started working in the kitchen of celebrated chef Mere Fillioux.
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Her delicacies included chicken cooked in a bladder, which looks a bit like a fleshy white balloon when served, and is still being copied in French haute-cuisine restaurants today.
Talented Eugenie saved her earnings so that by aged 21, she was able to buy a grocery store at 12 Rue Royale.
Aged 26, she turned the shop into La Mere Brazier, her first restaurant.
Brazier, front, with chefs Paul Blanc, Paul Bocuse, Jean Vettard, Jean Vignard, Christian Bourillot, Roger Roucou, Paul Lacombe, Guy Thivard and Marius Vettard (Picture: Getty)
The menu at the restaurant never changed and it was a huge hit with diners from the get-go.
She later opened her second restaurant Le Col de la Luère, owning and cooking at both by the time she was 38.
In 1935 both restaurants were awarded three stars. This was the first time a woman would be recognised with the most stars simultaneously.
It was 60 years before another chef, Alain Ducasse, would achieve the same number of stars at the same time.
Eugenie’s two restaurants held six Michelin stars for 20 years, and La Mère Brazier held three stars for 28 years.
Both restaurants are still running today under control of Brazier’s granddaughter Jacotte, who still offers her grandmother’s menu.
Streets have been named after the phenomenal chef and force of nature (Picture: Getty)
Brazier, who had one son called Gaston in 1914, also trained other esteemed French chefs like Paul Bocuse.
Streets have been named after her but she was known for her modesty, once writing: ‘I have met and conversed with many intellectuals, … and I have always been mindful of who I am.’
Famously she turned down the French Legion of Honour (a bit like the French equivalent of the Queen’s Honours), stating that ‘it should be given out for doing more important things than cooking, and doing the job as you’re supposed to’.
Eugenie retired in the early 1970s, four years after La Mere Brazier dropped a Michelin star for the first time.
A snap of La Mere Brazier today (Picture: Getty)
Brazier’s other granddaughter, AnneMarie, said of this change: ‘Truthfully, it hurt her a lot. The idea of celebrity didn’t appeal to her a bit, but here was somebody saying her work was less well done. That was bad.’
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Then in 1977 she died at the age of 81. Her tombstone is located in the Cemetery of Mas Rillier.
The chef’s life inspired the introduction of The Eugénie Brazier Grand Prize, which is awarded to a cookery book published by a female author or editor, or a book on the subject of women and cuisine.
In addition, writers can win The Eugénie Brazier Culinary Novel Prize, the Eugénie Brazier Illustration Prize, the Eugénie Brazier Readers’ Choice Prize and the Eugénie Brazier French-speaking World Prize.
In 2009, her unfinished cookbook was finally published by her relatives, and is titled Les secrets de la Mere Brazier.
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