Craig Claiborne

Early life

Craig Claiborne, born in Sunflower, Mississippi, in 1920, grew up cooking in his mother's boarding house kitchen in Indianola. He briefly studied premed at Mississippi State College before switching to journalism at the University of Missouri. After serving in the Navy during World War II and Korea, he used his G.I. Bill to attend the Lausanne Hotel School in Switzerland. Returning to New York, he worked his way up in food publishing, eventually becoming the New York Times food editor in 1957. He transformed the food section, introduced Americans to ethnic cuisines, and created the paper's four-star restaurant rating system. He died in 2000 at age 79.

Career

Returning to the U.S., he worked his way up in the food-publishing business in New York City, as a contributor to Gourmet magazine and a food-product publicist, finally becoming the food editor of The New York Times in 1957 following the newspaper's first food editor, Jane Nickerson. Claiborne was the first man to supervise the food page at a major American newspaper and is credited with broadening The New York Times's coverage of new restaurants and innovative chefs.

He brought his knowledge of cuisine and own passion for food to the pages, transforming it into an important cultural and social bellwether for New York City 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 cuisines – at a time when average Americans had conservative tastes in food, and what little gourmet cooking was available in cities like New York was exclusively French.

He created the four-star system of rating restaurants still used by The New York Times. Claiborne's reviews were exacting and uncompromising, but he also approached his task as a critic with an open mind and eye for cooking that was different, creative and likely to appeal to his readers. Inspired by food writers including M. F. K. Fisher, Claiborne also enjoyed documenting his own eating experiences and the discovery of new talent and new culinary trends.

Among the many then-unknown chefs he brought to the public's attention was the New Orleans, Louisiana, chef and restaurateur Paul Prudhomme. Along with chef, author and television personality Julia Child, Claiborne has been credited with making the often intimidating world of French and other ethnic cuisine accessible to an American audience. He authored or edited over twenty cookbooks. He had a long-time professional relationship and collaborated on many books and projects with the French-born New York City chef, author and television personality Pierre Franey.

Claiborne was an advocate of a fad diet known as the Gourmet Diet. With Franey, he worked out two hundred low-sodium, low-cholesterol recipes for this diet. In September 1966 thirteen mafia leaders were arrested at La Stella Restaurant while holding a meeting. The New York Times responded by sending out Claiborne to the restaurant, who gave it a two star rating.

In 1975, 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 American Express. He selected Franey as his dining companion, and the two settled on Chez Denis, a noted restaurant located in Paris, France, where they racked up a $4,000 tab on a five-hour, thirty-one-course meal of foie gras, truffles, lobster, caviar and rare wines. When Claiborne later wrote about the experience in his New York Times column, the newspaper received a deluge of reader mail expressing outrage.

Even the Vatican and Pope Paul VI criticized it, calling it 'scandalous.' 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.

Personal life

Claiborne, who suffered from a variety of health problems in his later years, died on January 22, 2000 at age 79 at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, New York. No cause of death was given. In his will, he bequeathed his estate to The Culinary Institute of America, located in Hyde Park, New York.