Madame Brassart

Élisabeth Brassart (1897–1992) was the proprietor of the Le Cordon Bleu school in Paris from 1945 to 1984.[1] Le Cordon Bleu had been founded in 1895 by Marthe Distel and Henri-Paul Pellaprat.

Madame Brassart
Born
Élisabeth Brassart

1897
Died1992 (aged 94–95)

In 1945, after the end of WWII, she purchased what had become a struggling school from a Catholic orphanage which had inherited it after the school's founder died in the late 1930s. [2] The present owner, André J. Cointreau, purchased it from Brassart, who was an old family friend.[3][4]

Brassart managed to attract many notable chefs to teach at the Le Cordon Bleu under her tenure, among them Max Bugnard, Claude Thillmont, and Pierre Mangelatte.[5] The school was a very international school under her leadership. Students came from the United States, Japan and around the world. Madame Brassart managed the school until 1984, at the age of 87, she decided it was time to retire.

Students

Madame Brassart has been painted unfavorably in several printed accounts, notably biographies of Julia Child, who studied at the school under Brassart.[6] [7]

"The truth is that Mme. Brassart and I got on each other's nerves. She seemed to think that awarding a student a diploma was like inducting them into some kind of secret society; as a result the school's hallways were filled with an air of petty jealousy and distrust. From my perspective, Mme. Brassart lacked professional experience, was a terrible administrator and tangled herself up in picayune details and politics..."- from My Life in France, excerpted in The New York Times, February 19, 2006[8]

In the 2009 film, Julie & Julia, Brassart was portrayed by Joan Juliet Buck in accordance to how Child described her. Shortly after the film's release, Nina Zagat, who also spent time at Le Cordon Bleu under Brassart, and her husband responded to the film's portrayal with an article comparing Brassart and Child, whom they both knew personally and stating that Brassart was more sympathetic in real life. "Having known both women, we can safely say that it's hard to imagine two less compatible people. Julia was tall and assertive with a loud, braying voice in English—one can only imagine what she sounded like in French. Madame Brassart, in contrast, was petite, elegant, and aristocratic, and spoke impeccable French and English, as well as several other languages... From our point of view, Madame Brassart was much more sympathetic than portrayed in the film--she had a great sense of humor and could be very funny in an understated way ("Laughter was de rigueur with her," her niece said)--and her achievements as a culinary educator, much like Julia's, are indisputable.[9]

References
  1. IBIBLIO.org: A history of Le Cordon Bleu
  2. Spring, Justin. The Gourmands' Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
  3. LA Times: Andre Cointreau profile, latimes.com. 25 July 1995.
  4. Kathleen Allen-Weber, Marie-Lucie Mauger Raconte-moi tout!: French culture today 1986 - Page 62 "(sauce) pans Les écoles pour devenir un fin cordon bleu attirent autant les hommes que les femmes. Au 40 de l'avenue Bosquet, sous la direction vigilante de Madame Brassart, une grand-mère de charme comme on n'en fait plus, le Cordon Bleu."
  5. Julia Child biography, encyclopedia.com. Accessed 6 August 2023.
  6. Victor William Geraci, Elizabeth S. Demers Icons of American Cooking 2011- Page 64 "Empowered by her new passion for food, Child enrolled in a six-month course at the Cordon Bleu on October 4, 1949. There, with the guidance of master chef Max Bugnard, she took a course for housewives, but proprietor Madam Elizabeth Brassart did not favor American students."
  7. NY Times: Eat, Memory by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
  8. LIFE - 19 November 1951 - Page 90 "But Cordon Bleu's accustomed disorganization continued to the end. Not until 6 did Mme. Brassart arrive to hand out Cordon Bleu pins and diplomas. We had a quick look at the little cards blue-inked with our names and "Diplome de Cuisine ..."
  9. Zagat, Nina and Tim Zagat (August 7, 2009). "The Unsung Heroine of Julie & Julia". Zagat.com.

Further reading
  • Kummer, Corby, "Paris reacts to Julie and Julia", The Atlantic Monthly, 17 September 2009.
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