CULA: Culinary Arts: Homework Help

To find biographical information about famous chefs and restaurateurs, try these Library resources.

Britannica Academic -- The online version of this famous encyclopedia contains biographies of people from all over the world, in every time period of recorded history. The "Biographies" section of the database may be searched by name, profession, gender, era, and nationality.

SpartaCat (Library catalog) -- Many cookbooks written by chefs contain a section about the author. To find these books, as well as full biographies, search for the person by name, or by using these subjects.

• "Cooks, Biography"
• "Women cooks, Biography"
• "Celebrity chefs, Biography"
• "Restaurateurs, Biography"

Business and lifestyle magazines, as well as trade publications for the restaurant industry, often publish profiles or interviews that can reveal interesting information about the person you're researching. If the person is deceased, a detailed obituary might be useful.

All of these can be found by using the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) or ProQuest databases. Search for the person's name and select the type of article you want from the menu.

Here is how it looks in EDS:

Here is how it looks in ProQuest:

The Films on Demand database is a great place to look for television programs and films about well-known people. Here are some interviews and documentaries featuring famous chefs and restaurateurs.

• Creators in Cuisine and Design, an interview with award-winning South African chef Andrew Draper
• Denmark's Culinary Revolution -- Chef Rene Redzepi discusses the use of wild and organically grown local foods at his restaurant in Copenhagen. 
• Eat, Cook, Love: Cooking Shows, featuring Julia Child
• Eat This New York -- The story of two friends attempting to open a restaurant in New York City. Interview segments include Daniel Boulud, Sirio Maccioni, Keith McNally, Danny Meyer, Drew Nieporent, Ruth Reichl, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Tim Zagat.
• Eddie Huang, an interview with the owner of Taiwanese restaurant Baohaus, New York
• The Restaurateur, a profile of Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group
• South Beauty Brand, a profile of Zhang Lan, owner of Szechuan restaurant chain South Beauty, Beijing 
• Starting a Restaurant: The Start Up Experience, featuring Randy Price, CEO of Rocky Mountain Restaurant Group, Colorado

Need help with finding sources, searching databases, formatting citations, or deciding on a paper topic? The NCC Librarians are here for you.

Both the Mack Library (Bethlehem) and ESSA Library (Monroe) are open if you'd like to visit in person, or you can chat online with a Librarian no matter where you are! Go to the Library's home page and click on the orange "Ask the Librarian" tab to start chatting. 

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