Top 10 TV Chefs

The first woman to graduate from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary institute in Paris, Englishwoman Dione Lucas opened her own restaurant in London in the 1930s and began the Cordon Bleu restaurant and cooking school in New York in 1942. That quickly made her the talk of the town and won her a television show in 1948 — making her the first woman featured on a television cooking show and an even earlier pioneer of French cooking than Julia Child. Onscreen, she concocted delicious dishes for her celebrity guests; offscreen, she gave private lessons to luminaries including Salvador Dali and actress Helen Hayes. While working at a hotel in Hamburg, Germany, Lucas claimed, she had once cooked squab for Adolf Hitler, disputing the belief that he was a vegetarian. "I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab, but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite with Mr. Hitler, who dined at the hotel often," she wrote in one of her books. "Let us not hold that against a fine recipe though."

See the video: "Bocuse d'Or: Americans in a French Food Fight."