Helen Corbitt (1906–1978) was an American chef and cookbook author. Corbitt was born in New York but spent nearly 40 years in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

promoting gourmet cuisine with new and unusual flavor combinations and serving temperatures. She traveled widely searching for new culinary inspiration. She was an early advocate of using the finest, freshest ingredients.

Career

She moved to Austin in 1931 from her job as dietitian at

Cornell Medical Center The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with N ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to become an instructor and manage the tearoom at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. She was lured to the Houston Country Club before operating the tearoom at

Joske's Joske's, founded by German immigrant Julius Joske in 1867, was a department store chain originally based in San Antonio, Texas. In December 1928, Hahn Department Stores acquired the company along with the Titche-Goettinger department store of Dal ...

department store in Houston and had started her own catering business when the

Driskill Hotel The Driskill, a Romanesque-style building completed in 1886,

called her back to Austin. In 1955, after being courted by Stanley Marcus for eight years, she joined

Neiman-Marcus Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment compan ...

as Director of Food Services. Several of her recipes are still on the department store's menu, including her famous Poppy Seed Dressing. In the 1969 edition of its famously extravagant Christmas catalog, Neiman-Marcus advertised the Neiman Marcus Kitchen Computer, the first computer ever offered as a consumer product, with an option to purchase collections of Corbitt's recipes for use with the device. Corbitt left Neiman-Marcus in late 1969 to write, teach, and consult.

Legacy

Corbitt authored numerous cookbooks and was the first woman to receive the Golden Plate Award, the highest honor in the food business. In 1969, she was presented the Outstanding Service Award by the Texas Restaurant Association for "her inestimable contributions" to the

food service The foodservice (US English) or catering (British English) industry includes the businesses, institutions, and companies which prepare meals outside the home. It includes restaurants, school and hospital cafeterias, catering operations, and many ...

industry. A 1975 profile by the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'' described Corbitt as "the Balenciaga of food and the best cook in Texas". In December 1999, ''

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. ''Texas Monthly'' was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy and has been published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. since 1998 and is ...

'' declared Corbitt to be the "Tastemaker of the Century". In 2009, the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' described her as "the Julia Child-esque cooking celebrity with a Texas twang".

References

External links

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Corbitt, Helen American chefs American food writers Cuisine of the Southwestern United States Writers from New York (state) Writers from Dallas Skidmore College alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty 1906 births 1978 deaths Deaths from cancer in Texas 20th-century American non-fiction writers