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5 unusual facts about Pierre Franey


Dominique Berninger

Henri Soulé moved from the French Pavilion at the fair to open Le Pavillon, taking Pierre Franey along as head chef.

Pierre Franey

He was honored by the March of Dimes in 1985 with a Hirschfeld caricature drawing for his extensive fundraising work for that organization.

He reportedly turned down an offer to become the cook for Douglas MacArthur.

Franey, along with Jacques Pépin, then an aspiring young cook on the staff of Le Pavillon, was hired in 1960 by the hotel and restaurant entrepreneur Howard Johnson, Sr., (a regular client at Le Pavillon) to revamp some of the Howard Johnson's restaurant chain’s recipes.

Quickly becoming a hit, the series led to a companion book of the same title, followed by additional shows including “Cooking in America” and “Cooking in France,” which won the James Beard Foundation Award for the best cooking show in 1995, and finally “Cooking in Europe.”


Foods of the World

The individual volumes were written by well-known experts on the various cuisines and included significant contemporary food writers, including Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, James Beard, Julia Child, and M.F.K. Fisher, and was overseen by food writer Michael Field who died before the series was complete.


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