Early years

Brazier was born on 12 June 1895 at La Tranclière, a village 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) south of Bourg-en-Bresse and 60 kilometres (37 miles) north-east of Lyon.^[1] Her parents had a small farm at Dompierre-sur-Veyle,^[2] and when she was still a baby the family moved to a larger farm at Certines around 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) away, where she grew up.^[2] She learned about cookery while still a child; by the time she was five she knew how to make the sweet and savoury tarts her mother cooked for the family, and among the dishes she first learned to make was barbaton, consisting of fried bacon, onion, potatoes and garlic.^[3] Her schooling was confined to the winter months, and then only when she was not busy working on the farm.^[4] When she was ten her mother died, and her education opportunities became even less regular. Though she could read well enough, she was never a confident writer.^[5] She was sent to work on another farm, where, she recalled, in addition to her board and lodging she received a pair of clogs and a new dress each year.^[4] She continued as a farm worker throughout her teens.^[6]

In 1914, aged 19, the unmarried Brazier gave birth to a son, Gaston.^[1] Unmarried mothers were, as she later said, "definitely frowned on in those days",^[6] and according to some sources her father threw her out, although she did not say so in her published recollections.^[1][7] She entered domestic service in Lyon for a large family named Milliat, prosperous bakers and manufacturers of pasta.^[8] At first she worked as a maid and nanny, and began cooking in 1915 when the women and children of the family moved to a villa in Cannes for the summer. She had no recipe books, and provided meals based on what she had picked up from the family's cook in Lyon and with advice from the concierge in Cannes.^[9] She discovered some supposedly tricky recipes such as hollandaise sauce were less daunting than they were often thought: "Cooking is not complicated: you have to be well organised, to remember things and have a bit of taste. I learned to cook by doing it – as simple as that."^{[n 1]}

Cook in Lyon

Around the end of the First World War, after a few years working for the Milliats,^{[n 2]} Brazier was taken on by a leading restaurateur in Lyon, Françoise Fillioux (or Filloux)^{[n 3][23]} in her women-only kitchen at le Bistrot Fillioux.^[24] La Mère Fillioux was a temperamental and demanding employer but under her supervision Brazier learned to make some of the most celebrated of the bistrot's dishes including quenelles au gratin with crayfish butter, artichoke hearts with truffled foie gras, and the house speciality, volaille truffée demi-deuil (truffled chicken in half-mourning).^{[25][n 4]} The dish consisted of a Bresse chicken poached in chicken stock, with slices of black truffle inserted under the skin.^[27] (When it was cooked, the truffle showed through the white skin of the chicken so that the overall appearance was black-and-white; hence the name.)^{[n 4]} She also learned how to cook various types of game such as larks, ortolans, and partridges, although they did not appear often in her menus once she had her own restaurant.^[28]

From the Bistrot Fillioux, Brazier moved to another restaurant in Lyon, the Brasserie du Dragon, where she was better paid.^{[n 2]} She remained there until 1921. In April that year, aged 26, she opened her first restaurant.^[29]

La Mère Brazier, Lyon

Brazier bought a vacant shop at 12 rue Royale in the first arrondissement of Lyon, on the opposite side of the Rhône from the Fillioux establishment. Her resources were limited: her capital was 12,000 francs (roughly equivalent to 9,200 euros in 2015 terms). With encouragement and advice from her former employer at the Dragon and the help of well disposed suppliers, she built up the business and began to attract regular customers.^[30] Her partner, Pierre, whom she never married, worked as a chauffeur during the day and in the evenings "swept the dining rooms, sharpened the knives and prepared the wine carafes".^[31] Initially, the restaurant could accommodate only 15 diners, but gradually Brazier increased the capacity, opening a second dining room and, later, a private salon and two small rooms upstairs.^[31][32]

Fillioux died in 1925, and although her restaurant remained in business, Brazier was immediately seen as her successor.^[33] She first attracted notice beyond Lyon after the director of a motor-oil company dined at rue Royale and, impressed, asked her to supply a cold picnic for the participants in the company's car rally. The event was a success, and he invited Brazier to go to Paris every year to cook the firm's annual banquet for around 200 people.^[34] Among the dishes she provided were the quenelles and Fillioux's chicken dish with which Brazier's name became associated. According to the historian André Mure, "The whole world now marched to her place … for the great specialities with which her teacher had triumphed".^[33] By the late 1920s chefs elsewhere in France were offering La poularde pochée à la façon de la Brazier (Poached chicken in the Brazier style).^[35]

Brazier had a reputation for being demanding about the quality of her ingredients; her chicken supplier once joked that soon he would be expected to give the birds manicures before she would accept them.^[36] She was equally particular about cleanliness, emptying storage areas daily for cleaning.^[36] She hated waste, and would create staff dinners from trimmings and save anything left on diners' plates to feed her pigs.^[36] Her menu changed as required by seasonal availability. When there were few vegetables, she served a macaroni gratin with Gruyère cheese.^[37] The writer Joseph Wechsberg remembered her as "a formidable woman with a voice like a foghorn, rough language, and strong forearms".^[38] With regular customers she was known to take matters into her own hands: one recalled her telling him, "Mon petit, yesterday, you had the poule demi-deuil; tonight you'll have a quenelle!"^[39]

Col de la Luère

By the end of the 1920s Brazier was exhausted from the effort of building up her restaurant. She left her son, Gaston, in charge and retired temporarily to an old wooden chalet in the foothills of the Massif Central at Col de la Luère, Pollionnay, 17 kilometres (11 miles) from Lyon, and, in the words of the food writer Elizabeth David, "high above its notorious fogs and damp".^[34][40] As she started to feel better she began making light lunches for former customers that came to visit her, and gradually built up a second restaurant.^[41] The Restaurant Mère Brazier, Col de la Luère became the rural outpost of the Lyon original. Remembering the restaurant after Brazier's death, David described it:

In 1932 Brazier was awarded two stars in the Michelin Guide for each of her two restaurants. The following year, when the guide introduced three-star ratings for the first time, Brazier was the first chef to be awarded six stars, both her restaurants being rated of three-star quality.^{[1][n 5]} No other restaurateur was awarded this for another sixty-four years.^{[1][n 6]}

War and post-war

Among Brazier's well-known customers was Édouard Herriot, mayor of Lyon and three times prime minister of France, who said, "She does more than I do to make the city famous."^[1] As an enemy of the Nazis and the puppet Vichy government, he was imprisoned during much of the Second World War,^[46] and under his collaborateur replacement Brazier fell foul of the authorities.^[47] She refused to compromise her standards and was repeatedly fined, and on one occasion imprisoned for a week, for breaching the Nazi occupiers' regulations about food rationing.^[41] In 1941 the regime ordered the closure of the rue Royale restaurant for buying food without the requisite authorisation.^[47]

When the war ended, Brazier held a celebratory feast at the Col for a large number of people from Lyon. She hired a band and a clown and her guests sang La Marseillaise during the banquet.^[36] The two establishments were restored to their pre-war eminence. From 1946 Brazier left Gaston in control of the rue Royal restaurant, where he, his wife, and later their daughter continued Brazier's traditions.^[1] Brazier concentrated her efforts on the Col de la Luère.^[1] Among the young chefs who learned their craft there were Paul Bocuse and Bernard Pacaud. Both contributed forewords paying tribute to their mentor in editions of her posthumously published recipe book, Les secrets de la Mère Brazier.^[48] Brazier's second-in-command at the Col de la Luère was Roger Garnier, husband of Odette, Brazier's niece; he was chef there for 20 years.^[49] Every February, accompanied by the Garniers, Brazier made what Drew Smith, in a biographical sketch, calls "note-gathering field trips" to other top restaurants in France, including Fernand Point's La Pyramide, Maison Pic and others.^[49]

The Michelin Guide reputations of the Col de la Luère establishment varied. The restaurant lost one of its three stars in 1960,^[44] Brazier resumed personal direction of the kitchen and three stars were restored in 1963.^[50] The third star was again withdrawn in 1968, when Brazier retired.^[51]

In 1968, aged 72, Brazier handed over to Gaston. In 1971 Jacotte Brazier, his daughter, joined the restaurant in the rue Royale, and succeeded him after his death in 1974.^[1] Brazier turned down the Légion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit, both military and civil, saying that it "should be given out for doing more important things than cooking well and doing the job as you're supposed to".^[52][53]

Brazier died on 2 March 1977 at the age of 81.^[1] The restaurant at Col de la Luère closed, but the rue Royale establishment continued under Jacotte until 2004. In 2008 the Michelin-starred chef Mathieu Viannay bought the restaurant, retaining its name, restoring the 1930s décor and featuring Brazier classics such as the volaille demi-deuil on the menu along with new dishes.^[1][54]