This Woman’s Place Is in Her Kitchen

NIEDERMORSCHWIHR, Franceâ€"It is definitely not a man’s world in the Maison Ferber kitchen in Alsace.

Though the company was created by Maurice Ferber in 1959, the staff is now predominantly female, including Maurice’s eldest daughter Christine, who runs the show, and has some strong thoughts on the difference between women and men in the kitchen.

Ms. Ferber, 53, is known as the “Jam Fairy.” She was born and raised in the house in which she now runs her pâtisserie, jam-making business and catering service.

“When I started working with my father nobody knew us,” she said. “Sometimes we would even give away our products.”

Today, her jam is found in some of the top hotels in the world, including the Four Seasons in Hong Kong, the Georges V in Paris and the Connaught in London, and at the Grande Epicerie in the Bon Marché, the Parisian department store.

Being female in a French kitchen isn’t the easiest of rides. By the age of 15, Ms. Ferber realized that to training seriously she would have to become an apprentice. At the time there weren’t any women apprentices in Alsace.

“I knew that if I wanted to learn, I had to leave,” she said. She went to Brussels, and then Paris where she trained with the renowned pâtissier Lucien Pelletier.

But “I missed my hometown,” she said. “It’s important to me to stay in this town. If people want to buy Christine Ferber products in our shop, then they have to travel to Niedermorschwihr.”

At 18, she joined her father’s kitchen. She started making jam, but her father wasn’t too keen on the idea.

“Jam is a very feminine process,” she explained. “It demands care and patience, qualities men don’t often have.”

Ms. Ferber still fills each jam-pot herself. She loves everything about the process, even tying the little white bows that complete the product.

Her jam’s success convinced her father that his daughter’s idea was a good one. “He let me continue,” she said, “but in very small quantities, in a corner of the kitchen.” That corner in the kitchen is what turned her father’s local business into a global enterprise with annual revenue of more than 2 million euros, about $2.6 million.

Ms. Ferber wakes up around 4 a.m., and is never back home before 9 p.m. She doesn’t have a press officer, not even a business card. Her kind persona, her passion, and her dedication draws people to her. Though she has no children, there is something very motherly about her interactions with her friends and even her apprentices.

On the weekend before Easter, a woman walked into the store asking for a specific chocolate egg she bought last year that she didn’t see in the window, with photographic evidence on her smartphone. A perplexed sales assistant went back into the kitchen and showed Ms. Ferber the photo. “Oh yes I remember! No we didn’t do any of those this year, but if she comes back later today, I can make her one,” she said.

Ms. Ferber contends that women have a different approach to cooking than men. “We have a certain generosity in the kitchen, a desire to make people happy, that few men understand or have.”

A lot of male chefs create something for it to be enjoyed of course, but also for them to be recognized for creating it, she said. For her “the most important recognition is when someone comes back for more.”

Do you think there is a difference between the way men and women cook, professionally or at home? If there is a difference, is it particular to France or more universal?