Watch a Professor Trace the History of the Celebrity Chef

Here's a video of Yale history professor Paul Freedman explaining the culture and history of celebrity chefs at this year's MAD 4 conference in Copenhagen. Freedman spends nearly 23 minutes tracing the lineage of the concept of a celebrity chef all the way back to the Greek empire (Miticus of Syracuse, praised by the philosopher Plato). He offers up fascinating stories of chefs who made names for themselves by working under European kings and traces the fame line to our present day, in which legendary French chef Paul Bocuse, farm-to-table champion Alice Waters, and Brazil's Alex Atala have made their names. Go, watch:

Video: Celebrity Chefs, Past and Present

· Celebrity Chefs, Past and Present [Vimeo]
· All MAD 4 Coverage on Eater [-E-]