In July 1917, Mona Chalmers Watson was named the first Chief Controller of Britain’s Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) when it was formed. The thousands of WAACs worked as cooks and waitresses, clerks, communications operators, drivers, and more. She was already noteworthy as a suffragist, physician, and the first woman to receive her MD from the University of Edinburgh.
Walmatjarri elder, community activist, and blues and gospel singer-songwriter
Indian actress and chef
Long after her 2013 death, her legacy lives on in the recipes that younger generations of cooks continue to live—and eat—by.
1800s Jamaican nurse and businesswoman
American bodybuilder
Grace Zia Chu is credited with introducing countless Americans to Chinese cooking and cuisine through her popular books The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking (1962) and Madame Chu’s Chinese Cooking School (1975).
Mexican educator, writer and feminist Rita Cetina y Gutierrez advocated for women’s education in Mérida, Yucatán.
German primatologist
Mexican-American chef