Celebrity Chefs (USPO) stamp subjects

Celebrity Chefs stamp subjects revealed: Beard, Child, Chen, Lewis, Rojas-Lombardi

Five celebrity chefs will be honored Sept. 26 with a set of United States stamps: James Beard, Julia Child, Joyce Chen, Edna Lewis and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi.
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The only one on this list I knew nothing of: Felipe Rojas-Lombardi.

Regards,

Interesting list; same reaction--never heard of Rojas-Lombardi.

Gypsy Boy wrote:Interesting list; same reaction--never heard of Rojas-Lombardi.

I also question including Joyce Chen among such names as Beard, Child and Lewis. I guess it's important to be PC in the world of philatelists.

Hi,

I happen to have a few Joyce Chen cookbooks I have used. She was a friend of Craig Claiborne.

I have a feeling Joyce Chen and Rojas-Lombardi met some desire for diversity.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:
I have a feeling Joyce Chen and Rojas-Lombardi met some desire for diversity.

Regards,

I agree. If they were awarding stamps on merit, I'd rather see Fuchsia Dunlop filling the Asian spot. Of course, I suppose the inventor of the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet deserves a stamp in the bazarro universe we seem to be living in.

stevez wrote: If they were awarding stamps on merit, I'd rather see Diane Kennedy filling the Asian spot.

I'm confused. Filling a Mexican spot in place of an Asian spot?

Katie wrote:

stevez wrote: If they were awarding stamps on merit, I'd rather see Diane Kennedy filling the Asian spot.

I'm confused. Filling a Mexican spot in place of an Asian spot?

Er...I meant to type Fuchsia Dunlop (now corrected in original post), but I guess I had Mexican on my mind. Thinking it through even further, Fuchsia is English, not American, so I guess she's out, too. I begin to see the dilemma of the USPS...

stevez wrote:

Gypsy Boy wrote:Interesting list; same reaction--never heard of Rojas-Lombardi.

I also question including Joyce Chen among such names as Beard, Child and Lewis. I guess it's important to be PC in the world of philatelists.

In my spare time volunteering at the Postal History Foundation in Tucson, we often discuss the subjects of US stamps. Most of the volunteers are older, have collected stamps for years, have advanced degrees and the like. However, there are a lot of stamps issued honoring people that few people are familiar. Looking up some of the people on Wikipedia on my smartphone has actually resolved a few arguments.

If you look at the stamps issued over the last 30 years, you will see that minorities are well represented.

The USPS is very PC.

While I can't speak to the diversity proclivities of the USPS--they seem to have their hands full just getting stuff delivered in a timely manner--I will speak up for Joyce Chen. Though I do not own any of her books, her name used to be far more prominent back when Chinese was far more exotic than it is today. She was quite prominent, especially in the 60s and early 70s. While I wouldn't argue that she would be the absolute best choice for Chinese or Asian, her selection does make a good bit of sense. In that regard, Ken Hom (raised in Chicago, incidentally) would be another potential candidate; his books have won many awards. Or even Grace Chu. They were all among the cookbook writers who helped popularize the cuisine.

Rojas-Lombardi, by the way, is a real off-the-wall pick, it seems. He died in 1991 at the age of only 46. According to the NYT obit, he was a "Peruvian-born chef who helped bring a Spanish and Caribbean influence into America's haute cuisine repertory.... In 1967, he moved to New York City and worked as the assistant to James Beard in his Greenwich Village cooking school. He was the founding chef of Dean & Deluca gourmet food store and was named America's Bicentennial chef in 1976, the same year he became an American citizen."

Who knew?