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Nora Pouillon
Nora Pouillon (born October 26, 1943) is an Austrian chef, restaurateur, and author. She was the owner of Restaurant Nora in Washington, D.C., famous for its status as America's first certified organic restaurant.
Pouillon was born in Vienna, Austria during World War II. Pouillon's family was affluent and owned a safety glass window factory. They were able to flee Vienna in the last years of the war. The family's refuge was a farm owned by family and friends in the Tyrolean Alps. Of this time, Pouillon says: “There, the farmers grew all of their food. It taught me how difficult that truly is. They got up with the sun and worked until sunset. They had to prepare food for the winter months. There was no electricity and no running water."
After the war, Pouillon and her family returned to Vienna, where she attended boarding school. Pouillon would continue to spend summers at the farm with her grandmother.
In the 1960s, Pouillon moved to the United States with her husband, a French journalist. This move highlighted the stark contrast between European food, farm, and open-air market cultures versus the supermarket culture of America post-World War II. “At the stores here it was amazing to see all the prepackaged and frozen food. Nothing depended on the season. Pepperidge Farm was like gourmet bread. The produce department was the smallest section in the store.”
As the mother of young children in the 1960s and 1970s, Pouillon did daily shopping and cooking for her family. This time coincided with the modern emergence of food cooperatives in the 1960s providing alternative, organic and whole food options to traditional chain grocery stores and food processing.
I started to look for ethnic markets where I could find French bread, good olive oil and cheeses. It was the hippie time and co-ops were forming, which had better products; I cooked at home using these ingredients. I started driving to nearby farms in search of quality products. We had no money at the time and it was an epicurean wasteland in DC then, with only one or two good restaurants. I got really into cooking and we entertained a lot because it was the best way to have social time, given the circumstances.
Pouillon soon had several home-based businesses in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood where she hosted and taught cooking classes, and ran a casual catering service.
The turning point in Nora's culinary career came in the mid-1970s, when one of her students asked if she was interested in opening the first restaurant inside the historic Tabard Inn. She developed a following serving locally-sourced tomatoes and house-made mayonnaise, and began making plans to open her own restaurant.
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Nora Pouillon
Nora Pouillon (born October 26, 1943) is an Austrian chef, restaurateur, and author. She was the owner of Restaurant Nora in Washington, D.C., famous for its status as America's first certified organic restaurant.
Pouillon was born in Vienna, Austria during World War II. Pouillon's family was affluent and owned a safety glass window factory. They were able to flee Vienna in the last years of the war. The family's refuge was a farm owned by family and friends in the Tyrolean Alps. Of this time, Pouillon says: “There, the farmers grew all of their food. It taught me how difficult that truly is. They got up with the sun and worked until sunset. They had to prepare food for the winter months. There was no electricity and no running water."
After the war, Pouillon and her family returned to Vienna, where she attended boarding school. Pouillon would continue to spend summers at the farm with her grandmother.
In the 1960s, Pouillon moved to the United States with her husband, a French journalist. This move highlighted the stark contrast between European food, farm, and open-air market cultures versus the supermarket culture of America post-World War II. “At the stores here it was amazing to see all the prepackaged and frozen food. Nothing depended on the season. Pepperidge Farm was like gourmet bread. The produce department was the smallest section in the store.”
As the mother of young children in the 1960s and 1970s, Pouillon did daily shopping and cooking for her family. This time coincided with the modern emergence of food cooperatives in the 1960s providing alternative, organic and whole food options to traditional chain grocery stores and food processing.
I started to look for ethnic markets where I could find French bread, good olive oil and cheeses. It was the hippie time and co-ops were forming, which had better products; I cooked at home using these ingredients. I started driving to nearby farms in search of quality products. We had no money at the time and it was an epicurean wasteland in DC then, with only one or two good restaurants. I got really into cooking and we entertained a lot because it was the best way to have social time, given the circumstances.
Pouillon soon had several home-based businesses in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood where she hosted and taught cooking classes, and ran a casual catering service.
The turning point in Nora's culinary career came in the mid-1970s, when one of her students asked if she was interested in opening the first restaurant inside the historic Tabard Inn. She developed a following serving locally-sourced tomatoes and house-made mayonnaise, and began making plans to open her own restaurant.