Category: 

Culinary Arts

Tags: 

Chef, Cook

Vera Beck

Cleveland, Ohio | 1919-Present

Beck left Athens in 1955 in search of better opportunity. After landing in Cleveland, Ohio, she became the test kitchen chef for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. Beck went on to work with some of the biggest chefs in the world and developed a loyal following in Cleveland.
Beck got her start at a laundromat before working at cafeterias in Cleveland. She took a food preparation course at Stouffer Foods and in 1975, took a job at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. While there, she started in the newspaper’s cafeterias and became a cook for its test kitchen, eventually retiring as the head of the kitchen. During her time at the paper, she shared her recipes with readers that featured fried chicken, black-eyed peas, barbecue, peach cobbler, cornbread and chitlins. Toni Tipton-Martin would later become the newspaper’s food editor after Beck. Beck retired from the Plain Dealer in 1994 and passed away in 2002.

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