Peter Kump

Peter Kump (1937 – June 7, 1995) was a prominent American figure in the culinary arts, founder of Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School and the James Beard Foundation.

Kump was born in Fresno, California in 1937. In 1953, his family relocated to Switzerland. He received a bachelor's degree in speech and drama from Stanford University and a master's degree in fine arts from Carnegie Mellon University.

Initially, his career was based in education, teaching speed reading at Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute in Pittsburgh and members of President Richard M. Nixon's staff in the mid-1960s. He moved to New York City in 1967, becoming the national director of education for Evelyn Wood.

His involvement in the culinary world began with cooking classes at James Beard's culinary school, taking classes from Beard, Diana Kennedy, Simone Beck, and Marcella Hazan. The classes prompted him to open his own cooking school, Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, in 1974. In 1979, the school was relocated from his apartment to 307 West 92nd Street. A few days before his death, Kump sold the school to Rick Smilow who moved it to 23rd Street, opening a few months later. In 2001, Smilow renamed the school The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE).

In the mid-1980s, Kump was president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and the New York Association of Cooking Teachers.

In 1985, he co-founded the James Beard Foundation with Julia Child after arranging the purchase for Beard’s Greenwich Village brownstone after his death, converting it to the headquarters of the culinary arts organization. In 1991, he worked with the Foundation to establish the James Beard Awards. He was the president of the foundation until his death in 1995.

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