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The
Rant
January 1, 2005
A Tribute to Julia
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Julia Child, 1912 – 2004 |
A friend of mine passed away recently. She didn’t know she was my friend. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know me from Adam. Julia Child died in her sleep of kidney failure at the age of ninety-one, just a few days shy of her ninety-second birthday. She came into the world Julia McWilliams in Pasadena, California in 1912 and passed on in 2004, on the California coast in a little place called Montecito, just outside Santa Barbara.
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Julia Child, teacher |
If I were not interested in food and cooking I wouldn’t have given her passing a second thought. To me she would just have been this funny old gal from television who had a voice that made me laugh every time I heard her say, “Bon Appetit!” I would have said, “Oh well, too bad. The old girl had a good run.” However, as many of you know, I am not indifferent when it comes to food and cooking. That’s why Julia Child was like a friend to me. I became a huge fan of hers from the beginning. I remember watching her on television in my Aunt Evelyn’s den in Smithtown, New York in 1966. I have watched her programs, when possible, ever since. She taught me how to make omelets, beef bourguignon, coq au vin, and a host of other wonderful dishes. Why, just the other day I made a chicken dish for company that I learned from watching Julia on the old French Chef series she made for PBS. I’ve been making it for years. It’s a lovely, rich meal with lots of tarragon and mushrooms. I remember scratching down the recipe as fast as I could while watching her show and also making as many notes as I could about her technique. That’s why, when I heard about her death I felt quite sad, like when you lose a friend, or, a teacher you were really fond of.
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Julia, before WW II |
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The French Chef on PBS |
Julia’s interest in good food and cooking came late. She was in her thirties. During World War Two, while serving with the forerunner of the C.I.A., the O.S.S. (in a clerical job), Julia met Paul Child on the porch of a tea planter’s bungalow in Ceylon. He was an O.S.S. officer who later worked for the U.S. Information Agency. (In retirement he became a fairly decent photographer and oil painter.) They married in 1946 and set off to live a charmed life in many parts of the world. They lived in places like France and Scandinavia. It was in France that a culinary epiphany happened.
Paul and Julia were dining out, having just arrived in France, and after tasting her first two or three mouthfuls of food she realized that she was having an extraordinary experience. It was in Rouen, France. The meal consisted of oysters on the half-shell, sole meuniere, and a green salad, accompanied by a chilled bottle of white wine (Pouilly- Fuisse). She knew from that moment on that food could be prepared in such a way as to make it sublime. It motivated her to find out how this was done. So, in 1946 she enrolled as a cooking student at the male-dominated Cordon Bleu in Paris. Her instructors had their doubts at first, but she held her own and eventually gained their respect.
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Paul and Julia Child |
While in France Julia met Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck with whom she began a cooking school, and over a period of nine years they, together, wrote the classic called, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The book was published in 1961 and became a huge success. This was partly due to the fact that America at that time was becoming very interested in French cooking because of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. Jacqueline Kennedy spoke French fluently and with the help of her father-in-law, Joseph Kennedy, had hired a French chef, Rene Verdon, to cook for them in the White House. A second volume of Mastering the Art came not long afterward, this time authored by Julia Child and Simone Beck.
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Mastering the Art of French Cooking |
In 1962 Julia made a television career inevitable when she performed a quick cooking sketch on a local PBS show in Boston. Her friend and director of practically all her PBS shows, Russell Morash, was quoted as saying that Julia “was spontaneous from the outset, a natural television talent…very relaxed but very professional." Indeed she was. PBS gave her a series and called it, appropriately, The French Chef. Soon afterward America and cooking students everywhere had a new star.
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Julia, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck, Max Bugnard |
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Julia Child in her Cambridge, Mass, kitchen |
Julia went on to make many more television series and to write many more books, (including her masterwork, The Way to Cook in 1989), and also to win a Peabody award and three Emmys. On November 25, 1966 she appeared on the cover of Time. She also received three decorations from the French government, six honorary degrees from U.S. universities, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the United States of America, awarded her by President George W. Bush on July 23, 2003.
Without a doubt, she leaves a large legacy, including the American Institute of Food and Wine, which she co-founded in San Francisco in 1981. It, perhaps more than anything else, was close to her heart, and she spent many hours during her later years working tirelessly on behalf of that organization.
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Time magazine, Nov. 25, 1966 |
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“Au revoir Julia.” |
Foodies like me will miss her very much, but I think all of us will in some measure. How could we not? She was like our cheerful granny, someone who was always there with a kind word or a piece of pie to make everything okay.
I’ll leave you with a favorite quote of mine; it’s something she said in the introduction to volume one of her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It sums up her feelings about food pretty well.
“ The pleasures of the table – that lovely old-fashioned phrase – depict food as an art form, as a delightful part of civilized life. In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal.”
Well said Julia…au revoir.
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