Thank you, from the BaitShop Boyz! |
Great Article On Julia Child |
Post Reply |
Author | |
rivet
Left BSB in Disgrace Joined: 13 May 2009 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1017 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Posted: 28 October 2009 at 06:52 |
The
Special Spice of Julia's Kitchen By Tom Sietsema "Red meat and
gin!" Julia Child would tell people who asked for her recipe for
well-being, in a high, warbling voice that was once described as capable of
"making an aspic shimmy." In the end, though,
early Friday morning, the woman who taught generations of Americans how to
master the art of French cooking -- and have fun doing it -- spooned into
something gently ironic: French onion soup. Her final meal had been made from
scratch by her longtime assistant, using one of the food legend's own recipes. Julia. Gone, and
just two days shy of her 92nd birthday. There aren't many people who are
instantly recognized by just one name, but she was one of them, right up there
with Babe, Elvis and Marilyn. She was a giant in her field and in person, a
towering 6-feet-2 woman who slipped into size 12 sneakers. As no small measure
of her place in the hearts, minds and stomachs of Americans, after she vacated
her home in Cambridge, Mass., in 2001, her entire kitchen was painstakingly
taken apart (junk drawer contents and refrigerator magnets included) and
rebuilt for display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Raised in Pasadena,
Calif., Child didn't grow up in a home that cared much about food (a maid
prepared meals), and it wasn't until she found herself in postwar Paris, with
her husband Paul, that she mustered any real enthusiasm for what would become
her passion. Some classes at Le Cordon Bleu, the world-famous cooking school,
led to an introduction in 1952 to Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with
whom Child opened a small cooking school and assembled many recipes into book
form. "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" was the result of the
trio's collaboration. It took a decade to put together but became an instant
hit when it came out in 1961. Writing in the New York Times, food critic Craig
Claiborne referenced it as "probably the most comprehensive, laudable and
monumental work" on French cuisine then in existence. Propelled to fame
on Boston public TV beginning in 1963, Child wasn't the first person to pick up
a knife and tell us on camera how to slice an onion or debone a chicken. But
she was definitely the most entertaining. Remember the show where she flipped
an omelet and it splattered on the stove? "Well, that
didn't go very well," she told viewers as she scraped up the mess and
returned it to the pan. "But you can always pick it up if you're alone.
Who's going to see?" She never tried
to be funny, she simply was funny. During another
program, the bell of a freight elevator went off in the background of the
studio. "That must be the plumber," Child said, looking into the
camera. "It's about time he got here!" In the early years, the budget
was a mere $50 per show -- not including groceries. Her husband helped wash
dishes, and the cameras kept rolling even if the star made a mistake. (Contrary
to popular myth, Child claimed never to have dropped a chicken on tape.) Child replaced
people's fear of cooking with a sense of delight and adventure. She and the
still-nascent medium of television were made for each other. As Laura Shapiro
explained in "Something From the Oven," a history of postwar cooking
in America, "Child had a charisma that blossomed with remarkable grandeur
on screen, turning her into an authority figure who defied all the imagery the
food industry had been promoting for decades." Far from old-fashioned or
snooty, "she believed anybody could cook with distinction from scratch,
and that's what she was out to prove." Her sense of humor
was matched by her attention to detail. Child spent a full two years
investigating the secret to a proper (slightly sour and crusty) French bread:
"It's the folding," she reported to her editor, Judith Jones, at
Knopf. "It's all in the forming of the loaf!" Totally organized, she
routinely spent up to 19 hours preparing for each 30-minute show. With Julia, there was
never an agenda. "Everything you saw was what she was," says
Stephanie Hersh, Child's right-hand woman for the past 16 years. "The
public persona was the private persona." Even after she
became a household name, the grand dame of cooking kept her Cambridge number
listed in the phone directory. "She talked to everybody," Shapiro
recalls. Child's nephew, David McWilliams, remembers dinners in his aunt's home
interrupted by calls from strangers whose own meals were heading south.
"My souffle is falling!" one cried. "Don't worry, dear,"
Julia would reassure -- then tell them how to repair the thing. She was as
democratic as they come. As a novice food editor in Milwaukee, I remember
getting a call from a hostess who had been asked to reserve a hotel room for
Child for a charitable event she was attending. The organizer was panicked
about finding something regal enough, but when I called Child's secretary to
find out what the legend preferred, I was told: "As long as the place has
a good bar and a good burger, Julia will be happy." This from the woman
who took haute cuisine and demystified it for the meat-and-potatoes masses. Child had strong
opinions and wasn't afraid to voice them. She loved Chinese food, anything with
lots of butter and cream and things that looked like what they were supposed to
be. Above all, she liked "honest food" -- simple, good cooking. Years
ago, on a road trip with some gal pals, and armed with chicken sandwiches from
home, she asked her companions to stop at a McDonald's. To the amazement of
everyone in the restaurant, she ordered several bags of French fries and
proceeded to eat them, with her sandwiches, in the dining room. On the other hand,
she detested undercooked vegetables ("crunchily underdone," she
called them), cilantro, vertical food and anyone who tried to take the pleasure
out of eating. She had this to say about the low-fat craze: "It's not
food, it's a process." Of the contemporary
food scene, she was thrilled to see "educated people going into the
business," but disappointed whenever she found someone who thought cooking
was too much work. "If you want to learn a backhand in tennis, you learn
how to do it, or if you're going to sail, you learn how to do it," she
once told me in an interview. "Cooking should be exactly the same way. The
more you know, the more pleasure you get out of it." Child was modest
about her status. "I'm not a chef," she always said. "I'm a cook
and a teacher." One of the reasons her television program debuted as
"The French Chef," aside from the fact she would be cooking French
recipes, was because the title was brief. "So it would fit in the TV
Guide." Even in her later
years, she thought she had much to learn. "That's the interesting part of
being in the food business," she told me years ago. "You never know
enough. I'd like to be a butcher, for instance." She also thought she
should know more about dessert-making, particularly the detail involved in
patisserie, although she admitted, "I'd rather spend my money, or
calories, on the main course." The end, at Child's
residence in Montecito, Calif., with its view of citrus and fig trees, came
quietly, just as Julia wanted it, said Hersh. "Julia died peacefully and
comfortably in bed, with her cat, Minou." "Bon
appétit!" was how Child ended many of her shows. Now, for her many
fans, it's those two words -- simple and honest -- that leave us with a recipe
to remember. © 2004 The Washington Post
Company
|
|
FIRE IS OUR FRIEND!
|
|
Post Reply | |
Tweet
|
Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |