Discovering Julia Child--Again!

TV icon, cookbook author reclaims center stage in new film, TV series--and our hearts

I wasn’t a huge Julia Child fan as a kid. I don’t remember paying any attention when my mother became besotted with Julia’s groundbreaking Mastering the Art of French Cooking (co-written with Simon Beck and Louisette Bertholle), and metamorphosed into a much improved cook. Nor did I tune in to see The French Chef, her pioneering cooking show on PBS—and I doubt my mother did either. She wasn’t much of a TV watcher.

Julia Child—from the film “Julia” from Sony Pictures Classics.

At the time, my relationship to cooking mostly centered around eating—namely trying to sneak scraps or spoonfuls of whatever my mother was making—whether strudel dough or beef stew. How she made it held little interest for me, nor did I take much note of the small collection of cookbooks on a lower kitchen shelf—a mix of old classics like The Settlement Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking, plus a few slender volumes on Jewish cookery.

My mother’s well-thumbed 1967 copy of the classic that became a game changer for many American housewives (and others!).

When these volumes passed into my hands after my mother’s death in 1999, they included her copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking from Alfred A. Knopf, 15th printing, 1967. It ended up squeezed in among many other cookbooks in my pantry closet, gathering dust next to a book about vegan desserts. Julia Child might be Mom’s kitchen guru, but she wasn't going to be mine.

If I’d bothered to open Mastering, I might have noticed the stained pages with recipes my mother had attempted (and pulled off!), like Gratin Jurassien (Scalloped Potatoes with Heavy Cream and Cheese) or Crème Reversée au Caramel (Caramel Custard, Unmolded).

Fast forward to 2022. The food blogosphere began buzzing with talk of a new HBO Max series about how Julia Child revolutionized television—and American cookery—in the 1960s. It starred English actress Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax), with David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) as her supportive husband Paul.

Once I tuned in, it was impossible not to get hooked. I watched all eight episodes with delight and was excited to learn there will be a second season! Lancashire embodies the forceful personality, voice and joie de vivre (and joie de cuisiner) of Julia as she charms and cooks her way into the macho hearts of the powers that be at WGBH, the Boston PBS station that first aired The French Chef as a pilot in 1962.

Then, as if we can’t get enough of Julia (we can’t!), here comes Julia, the Sony Pictures Classics film about her life, from Julie Cohen and Betsy West, directors of RBG, the terrific Academy Award-nominated documentary about another unforgettable woman, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Watching the fearless Julia Child, apparently unfazed by any obstacle, be it man, woman, fish or fowl, is empowering. Basically, she was telling the American woman of the 1960s and ‘70s that if she, Julia Child, could make these complicated French dishes, well then so could we! And if we could do that, well then, what couldn't we do?

Julia Child posing with “The Chicken Sisters” before an episode of “The French Chef” in which she gives us a lesson on how to roast the bird. (Photo Courtesy of Paul Child/PBS)

As she flips a potato dish right out of the pan and renames it after it falls apart, we can’t help but feel better about our own kitchen inadequacies.

“Cooking is one failure after another—and that’s how you finally learn,” she assures us.

In the documentary, Julia makes it look so easy—yet the dishes are glamorous, sensual, over-the-top, a bit like the 6-foot-2 Julia herself. You can’t take your eyes off those amazing pears swirling round and round in red wine. “Can food be X-rated?” I wonder.

Pears poaching in red wine, from the film “Julia.”

Apparently it can. “Everything is totally sexual on the table,” comments one friend of Julia’s.

Julia arrived on the scene at a time when, as Barbara Fairchild, the former editor of Bon Appétit magazine, points out in the film, “American food was focused on convenience foods, frozen and canned items that were all advertised as a great way to save time.”

“No more than 25 minutes to serve a meal that rivals real home cooking,” crows the male voiceover in an ad showing a perfectly coiffed woman serving Swanson’s frozen TV dinners to her smiling family.

Saving time was not in Julia Child’s wheelhouse, but The French Chef made it look possible for home cooks to follow in her footsteps—and, if they did break a sweat, as she often did as the cameras rolled, the results would certainly make it all worthwhile.

In Julia’s world, failure is not only an option—it’s inevitable.

“Some people would accuse me of doing things purposely, but anyone who’s been in the kitchen knows that awful things happen all the time,” she tells us. “You just have to make do with whatever happens.”

Julia with her supportive husband, Paul Child, apparently quite the cocktail maker. She always said they were a team and that he was key to her success. (Credit: Lee Lockwood/Getty Images)

Maybe it’s this philosophy and Julia’s general unflappability in a time of fear and uncertainty that makes her someone we want to turn to at this fraught moment in history. The world itself seems to be falling apart, with so much that overwhelms us—a senseless war, a deadly pandemic, horrific gun violence, social strife and political division.

And then we rediscover this very entertaining woman who finds great joy in the simple act of creating delicious things in the kitchen. The images of her may be 50 or 60 years old, but they’re still fresh and inspiring. While sophisticated, delicious cooking may not solve the world’s problems, it does feed our souls—and our bellies.

For some of us, the kitchen has become our safe space, where we feel a measure of control, even when the unexpected happens. The other day, I did the thing I always feared I would do—I dropped my iPhone in a hot peach custard tart fresh out of the oven while taking an overhead shot. I fished it out immediately and the phone was no worse for wear, just a bit sticky around the edges. The tart wasn’t quite as pretty, but still delicious.

We made do, and I baked another tart—apple this time with an almond-flavored base. (The recipe for French Apple Tart is from King Arthur Baking, not Julia Child, but it’s fairly close to some of her recipes).

Now, inspired by the two Julia shows, I finally pulled my mother’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking out of storage. I think I’m going to try making Julia’s version, Tarte aux Pommes, or possibly the Tarte aux Poires à Bourdaloue—made from those glorious pears in red wine sauce!

Have you watched either or both of the Julia shows? Do you cook from Mastering—or any of her cookbooks? If so, what’s your favorite recipe? Please let me know in the comments.

Bon Appetit!

A French Apple Tart made after dropping my iPhone into my previous effort. Julia Child would have understood! This recipe is from King Arthur Flour.

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Afterwords

For those of you who want another point of view on Julia Child, the very talented Jolene of Time Travel Kitchen did an excellent Q&A with Sara Moulton of PBS’s Sara’s Weeknight Meals and Milk Street that covers Sara’s gig as a food stylist for Julia Child, as well as Sara’s later years at Gourmet magazine and the Food Network. You can find it here.

I had a few requests to see more photographic work by my aunt, Gerda Mathan, whom I wrote about last week (here’s the link in case you missed it). Sadly, I don’t have a lot of Gerda’s work. Much of it is in private collections, and some is held by the Oakland Museum of California.

In 1981, she created a book documenting the last two years of a Russian immigrant in his 90s, written in collaboration with his niece, a colleague of my aunt’s. It’s called Valentina’s Uncle: Portrait of an Old Man. My aunt saw the old man as an “Everyman,” and his nieces and nephews as part of the “Every-Family.” The book, which was excerpted in Reader’s Digest, is still available.

One of my favorite Gerda pictures is taken from the corner living room window of her Berkeley hills home, with late afternoon light pouring through the trees and spilling onto a table with a vase of flowers and a hat. It feels as though Gerda will be back at any moment.

Original photo by Gerda S. Mathan

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