Julia Child

Julia Child

1988 portrait of Julia Child by Elsa Dorfman
Born Julia Carolyn McWilliams
(1912-08-15)August 15, 1912
Pasadena, California, U.S.
Died August 13, 2004(2004-08-13) (aged 91)
Montecito, California, U.S.
Cause of death Kidney failure
Education Smith College
B.A. English 1934
Le Cordon Bleu
Le Grand Diplôme
Spouse(s) Paul Cushing Child
(1946–1994; his death)

Culinary career

Cooking style French

Julia Carolyn Child (maiden name, McWilliams;[1] August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963.

Childhood and education

Child was born Julia Carolyn McWilliams in Pasadena, California, the daughter of John McWilliams, Jr., a Princeton University graduate and prominent land manager, and his wife, the former Julia Carolyn ("Caro") Weston, a paper-company heiress whose father, Byron Curtis Weston, served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. The eldest[2] of three children, she had a brother, John III (1914–2002), and a sister, Dorothy Dean Cousins (1917–2006).

Child attended Westridge School, Polytechnic School from fourth grade to ninth grade, then the Katherine Branson School in Ross, California, which was at the time a boarding school.[3] At six feet, two inches (1.88 m) tall, Child played tennis, golf, and basketball as a child and continued to play sports while attending Smith College, from which she graduated in 1934 with a major in English.[1] A press release issued by Smith in 2004 states that her major was history.[4]

Following her graduation from college, Child moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter for the advertising department of upscale home-furnishing firm W. & J. Sloane. Returning to California in 1937, she spent the next four years writing for local publications, working in advertising, and volunteering with the Junior League of Pasadena.[5]

World War II

Child joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after finding that she was too tall to enlist in the Women's Army Corps (WACs) or in the U.S. Navy's WAVES.[6] She began her OSS career as a typist at its headquarters in Washington, but because of her education and experience soon was given a more responsible position as a top secret researcher working directly for the head of OSS, General William J. Donovan.[7]

As a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division, she typed 10,000 names on white note cards to keep track of officers. For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment Section (ERES) in Washington, D.C. as a file clerk and then as an assistant to developers of a shark repellent needed to ensure that sharks would not explode ordnance targeting German U-boats. In 1944 she was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where her responsibilities included "registering, cataloging and channeling a great volume of highly classified communications" for the OSS's clandestine stations in Asia.[8] She was later posted to China, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.[9] For her service, Child received an award that cited her many virtues, including her "drive and inherent cheerfulness."[7] As with other OSS records, her file was declassified in 2008, however, unlike other files, her complete file is available online.[10]

While in Ceylon, she met Paul Cushing Child, also an OSS employee, and the two were married September 1, 1946, in Lumberville, Pennsylvania,[11] later moving to Washington, D.C. A New Jersey native[12] who had lived in Paris as an artist and poet, Paul was known for his sophisticated palate,[13] and introduced his wife to fine cuisine. He joined the United States Foreign Service, and in 1948 the couple moved to Paris when the US State Department assigned Paul there as an exhibits officer with the United States Information Agency.[9] The couple had no children.

Post-war France

Child repeatedly recalled her first meal in Rouen as a culinary revelation; once, she described the meal of oysters, sole meunière, and fine wine to The New York Times as "an opening up of the soul and spirit for me." In Paris, she attended the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and later studied privately with Max Bugnard and other master chefs.[14] She joined the women's cooking club Le Cercle des Gourmettes, through which she met Simone Beck, who was writing a French cookbook for Americans with her friend Louisette Bertholle. Beck proposed that Child work with them, to make the book appeal to Americans. In 1951, Child, Beck, and Bertholle began to teach cooking to American women in Child's Paris kitchen, calling their informal school L'école des trois gourmandes (The School of the Three Food Lovers). For the next decade, as the Childs moved around Europe and finally to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three researched and repeatedly tested recipes. Child translated the French into English, making the recipes detailed, interesting, and practical.

In 1963, the Childs built a home near the Provence town of Plascassier in the hills above Cannes on property belonging to co-author Simone Beck and her husband, Jean Fischbacher. The Childs named it "La Pitchoune", a Provençal word meaning "the little one" but over time the property was often affectionately referred to simply as "La Peetch".[15]

Media career

The three would-be authors initially signed a contract with publisher Houghton Mifflin, which later rejected the manuscript for seeming too much like an encyclopedia. Finally, when it was first published in 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf, the 726-page Mastering the Art of French Cooking[16] was a best-seller and received critical acclaim that derived in part from the American interest in French culture in the early 1960s. Lauded for its helpful illustrations and precise attention to detail, and for making fine cuisine accessible, the book is still in print and is considered a seminal culinary work. Following this success, Child wrote magazine articles and a regular column for The Boston Globe newspaper. She would go on to publish nearly twenty titles under her name and with others. Many, though not all, were related to her television shows. Her last book was the autobiographical My Life in France, published posthumously in 2006 and written with her grand nephew, Alex Prud'homme. The book recounts Child's life with her husband, Paul Child, in post-World War II France.

The French Chef and related books

Main article: The French Chef
Julia Child at WGBH

A 1962 appearance on a book review show on the National Educational Television (NET) station of Boston, WGBH, led to the inception of her first television cooking show after viewers enjoyed her demonstration of how to cook an omelette. The French Chef had its debut on February 11, 1963, on WGBH and was immediately successful. The show ran nationally for ten years and won Peabody and Emmy Awards, including the first Emmy award for an educational program. Though she was not the first television cook, Child was the most widely seen. She attracted the broadest audience with her cheery enthusiasm, distinctively charming warbly voice, and unpatronizing and unaffected manner. In 1972, The French Chef became the first television program to be captioned for the deaf, albeit in the preliminary technology of open captioning.

Child's second book, The French Chef Cookbook, was a collection of the recipes she had demonstrated on the show. It was soon followed in 1971 by Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two, again in collaboration with Simone Beck, but not with Louisette Bertholle, with whom the professional relationship had ended. Child's fourth book, From Julia Child's Kitchen, was illustrated with her husband's photographs and documented the color series of The French Chef, as well as providing an extensive library of kitchen notes compiled by Child during the course of the show.

Later career

Julia Child's kitchen at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

In the 1970s and 1980s, she was the star of numerous television programs, including Julia Child & Company, Julia Child & More Company and Dinner at Julia's. For the 1979 book Julia Child and More Company she won a National Book Award in category Current Interest.[17] In 1981 she founded the American Institute of Wine & Food,[18] with vintners Robert Mondavi and Richard Graff, and others, to "advance the understanding, appreciation and quality of wine and food," a pursuit she had already begun with her books and television appearances. In 1989, she published what she considered her magnum opus, a book and instructional video series collectively entitled The Way To Cook.

Child starred in four more series in the 1990s that featured guest chefs: Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, Baking with Julia, and Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home. She collaborated with Jacques Pépin many times for television programs and cookbooks. All of Child's books during this time stemmed from the television series of the same names.

Child's use of ingredients like butter and cream has been questioned by food critics and modern-day nutritionists. She addressed these criticisms throughout her career, predicting that a "fanatical fear of food" would take over the country's dining habits, and that focusing too much on nutrition takes the pleasure from enjoying food.[19][20] In a 1990 interview, Child said, "Everybody is overreacting. If fear of food continues, it will be the death of gastronomy in the United States. Fortunately, the French don't suffer from the same hysteria we do. We should enjoy food and have fun. It is one of the simplest and nicest pleasures in life."[21]

Julia Child's kitchen

Julia Child's kitchen, designed by her husband, was the setting for three of her television shows. It is now on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Beginning with In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, the Childs' home kitchen in Cambridge was fully transformed into a functional set, with TV-quality lighting, three cameras positioned to catch all angles in the room, and a massive center island with a gas stovetop on one side and an electric stovetop on the other, but leaving the rest of the Childs' appliances alone, including "my wall oven with its squeaking door."[22] This kitchen backdrop hosted nearly all of Child's 1990s television series.

Last years and posthumous

Signature of Julia Child

After the death of her beloved friend Simone Beck, Child relinquished La Pitchoune after a month long stay in June 1992 with her family, her niece, Phila, and close friend and biographer, Noël Riley Fitch. She turned the keys over to Jean Fischbacher's sister, just as she and Paul had promised nearly 30 years earlier. Also in 1992, Julia spent five days in Sicily at the invitation of Regaleali Winery. American journalist Bob Spitz spent a brief time with Julia during that period while he was researching and writing his then working title, History of Eating and Cooking in America.

Spitz took notes and made many recordings of his conversation with Child and these later formed the basis of a secondary biography on Child, published August 7, 2012 (Knopf), five days before the centennial of her birthdate.[23][24] Paul Child, who was ten years older than his wife, died in 1994 after living in a nursing home for five years following a series of strokes in 1989.[25]

In 2001, Child moved to a retirement community, donating her house and office to Smith College, which later sold the house.[26] She donated her kitchen, which her husband designed with high counters to accommodate her height, and which served as the set for three of her television series, to the National Museum of American History, where it is now on display.[27] Her iconic copper pots and pans were on display at Copia in Napa, California, until August 2009 when they were reunited with her kitchen at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

The Julia Child Rose cultivar is known for its yellow blooms.

In 2000, Child received the French Legion of Honour[28][29] and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.[30] She was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003; she also received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Johnson & Wales University (1995), Smith College (her alma mater), Brown University (2000),[31] and several other universities.

On August 13, 2004, Julia Child died of kidney failure at her retirement community home, Casa Dorinda, in Montecito, California, two days before her 92nd birthday.[32] Her last meal was French onion soup.[33] Child ended her last book, My Life in France, with "... thinking back on it now reminds that the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite – toujours bon appétit!"[25]

Legacy

The Julia Child Foundation

In 1995, Julia Child established The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, a private charitable foundation to make grants to further her life's work. The Foundation, originally set up in Massachusetts, later moved to Santa Barbara, California, where it is now headquartered. Inactive until after Julia's death in 2004, the Foundation makes grants to other non-profits.[34] The grants support primarily gastronomy, the culinary arts and the further development of the professional food world, all matters of paramount importance to Julia Child during her lifetime. The Foundation's website provides a dedicated page listing the names of grant recipients with a description of the organization and the grant provided by the Foundation.[35] One of the grant recipients is Heritage Radio Network which covers the world of food, drink and agriculture.

Beyond making grants, the Foundation was also established to protect Julia Child's legacy; it is the organization to approach to seek permission to use images of Julia Child and/or excerpts of her work. Many of these rights are jointly held with other organizations like her publishers and the Schlesinger Library at The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University who may also need to be contacted. Recently, the Foundation has been more active in protecting these posthumous rights. Well known for her opposition to endorsements, the Foundation follows a similar policy regarding the use of Julia's name and image for commercial purposes.[36]

Tributes & homages

The Julia Child Rose, known in the UK as the "Absolutely Fabulous" rose, is a golden butter/gold floribunda rose named after Child.[37][38][39]

On September 26, 2014, the US Postal Service issued 20 million copies of the "Celebrity Chefs Forever" stamp series, which featured portraits by Jason Seiler of five American chefs: Julia Child, Joyce Chen, James Beard, Edna Lewis, and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi.[40]

Awards and nominations

Awards
Nominations

In popular culture

Child was a favorite of audiences from the moment of her television début on public television in 1963, and she was a familiar part of American culture and the subject of numerous references, including numerous parodies in television and radio programs and skits. Her great success on air may have been tied to her refreshingly pragmatic approach to the genre, "I think you have to decide who your audience is. If you don’t pick your audience, you’re lost because you’re not really talking to anybody. My audience is people who like to cook, who want to really learn how to do it." In 1996, Julia Child was ranked No. 46 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.[41]

In music

In film

In print

On television

Julie/Julia

In 2002, Child was the inspiration for "The Julie/Julia Project," a popular cooking blog by Julie Powell that was the basis of Powell's bestselling book, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, published in 2005, the year following Child's death. The paperback version of the book was retitled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.[47][48][49] The blog and book, along with Child's own memoir My Life in France, in turn inspired the 2009 feature film Julie & Julia in which Meryl Streep portrayed Child. For her performance, Streep received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination.

Child is reported to have been unimpressed by Powell's blog, believing Powell's determination to cook every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year to be a stunt. Child's editor, Judith Jones, said in an interview: "Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn't attractive, to me or Julia. She didn't want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called 'the flimsies'. She didn't suffer fools, if you know what I mean."[50]

Works by Child

Television series

DVD releases

Books

Books about Child

Films about Child

References

  1. 1 2 Michael Rosen (interviewer) (June 25, 1999). Julia Child – Archive Interview, part 1 of 6 (video). Archive of American Television. Archived from the original on 2010-04-08. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
  2. ↑ The Biography of Julia Child, Noel Riley Fitch, pg. 169, paragraph 2..."Dorothy (at six feet four)"
  3. ↑ Baker-Clark, Charles A. (2006). Profiles from the kitchen : what great cooks have taught us about ourselves and our food. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. p. 52. ISBN 9780813123981. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  4. ↑ "Farewell, "French Chef"". NewsSmith. Fall 2004.
  5. ↑ "The Junior League Asks: So What Else Was Julia Child Known For?". Archived from the original on 4 April 2015.
  6. ↑ Child, Julia; Prud'homme, Alex (2006). My Life in France. Random House. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-307-27769-5.
  7. 1 2 "Julia Child Dished Out ... Spy Secrets?". ABC. 2008-08-14. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  8. ↑ Miller, Greg (August 15, 2008). "Files from WWII Office of Strategic Services are secret no more". Los Angeles Times.
  9. 1 2 "A Look Back ... Julia Child: Life Before French Cuisine". Central Intelligence Agency. 2007-12-13. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
  10. ↑ Julia McWilliams, ARC Identifier 2180661, Office of Strategic Services Personnel Files from World War II
  11. ↑ "Julia Child". Cooksinfo.com. Archived from the original on 25 March 2012.
  12. ↑ Saxon, Wolfgang (May 14, 1994). "Paul Child, Artist, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
  13. ↑ Lindman, Sylvia (2004-08-13). "Julia Child: bon appétit: Celebrated cook taught America to relish life's bounty". MSNBC. Retrieved 2006-09-30.
  14. ↑ William Grimes (April 11, 2006). "Books: My Life in France". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
  15. ↑ Child, Julia; Prud'homme, Alex (2006). My Life in France. Random House. pp. 268–272. ISBN 978-0-307-27769-5.
  16. ↑ J.C. Maçek III (2012-08-13). "Bless This Mess: Sweeping the Kitchen with Julia Child". PopMatters.
  17. 1 2 "National Book Awards – 1980". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-09.
    There was a "Contemporary" or "Current" award category from 1972 to 1980.
  18. ↑ "American Institute of Wine and Food".
  19. ↑ O'Neill, Molly (October 11, 1989). "Savoring the World According to Julia". New York Times.
  20. ↑ Clifford, Stephanie (August 23, 2009). "After 48 Years, Julia Child Has a Big Best Seller, Butter and All". New York Times.
  21. ↑ Lawson, Carol (June 19, 1990). "Julia Child Boiling, Answers Her Critics". New York Times.
  22. ↑ Child, Julia (1995). "Acknowledgments". In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-43896-3.
  23. 1 2 Spitz, Bob (2013-04-23). Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-307-47341-7.
  24. ↑ "Biography reveals insecurities plagued Julia Child", CTV News, August 7, 2012
  25. 1 2 Child, Julia; Prud'homme, Alex (2006). My Life in France. Random House. pp. 329–333. ISBN 978-0-307-27769-5.
  26. ↑ "Gift from Julia Child Spurs Construction of First Campus Center at her Alma Mater, Smith College". Smith.edu. 2002-05-06. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  27. ↑ "Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian". Americanhistory.si.edu. 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  28. ↑ Goldberg, Carey (November 25, 2000). "For a Cooking Legend, the Ultimate Dinner Was Served". The New York Times. Retrieved November 12, 2006.
  29. ↑ "Profile: "Julia Child"". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 13, 2006.
  30. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter C" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 12, 2011.
  31. ↑ "Brown will award 10 honorary degrees at Commencement May 29" (Press release). Brown University News Service. May 24, 2000. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
  32. ↑ Saekel, Karola (August 14, 2004). "TV's French chef taught us how to cook with panache". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
  33. ↑ "The famous last meals of MJ, Julia Child, JFK, and 8 others". Yahoo!. Retrieved October 7, 2012.
  34. ↑ "Welcome". The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  35. ↑ "Grants". The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  36. ↑ "Legal battle erupts over Julia Child images used in Thermador ads". Los Angeles Times. 28 August 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  37. ↑ "Rose of the Year 2010: New at Hampton Court ‘09 - Graham Rice's New Plants Blog". Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  38. ↑ Romancing the Rose in Its Infinite Splendor, Glenn Collins, June 22, 2007, New York Times
  39. ↑ "Rose Trials Palmerston North, New Zealand". The World Federation of Rose Societies. December 4, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  40. ↑ http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2014/pr14_050.htm
  41. ↑ "Special Collectors' Issue: 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time". TV Guide (December 14–20). 1996. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
  42. ↑ "SNL Transcripts: Eric Idle: 12/09/78: The French Chef". Snltranscripts.jt.org. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  43. ↑ "The Cosby Show: Bon Jour Sondra". TV.com. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  44. ↑ This Old House: A Dream House
  45. ↑ "SCTV "Battle of the PBS Stars". Youtube.com. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  46. ↑ ""RuPaul’s Drag Race" Preview: Are You Ready For "Snatch Game"?!?". newnownext.com. Retrieved 2014-07-16.
  47. ↑ Powell, Julie (August 25, 2002). "The Julie/Julia Project: Nobody here but us servantless American cooks...". Salon.com. Archived from the original on October 13, 2002. Retrieved August 16, 2012.
  48. ↑ "'Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen'". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  49. ↑ Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. "Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  50. ↑ "Julia Child Considered 'The Julie/Julia Project' a Stunt". Eatmedaily.com. 2009-07-20. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  51. ↑ "About A La Carte Communications & Geoffrey Drummond". Alacartetv.com. Retrieved 2009-03-28.
  52. ↑ Mellowes, Marilyn (June 15, 2005). "Julia Child: About Julia Child". American Masters. PBS. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
  53. ↑ ""American Masters" Julia Child! America's Favorite Chef (2004)". IMDb. Retrieved 2009-05-13.

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