Julia Child made her name in television as "The French Chef," a
remarkable feat for someone who was neither French nor a chef. To add to
this achievement was the fact that she was not a classical beauty nor
did she possess a voice suitable for someone who has to speak to a live
studio audience. She was also well into her thirties when she discovered
her life's calling and on the wrong side of forty when her show first
aired. Yet Julia Child became a cultural icon well before anyone
recognised what sheer, dogged commitment it would have taken anyone to
replicate then translate traditional recipes from arcane French into
accessible modern English, re-calculate the quantities of ingredients
from metric measurements in imperial ones, organise the recipes into
logical chapters and then make it all appeal to American audiences who
were firmly committed to convenience foods.
As an American in Paris, Julia found she faced a culture and culinary challenge that appeared to be insurmountable when her serviceman husband Paul was posted to France. Although she came to adore the French cooking she and her husband loved to eat in restaurants, her limited French vocabulary barred her from accessing obscure recipes and their ingredients, thus preventing her from replicating what she had enjoyed in her own home. Even after taming her Californian twang, Julia came to understand that most French people firmly believed that Americans could not cook. And who can blame the French when the height of American cuisine at the time was frozen TV dinners?
Julia McWilliams was born 15 August 1912 at 23:30 in Pasadena California to well-to-do parents-and hired cooks to dish up typical American fare. Like her mother, Julia felt no need to go anywhere near a stove. Julia's gangly six foot two frame, her tremulous voice, together with her adventurous cooking techniques made for compelling television viewing in the 1960s. On her live shows, she fluttered about her television kitchen, knocking things over and encouraging the cooks at home to "go ahead and make a mess." She dried lettuce leaves by waving them around, splashing herself, the cameras and her crew with water. She beheaded huge fish with giant meat cleavers, brandished knives like something from a medieval nightmare and introduced the poultry she was about to cut as: "Mr Broiler, Mr Stewer and Mr Roaster." She mixed eggs with a comically oversized whisk and sloshed them everywhere. Once, when she tried to flip over a potato pancake, half of it missed the pan and hit the stove. "Now you see," she told us, scratching her head on live TV, "I didn't quite have the courage of my convictions."
Americans loved the French chef but few were able to get past the voice to really appreciate the sheer determination and passion it took to bring omelettes to the American dinner table. Sounding as if her larynx was stuck in the middle of her throat, it took some time for Americans to realise she wasn't sporting a French accent: it was just utilised unlike any other American accent. When she was calm, her voice purred almost like a contented cat. When excited, she had the tendency to seize an unsuspecting syllable and throttle it. Her voice seemed to become most agitated when talking about butter-and she talked about butter an awful lot. The result was that her speech had an unpredictable way of rising and falling and certain words burst from her mouth in triumph whilst others tumbled out as if on their last legs.
Julia has made such on impact on American television that it is hard to imagine TV without her. Much loved, she parodied by the likes of Dan Aykroyd and she even managed to still the acid tongue of David Letterman whom she had even cajoled into having a bite of steak tartare after she melted cheese on top of a beef burger-with a blowtorch.
Longing to roll up her sleeves and dive into French Cuisine, on her 37th birthday she was given a copy of Larousse Gastronomique from her husband. The book was packed full of recipes, drawings, definitions, stories and information on gastronomic technique. She knew she had found her life's passion. "By now I knew that French food was it for me," she wrote in My Life in France. "I couldn't get over how absolutely delicious it was. Yet my friends, both French and American, considered me some kind of nut: cooking was far from being a middle-class hobby and they did not understand how I could possibly enjoy doing all the shopping and the cooking and the serving by myself. Well I did!"
It wasn't until Julia married Paul, the son of a bohemian cook who had lived part of her life in France, that she realised. "I was lucky to marry Paul," Julia reflected in My Life in France. "He was a great inspiration, his enthusiasm about wine and food helped to shape my tastes... I would have never had my career without Paul Child." Julia had natal Jupiter in its dignity in Sagittarius almost exactly on her descendant, indicating her other half would introduce her to opportunities of foreign or ecclesiastical wonder. In return, his Sun/Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn opposed her Neptune in Cancer. They had met in 1944 when they both had been posted to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the CIA. After their marriage, he carried on with his work with the US government whilst she wondered what to do with herself so it could be understoodwas introduced to French cooking by her gastronome husband, Paul whose indulgent palate was well known to his fellow service men in the Office of strategic Services. Figuring it would be a good idea to learn how to cookIn time, Julia would not only master the French language but the art of French cooking-and she would share her knowledge with her fellow Americans on her own television show when she returned from her French adventure.
Even then, I didn't believe anyone would want to distract themselves with the task of taking notes of the extended list of ingredients when there was such great entertainment on the TV. Besides that, we had frozen TV dinners so who would want to go to all the bother of cooking?
As much as I loved her live TV antics and as impressed as I was that she knew so much about French cooking, it was her voice that captivated me.
By the time I entered university, I had my Julia Child impression down pat, clearing my throat several times to get my larynx in the right position: "And to-daaaaaaaaay," I would say in the dinner queue, "We have chicken kiev-that's chicken breasts stuffed with fresh garlic and herbs, pressed into fresh bread crumbs baked on the premises, mashed potatoes made with real dairy cream and (eyes roll heavenwards) butter, freshly chopped green beans sprinkled with, ah, (deep gasp) butter flakes and ground black pepper... all to be washed down with a refreshing strawberry kool-aid, vintage 1986."
One evening, whilst we were watching Late Night with David Letterman, Julia Child was revealed as his special guest. By this time, the old girl was pushing eighty years old but she seemed as relaxed in front of the cameras as any experienced performer. She was, she told us, going to show us how to cook a hamburger on a hot plate. Unfortunately, the hot plate didn't get very hot. "I'm changing my recipe," she announced, "To steak Tartare!" Sliding the raw meat to a plate, she covered it with cheese-and then pulled out a blow torch to melt the cheese. It was sheer comedy genius. Who would have though a little old lady from Pasadena California could wield a blow torch with such skill? Even better, she got Letterman to have a bite of the hot cheese with the cold meat beneath it. She explained to us the importance of working with mistakes rather than letting them get the better of us. I figured anyone who could reduce the normally sarcastic Letterman to respectful awe had more going for her than I had ever imagined.
I loved her. She made me laugh, not because she was a prudish-looking, elderly woman making almost pornographic noises as she spread the succulent thighs of a plump chicken for stuffing in front of a live audience (although that was pretty funny). She made me laugh because here was an extremely knowledgeable woman who made a pig's ear out of a complex recipe and had the self efficacy to laugh at herself. It was difficult to know if she was taking the mick out of herself, the producers of her highly successful show, fellow gastronomes or members of her audience who, like me, had just tuned in to see what was going to happen.
It took astrology to help me work out Julia Child's je ne se quoi.
The joke goes that Julia entered the dining room bearing a roasted duck. Just as she was about to place the bird on the table, she slipped and dropped it on the floor.
"Oh heavens!" she trilled. "It's a good job I roasted two! Just let me, uh, clean up!" With that, she picked up the bird and took it back to the kitchen where she re-arranged it and brought it out again to be served.
As an American in Paris, Julia found she faced a culture and culinary challenge that appeared to be insurmountable when her serviceman husband Paul was posted to France. Although she came to adore the French cooking she and her husband loved to eat in restaurants, her limited French vocabulary barred her from accessing obscure recipes and their ingredients, thus preventing her from replicating what she had enjoyed in her own home. Even after taming her Californian twang, Julia came to understand that most French people firmly believed that Americans could not cook. And who can blame the French when the height of American cuisine at the time was frozen TV dinners?
Julia McWilliams was born 15 August 1912 at 23:30 in Pasadena California to well-to-do parents-and hired cooks to dish up typical American fare. Like her mother, Julia felt no need to go anywhere near a stove. Julia's gangly six foot two frame, her tremulous voice, together with her adventurous cooking techniques made for compelling television viewing in the 1960s. On her live shows, she fluttered about her television kitchen, knocking things over and encouraging the cooks at home to "go ahead and make a mess." She dried lettuce leaves by waving them around, splashing herself, the cameras and her crew with water. She beheaded huge fish with giant meat cleavers, brandished knives like something from a medieval nightmare and introduced the poultry she was about to cut as: "Mr Broiler, Mr Stewer and Mr Roaster." She mixed eggs with a comically oversized whisk and sloshed them everywhere. Once, when she tried to flip over a potato pancake, half of it missed the pan and hit the stove. "Now you see," she told us, scratching her head on live TV, "I didn't quite have the courage of my convictions."
Americans loved the French chef but few were able to get past the voice to really appreciate the sheer determination and passion it took to bring omelettes to the American dinner table. Sounding as if her larynx was stuck in the middle of her throat, it took some time for Americans to realise she wasn't sporting a French accent: it was just utilised unlike any other American accent. When she was calm, her voice purred almost like a contented cat. When excited, she had the tendency to seize an unsuspecting syllable and throttle it. Her voice seemed to become most agitated when talking about butter-and she talked about butter an awful lot. The result was that her speech had an unpredictable way of rising and falling and certain words burst from her mouth in triumph whilst others tumbled out as if on their last legs.
Julia has made such on impact on American television that it is hard to imagine TV without her. Much loved, she parodied by the likes of Dan Aykroyd and she even managed to still the acid tongue of David Letterman whom she had even cajoled into having a bite of steak tartare after she melted cheese on top of a beef burger-with a blowtorch.
Longing to roll up her sleeves and dive into French Cuisine, on her 37th birthday she was given a copy of Larousse Gastronomique from her husband. The book was packed full of recipes, drawings, definitions, stories and information on gastronomic technique. She knew she had found her life's passion. "By now I knew that French food was it for me," she wrote in My Life in France. "I couldn't get over how absolutely delicious it was. Yet my friends, both French and American, considered me some kind of nut: cooking was far from being a middle-class hobby and they did not understand how I could possibly enjoy doing all the shopping and the cooking and the serving by myself. Well I did!"
It wasn't until Julia married Paul, the son of a bohemian cook who had lived part of her life in France, that she realised. "I was lucky to marry Paul," Julia reflected in My Life in France. "He was a great inspiration, his enthusiasm about wine and food helped to shape my tastes... I would have never had my career without Paul Child." Julia had natal Jupiter in its dignity in Sagittarius almost exactly on her descendant, indicating her other half would introduce her to opportunities of foreign or ecclesiastical wonder. In return, his Sun/Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn opposed her Neptune in Cancer. They had met in 1944 when they both had been posted to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the CIA. After their marriage, he carried on with his work with the US government whilst she wondered what to do with herself so it could be understoodwas introduced to French cooking by her gastronome husband, Paul whose indulgent palate was well known to his fellow service men in the Office of strategic Services. Figuring it would be a good idea to learn how to cookIn time, Julia would not only master the French language but the art of French cooking-and she would share her knowledge with her fellow Americans on her own television show when she returned from her French adventure.
Even then, I didn't believe anyone would want to distract themselves with the task of taking notes of the extended list of ingredients when there was such great entertainment on the TV. Besides that, we had frozen TV dinners so who would want to go to all the bother of cooking?
As much as I loved her live TV antics and as impressed as I was that she knew so much about French cooking, it was her voice that captivated me.
By the time I entered university, I had my Julia Child impression down pat, clearing my throat several times to get my larynx in the right position: "And to-daaaaaaaaay," I would say in the dinner queue, "We have chicken kiev-that's chicken breasts stuffed with fresh garlic and herbs, pressed into fresh bread crumbs baked on the premises, mashed potatoes made with real dairy cream and (eyes roll heavenwards) butter, freshly chopped green beans sprinkled with, ah, (deep gasp) butter flakes and ground black pepper... all to be washed down with a refreshing strawberry kool-aid, vintage 1986."
One evening, whilst we were watching Late Night with David Letterman, Julia Child was revealed as his special guest. By this time, the old girl was pushing eighty years old but she seemed as relaxed in front of the cameras as any experienced performer. She was, she told us, going to show us how to cook a hamburger on a hot plate. Unfortunately, the hot plate didn't get very hot. "I'm changing my recipe," she announced, "To steak Tartare!" Sliding the raw meat to a plate, she covered it with cheese-and then pulled out a blow torch to melt the cheese. It was sheer comedy genius. Who would have though a little old lady from Pasadena California could wield a blow torch with such skill? Even better, she got Letterman to have a bite of the hot cheese with the cold meat beneath it. She explained to us the importance of working with mistakes rather than letting them get the better of us. I figured anyone who could reduce the normally sarcastic Letterman to respectful awe had more going for her than I had ever imagined.
I loved her. She made me laugh, not because she was a prudish-looking, elderly woman making almost pornographic noises as she spread the succulent thighs of a plump chicken for stuffing in front of a live audience (although that was pretty funny). She made me laugh because here was an extremely knowledgeable woman who made a pig's ear out of a complex recipe and had the self efficacy to laugh at herself. It was difficult to know if she was taking the mick out of herself, the producers of her highly successful show, fellow gastronomes or members of her audience who, like me, had just tuned in to see what was going to happen.
It took astrology to help me work out Julia Child's je ne se quoi.
The joke goes that Julia entered the dining room bearing a roasted duck. Just as she was about to place the bird on the table, she slipped and dropped it on the floor.
"Oh heavens!" she trilled. "It's a good job I roasted two! Just let me, uh, clean up!" With that, she picked up the bird and took it back to the kitchen where she re-arranged it and brought it out again to be served.
No comments:
Post a Comment