Chefs We Love: Julia Child

Chefs We Love is a Valentine's Day tribute to those who have done great work in the culinary world -- to those who inspire us to not only eat well, but to try new things in our own kitchens. With this holiday around the corner, we at Kitchen Daily felt that it was appropriate to share our love and respect for those who have most inspired and influenced our passion for cooking. See more chefs we love.

I have a secret helper when I cook. She sits on my shoulder, lends advice, and shares tips and tricks while I move around the kitchen. She helps me cook by feel, by instinct, and by giving me courage to make crazy French recipes I never thought I could cook or bake, such as beurre blanc, boeuf bourguignon, mousse, puff pastry and more. No, it's not Remy the rat from "Ratatouille," it's Julia Child!

I love Julia! I can't say that enough. This charming, gentle giant of a woman changed home cooking forever with the publication of a single book and her relentless championing of French cooking. For someone who at first didn't know how to cook, only eat, this was a huge accomplishment. Her story is essentially a lesson about life that -- no matter your age, gender, or whatever you might think of as a limit -- once you set your mind to something you can achieve anything. And that's what she set out to do. Beginning at the age of 36 she set out to learn how to cook, took up a project to rewrite a tome on French cooking with two French women, and back in the U.S., became a conduit for cooking at home.

I first saw Julia as a kid, from watching her show with Jacques Pepin called "Cooking At Home." She didn't do much of the cooking -- it was Chef Pepin who did the heavy lifting of cooking the classic French recipes. Julia just sort of hung by his side and surveyed the territory. Here and there she did a bit of sauteing or slicing, but she really a guide, just watching over the the process. And that's exactly how I felt she functioned when her TV show "The French Chef" came about in 1963. She used the show as a platform to show people they too could cook with fresh ingredients after a decade of cooking from canned and boxed goods.

The 1950s brought along with it a new viewpoint on cooking, one that used canned goods to make dinner in a jiffy for the busy homemaker. But Julia tried to rewind things a bit. She gave tips on everything from trimming beef to buying different types of chicken. What she did was show so many people what they had entirely forgotten about -- that cooking from scratch could still be done. Eventually though Julia did embrace a few shortcut ingredients, like canned stock. If it was Julia-tested it was ok for the home kitchen. She became a guide for the home cook, guiding our way through the supermarket, how ingredients could be used -- but she offered more than just guidance on any given recipe.

Julia was one of the first to have a TV show focused on cooking. She was a pioneer in the field and you can tell from watching her shows in the beginning. (You can catch episodes on the Cooking Channel.) She bumbled a little, made mistakes and flubbed her lines, but she showed herself as human. And when she made a cooking error, she quickly showed us how to correct it. It proved to the viewer that the kitchen wasn't an arena for perfectionism, nor was cooking an impossible task for the homemaker. After flipping a mashed potato pancake and having it fail, Julia said "you just have to have the courage of your convictions." (Watch video 2 in the slideshow at the 14:35 mark.)

Even now, I feel like Julia serves as a guide while I cook, perched on my shoulder, giving me tips and hints for the recipes I make. I loved Julia because I could relate to her way around the kitchen. Her recipes all stemmed from classic renditions, but what she did was pull them apart to show us how they functioned, how a dish was to be made and how to recognize errors or faults in a recipe so that it could be fixed. And I watched to learn how to cook with courage. Julia will always be a guide for chefs, cookbook writers and home cooks. She speaks to us and if we listen intently, you can hear her. And that's exactly how I have learned how to cook -- to trust my instinct.

Books By Julia Child

Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom
The Way to Cook
The French Chef Cookbook
Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home
My Life in France

Comments

[SvenskaLee]

07:51 AM on 02/18/2012

Jacques Pepin does not need "a guide watching over [his cooking] process" ... be it Julia Child or anyone else. Erdos, you insult the man.

[rockysparks]

09:37 AM on 02/09/2012

There have been lots of comedy sketches about Julia Child --- her show, her voice, her overall eccentricity all were fodder for comedians. Dan Aykroyd's sketch where she bled to death after cutting her finger is the best-known.

But Julia had a great sense of humor about herself and cooking and was often her own best satirist. Here's a clip showing her introducing the cast of a show about roasting chickens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ohiUbQyDhk&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL1A67BD9CDA5B3F30

[John2021]

03:36 PM on 02/08/2012

Julia Child should not be classed in the same category as Paula Deen.

Child was the best in the world at what she did. She was not a hypocrite and did have some
understanding of culture.

On the other hand, let's understand what exactly she did. She was a television personality. She never invented a recipe, and the public never tasted her food. She had learned some technique, which she shared charmingly. With a little training she would have made a decent sous chef. (The "Cordon Bleu" is for housewives, it's not where chefs go to train).

Her influence on restaurants and real Chefs is nonexistent. Real cooks don't learn to cook from the television, and real chefs aren't taken in by actors playing at being "French Chefs".

As for homophobia, who can say? Richard Olney was in fact gay, but I think he disliked Julia Child because she was a poor cook who became famous for playing a "French Chef" on TV.

Such is her staggering popularity that real chefs, (Waters, Pepin, etc.), know better than to criticize her in this celebrity driven culture.

Not everyone was fooled.

[Happy Kine]

02:45 PM on 02/17/2012

Waters, a "real" chef but Child's not ? I think you have mistaken restaurant owner for chef....

[John2021]

08:36 PM on 02/17/2012

Yes, Perhaps I should explain. A Chef is an executive, the person who manages a kitchen. Not necessarily a cook. The head cook is in charge of preparing the meals. The chef might just design them and act much as the director does on a film, they do not focus the camera, or arrange the lights. But they are in control.

Julia Child did none of those things. Without the 20 or so people around her she would not have been capable of finishing one show. That is obvious. But beyond that, she never held a professional position in cooking. She never cooked for the President of France, like Jacques Pepin, nor for the francophiles of Manhattan, like Bourdain, nor did she conceive and manage a restaurant for 40 years, like Waters has done.

She was a television performer.

I hope that's clearer.

[CaptMike65]

02:28 PM on 02/08/2012

Julia Child introduced French cooking to this country but she was actually a fat, boring, hog.
Want to learn French cooking? Try Jacq Pipin. He is the best.

[anamariachlvst]

01:22 PM on 02/08/2012

I don't love that weird lady, I have never watched any of her shows, her voice is annoying

[flyinghigh0905]

12:04 PM on 02/08/2012

I would love to buy her cook book and learn to cook that way, but there's so much butter, I don't think I could do it.

[Canefighter]

11:37 AM on 02/08/2012

My Mom used to watch her show. She tried her own varieations of the recipies with the stuff she had in the house. Sometimes it came out good, other times ,YUCK.. But we where kind and choked some of it down. We tried our best to keep Mom happy.

[ChefJohnP]

10:49 AM on 02/08/2012

I began watching Julia when we still had to adjust our vertical and horizontal hold dials on TV. She was on a station, then called "The Educational Station", Channel 13. Not much to watch on that station for a young kid, but there was always "Julia Child, The French Chef ". She tore down the intimidating walls of not only French preparation and classical dishes, but simplified the entire cooking concept with her gentle, "as a matter of fact" approach to cooking. I was rivited on every move she would make to get to the end product of a delicious duck, chicken or fish dinner. The time she dropped the chicken on the floor and said, " Just wash it off, no one's going to know", I laughed so hard! Down the road would be another class act, Jacques Pepin, another fantastic culinary educator, who like Julia could reach out to you and make you feel like you were sitting in their kitchen. Later in years they would team up and create such a charismatic cooking duo. I really miss Julia Child. She was a great inspiration to me and that's why for the last 25 years, I've been following her lead. There are many "so-called" chefs on tv, but just because they can stir a pot or read a script, they're proclaimed chefs! I ride horses, but that doesn't make me a jockey! Want to cook like a chef, learn from a true chef, like Julia or Jacques.

[jpfmtka]

11:13 AM on 02/08/2012

Happy to be your first fan. I was lucky enough to meet her back in the late 90's when I lived in Westlake Village, CA. At the time she was living "just up the road" in Montecito (Santa Barbara). She was indeed, the most humble, gracious and warm person I have met in my lifetime. My husband ran home to grab my copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking while we chatted it up. She then thanked me for asking her to autograph both volumes. If my house were on fire, I'd grab these two books before anything else.

[manmi1]

09:19 AM on 02/08/2012

Can't understand all the hatred for Paula Dean, when Julia Child had the same attitude toward food. I heard her interviewed once and all she could talk about what never substituting heavy cream and butter for anything. She didn't care anything about what went into the food. Now they are out for blood with Paula Dean. And, you can add to Julia Child that she was a moderate racist and a severe homophobe. Most things about her were pure hype.

[LtnSmrt]

10:19 AM on 02/08/2012

She was, indeed, a "moderate" racist... homophobic?, I don't know about that, she herself looked like a drag queen, like a man wearing makeup... just look at the picture at the very top of the article... doesn't she look like a man? About Paula Dean... she is a great cook, with all the grease and all the sugar ;o)~

[jpfmtka]

10:51 AM on 02/08/2012

While I do not dispute that butter ruled with Julia, the important difference between her philosopy and Paula's was that Julia refused to endorse anything... she did not have a line of cookware, she did not open a restaurant, she didn't slam her face on packages of pork and chicken, and she certainly did not take payola from a drug manufacturer.

[tccat4]

08:11 AM on 02/08/2012

I remember watching Julia when I was younger, I loved the skits on SNL about her.. priceless

[niceguy71653]

07:58 AM on 02/08/2012

French cooking sucks. Too many sauces.

[Conquering Thor]

09:17 AM on 02/08/2012

Another cullinary idiot and illiterate holds forth. Lucky everyone!

[niceguy71653]

10:19 AM on 02/08/2012

Don't be too hard on yourself.

[prosymom]

01:58 PM on 02/08/2012

why does "real food" have to be buried in heavy sauces to be good? I am a purist --I like food for its real flavor...besides, it's healthier...

[joannevlavender]

11:46 AM on 02/20/2012

French cooking is elegant cuisine. It requires a deft hand in the kitchen and a fearless soul. Too many sauces? Walk down the condiment aisle of any supermarket. You will find an ENDLESS assortment of sauces, most of them made with artificial ingredients and flavorings. Authentic French cooking is all natural.

I made my first choux pastry in my twenties. I made cream puffs and eclairs. They were WONDERFUL--not at all like the soggy, tasteless messes one buys over the counter in the local grocery bakery counters.

[niceguy71653]

12:06 PM on 02/20/2012

As they say, each to their own. For my money French cooking is too rich and heavy. I much prefer Italian cooking with less disguises, natural and fresh.

[mrmikes]

11:29 PM on 02/07/2012

Julia Childs was a true pioneer. She introduced cooking on TV and introduced me to the notion of technique. I am forever in her debt...and ya gotta love Jacques.

[Poovoh]

06:04 AM on 02/08/2012

There's no S on the end of her name.

[OverseasVet]

11:25 PM on 02/07/2012

Never tried a Julia Child recipe. Loved the show though. Was disappointed she showed contempt for a fan who used her book as a tool to manage her life.

[joannevlavender]

11:51 AM on 02/20/2012

Julia Child didn't show contempt for the fan (Julie Powell) who used her cookbook to manage her life.

Her contempt was for Julie Powell's COMMERCIALIZATION, her use of Julia Child's talent and expertise to further her own ambitions.

[gravityhunter]

10:53 PM on 02/07/2012

"Simply scrrrrumptious".....

[iktomi]

10:36 PM on 02/07/2012

She was quite the Lady. There will never be another one. ..... Pepin is great and they def worked well together although both were stubborn about they're ways. I know he must miss the hell out of her. He just dosent look like hes having fun anymore.
If you never saw them..Goggle "Two Fat Lady s" THEY were a TRIP !!! and Ming on PBS is a Very cool dude.
I started cooking because the Men in my family all cooked because, Bless them, the women couldnt. My Grand Daddy and I had a CODE. When Grandma cooked we would choke it down and he would say "ITS THE BEST I EVER HAD!" which meant it was terrible. To this day if Im eating Out or In and done like the food I say "ITS THE BEST I EVER HAD "!!!