Don't Diss the Chicken: The Unofficial Guide to the Julie/Julia Controversy

Well, it certainly has been a rousing and rollicking time in the joyous world of food blogger-dom, hasn't it. I don't care if you don't know a chef's knife from a thumbtack: you'd have to be living under a rock if you didn't hear something about It.

But just in case you didn't:

Short-ish version
In 2002, depressed Manhattan cubicle dweller-with-a-potty-mouth, Julie Powell, shakes up her morose life by cooking her way through every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blogging about it. Along the way, she disses J.C.'s roast chicken recipe, and generally has a challenging time with the project, overall. This is because the recipes in MAFC can in fact be quite challenging, and sometimes even idiosyncratic. They are so challenging that one can assume that any person who ventures to cook through the entire book in a year and actually manages to do so is a dedicated cook. Sometime during the process, Julie lands a book deal with Little, Brown & Company, and sometime later during the process, her book is optioned by Hollywood. We can only gather that she made a tidy sum from the whole ordeal, but that is none of my business, and it shouldn't be yours either. It's not nice to talk about money.

In the weeks precipitating the release of the movie, Julie & Julia (which turned out to only be partially based on Julie's blog/life probably because someone finally figured out that the blog as movie needed far more meat to carry it along for 2 hours and 13 minutes), there has been more yammering and downright ill-tempered caterwauling going on between two camps -- those who think that Julie attempted to make off with the proverbial Child family jewels, and those who think that Team Julia needs to loosen the damned apron strings and stop claiming metaphysical ownership of her -- than has ever been seen this side of a Greek drama . It's been like the Hatfields and the McCoys only with Foie de Volaille.

At some point, the inevitable question is asked: what did Julia think about Julie's blog?

Judith Jones, Julia's longtime editor, answers the first question several times:

"If they met I think Julia would have liked her. But given what we had to go on from the early blog I don't think Julia thought she was a serious cook. Secondly, you just didn't use swear words in cooking. Not where Julia was concerned," says Jones.

Then, somewhere further along the line, words like "stunt" started to get tossed around, and then there was a comment about Julia and what she less-than-affectionately termed "The Flimsies-" or, cooking lightweights and folks who just didn't take the process seriously.

Jones says Child did not approve of Powell's cook-every-recipe-in-one-year project. The editor and author read Powell's blog together (Julie and Julia was published a year after Child's 2004 death). "Julia said, 'I don't think she's a serious cook.' " Jones thinks there was a generational difference between Powell and Child. "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."

As for foul language, if Julia had spent any time behind the scenes with Anthony Bourdain and even her beloved Emeril (her affection for the latter was profoundly palpable), would she have considered them anything less than serious cooks because they let fly with enough expletives to make a longshoreman blush? Probably not. But then again, Julia was a lady of a certain time, who expected other ladies to, well, behave like ladies. And this excludes the use of four-letter words.
So maybe Anthony and Emeril were okay flinging around four-letter words because they weren't ladies.

Moving On

The dreck hits the fan. One well-known, longtime blogger blames jealousy for all of the Julie-Haters who bubble to the service: many of us who have been blogging for years have nothing to show for it, and why does she? Other questions: are food bloggers actually food experts just because they can use the words "pan-seared" and "noisette" in the same sentence? Probably not. Do skill and expertise trump visibility, and is there any place in the blogosphere where skill and expertise run parallel to visibility? Yes, of course: just visit baking guru Dorie Greenspan's blog, make her dishes, and then read her writing. Brilliant, in both cases.

Onward.

Virginia Willis, estimable author of Bon Appetit, Y'all and a clear, and wonderful traditionalist who trained in France and knew Julia, writes a blog entry entitled "Julia and Julie: Yes the Swap is Intentional." The entry is hit on more in one day than a Roman hooker. Virginia being Virginia is as polite as she can be. But then things start to erupt: Julie dissed Julia's roast chicken. In fact.

The chicken is pretty good. It's roast chicken. The breast is a little dry, and the skin seems not quite as crisp as it is when I do roast chicken my way -- i.e., pour some olive oil on it, salt and pepper, and stick it in the oven awhile. Overall, its seems like a lot of work for not much improvement. Though the cats seem to like it just fine.

So the moral is this: Julia Child is great and good and knows everything. But nobody know [sic] how to roast chicken better than you. Or me. As the case may be.

The cats?

I can't lay claim to whether or not J.C.'s roast chicken is dry, mostly because her recipe scares me so I've never made it; I'm on Crestor, and the thought of massaging a bird inside and out with butter also makes me want to go out and pre-order a casket. Then again, I also never cared for Julia's spit-roasting episode, which calls for so much trussing that in our home we've dubbed it The Bondage Chicken Show. It might be the right way to do it, but still. I do get Julie's point about roast chicken being a deeply personal sort of thing; I stuff mine with tarragon and do the whole rotational thing, too. But I don't rub it with butter and until I make Julia's version, I can't say anything about it. Ditto the spit-roasted, bondage chicken version.

The question is, What if I did make them? And what if I didn't like them, for whatever reason. Could I say so? Is one person's salty another person's just fine? Is too much butter bad for me, but okay for you?

End of saga. The bloggers (myself included) have had our say. Julie did in fact diss the chicken, and Virginia was accurate in saying that Julie's tone was, well, less than respectful. And I'll venture a guess that Virginia was raised to respect those who have gone before her, who have paved the way, and who know better. And I absolutely cannot agree with her more.

But the question remains: when is it okay to call an icon on something, when it comes out funky? Is it ever? Honestly, I'm not sure. It's like when the family strudel maker suddenly wakes up and forgets to add the butter to the puff pastry. Do you say anything, or do you just shut up and eat it? Where I come from, we just eat it.

The movie: pretty good but the flash-back/flash-forward was about as forced as squeezing a size nine foot into a size six shoe. I wanted more Julia and Paul and I wanted more of their food. Then, I wanted to leave the theater and walk through the lobby to a different movie--the one about Julie during 2002, the year that every New Yorker was clinically depressed and in mourning for a world suddenly stolen from them that horrible day, on 9/11. And I wanted to watch this young woman--the one with the potty mouth and the attitude--reach back in time to ask for help from Julia Child, who singlehandedly changed our world, and to whom a debt of gratitude will never be sufficiently paid.

Follow Elissa Altman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PoorMansFeast

Comments

[meathead]

Anyone who attempts to cook every recipe in a cookbook is serious about food. Anyone who completes the project is doubly serious. Anyone who can write entertainingly and intelligently abou the recipes is triply serious. She may not be schooled, but she is serious. Can we put that question to rest?

Anyone who has cooked a lot of Julia's recipes can find things to quibble with. New tools, new concepts, new techniques. Now if she had declared herself to be an expert or tried to debate wholesale concepts with JC, she should be roasted on a spit.

As to expletives, if Julia was Julie's age, I wonder if she might not chose some different words occasionally. Goodness knows, she knew how to knock back the drinks and loved hanging with the boys. That said, in the half dozen relaxed conversations I had with her, I never heard a curseword.

If it did nothing else, Julie gave Nora Ephron an excuse to bring Julia's story to the big screen. I am aware of another attempt to tell her story and the writer was told he had to give Julia some lesbian traits to get it green lighted!

So let's thank Julie for providing the vehicle for getting Julia back on everyone's tongues (literally and figuratively) with some accuracy.

For film and food lovers, here's my HuffPo article on meals on reals:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-/julie-julia-one-of-many-g_b_248828.html

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

BravO, Meathead! Loved your post! Didn't you love the amount of martinis being sucked back in the movie...? I did! More on the chicken, at: PoorMansFeast.com

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

But wait---I meant to add: a writer had to give Julia lesbian traits to get another film green lighted? Can you be more specific?

[getoffthecross]

I happily attended the movie with my wife this weekend, and understood Julia's vantage point right away, but because of an entirely different icon.

Jerry Seinfeld commented once that he couldn't stand the whole "reality show" trend, whether it was Last Comic Standing or American Idol or any of them. Why? Because we're creating a society of people hell bent on overnight discovery, when there really is no such thing. And the Julia Childe portion of the film demonstrated that perfectly.

In the film (and I imagine in real life) it took Julia Childe well more than a decade to turn a passion for food into the opus that took America by storm. She did it through collaboration, experimentation, trial-and-error, and lots and lots of rejection. Then along comes a person who, regardless of how well meaning, turns all Julia's work into an exersize that will, in the back of her mind, make her a "real" writer. Not the way to make friends with your idols, methinks.

But the reverance demonstrated at the end of the movie means that a kind of cross-generational truce is found on some level, at least on celluloid, which will outlast both ladies. All-in-all, I highly recommend the film.

[FlippyO]

You don't think a cooking "icon" would want to know that they forgot to put in the butter? Wouldn't they be more embarrassed if they found out years later and that no one had told them?

I think it's stupid that people think that Julia Child's roasted chicken has to be put on a pedestal just because it's Julia Child's recipe. What if Julia decided that her roasted chicken should be made with lard chunks, does that mean everyone should fall all over themselves praising it? JC wasn't infallible and I'm sure that she would've agreed that it wouldn't be impossible to improve some of her recipes. I think it's embarrassing for Julia Child's devoted fans to get all worked up over a simple chicken, as if Julia Child was the world renowned roasted chicken guru who couldn't be questioned. They should be happy that Julie Powell enjoyed JC's cooking so much that she decided to devote a year to it, which means that they'll have at least half a movie to enjoy that wouldn't been made if not for Julie.

Serious about cooking or not, it made for an entertaining book, blog, and movie. Now, Julia's recipes will reach a new generation(s?), one that is even too young to remember SNL parodies. Julia's fans can frame her roasted chicken recipe and bow down before it ten times a day - the rest of us, we can say that we make a better roasted chicken, if that's what we think.

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree with you totally: they should be happy that Julie enjoyed JC's cooking so much that she decided to devote a year to it---And you're right, the movie likely wouldn't have been made had it not been for Julie. Matter of fact, Julie should have had a whole movie to herself, and H'wood shouldn't have tried to weave the two stories together.

I also agree that regardless of whether one is a chicken guru or not, folks should be able to offer critical, qualitative responses to recipes. I think the issue here was more tone---
I actually made JC's roast chicken last night, and will be posting about it tomorrow on Poor Man's Feast. Truthfully, I like my roast chicken more, also.

[Willybee]

This whole article reminds me of the occasion when one of my friends approached a certain iconic author of books on Classic Italian Cooking (whose tomes are visible on Julie's cookbook shelf in the film) at a book-signing and questioned why HER roast chicken recipe didn't quite turn out right, and the authoress verbally flattened and humiliated her. Moral: do NOT question cooking icons when it comes to roasting chickens.

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

Indeed...I can only imagine what it was like to be on the receiving end of said author's ire! The question is, What is right? It's in the eye of the beholder. I prefer my roast chicken crispy and stuffed with herbs; Julia's roast chicken is truly delicious, but just different from what I'm used to. It reminded me of the roast chicken of my childhood, which was basted every 10 minutes or so with pan juices.

[Idytme]

As far as swearing goes, most Chefs swear at work, I agree. But Emeril never does it on TV and Anthony Bourdain is in a league of his own. He is the best food writer I've ever read, no one else has been able to take me inside of a dish with only words. When he writes it, I can *taste* it. And the swearing is now a part of his bad boy image.
But when it comes to most bloggers a lot of those words just substitute for lack of writing skills, just as I believe the same applies to most comedians. When I find a blog full of explicatives, I stop reading.

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

I totally agree with you on all fronts, especially where Tony Bourdain is concerned. The man is a genius, and I hang on his every word. I wouldn't say that Julie's blog was full of expletives, but she does often use "colorful" language---

[Idytme]

I agree with your article, but I don't think that trussing a chicken is the right way to cook it, although it may be a *French* way of cooking it. If you tuck everything in tight it takes the inner parts that much time to cook, which *does* dry out a breast. I sear my chicken first and then cook it covered in a hot oven. Have found this is the way chicken is the most moist. As far as putting on a spit roast, if you don't tie it up, it flops everywhere and you wont get even cooking, it is a mess. But after several attempts on our great BBQ, we decided oven cooking is the best. I've put butter all over and under my bird but have found that the best way to keep the bird moist is to cook it hot and fast with the top on. We cook turkeys by removing the leg pieces and the back and the wings, and cook in a hot oven for 2 and a half hours (dressing on the side cooked in a special way so you'd never know it wasn't cooked in the bird) - never had a dry turkey since we started cooking them this way.
Julia Child's books were aimed at the every day person trying to cook. It is good that a regular, not trained, person tried them, but I agree that it is sad that she doesn't so as much appreciation for the end

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

Between us, um, chickens, I agree with you. I was taught in cooking school to truss, but I never do it. My method of roasting is a sort of bastardization of Alice Waters' and Patricia Wells' method, and it seems to work very well. That said, when I tried Julia's version (just last night, in fact), the result tasted very much like my grandmother's roast chicken both in flavor and consistency: the skin was softer and a bit more delicate than what I'm currently used to. But it did bring back memories.

[Idytme]

It is kinda odd, isn't it, that you can cut up a chicken and try all kinds of recipes, but a whole roasted chicken becomes so personal. Once you come up with the best way for you, it is like a fixture. The problem, I found out, is that so many people don't even know how to "cook a chook", so I think these days any good recipe will do - that doesn't seem intimidating. Just cook a chook with some nice veggies (tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper first) and it is such a good and simple meal.
The herbs you put in, on, or under the bird are almost secondary.
Then there is the gravy, which I have to say that for me doesn't hit the "sweet spot" unless balsamic vinegar is involved. (yes, there are other vinegars but that one in gravy is the best for me).
I am very lucky that my husband, an ex-Chef, has taught me a lot about cooking, but I am still struggling to make sauces as good as he does. Of course, he follows no recipe, just taste and change and taste. He has taught me how to play with foods, what to add if something is wrong, what to use to highlight flavours -
Chicken, roasted vegggies and great gravy is one of my favorite comfort foods. (and the occasional mashed potatoes made with parsnips).

[caphillprof]

I still maintain that many American ethnic communities had good cooking and a cuisine before Julie Child brought French Cooking to America's WASPS who apparently, like their British forebears, had neither good cooking nor a cuisine equal to their wealth and power.

She certainly blazed the way on television so that now we can see the omniprescent Paula Deen.

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure that Julia didn't approve of Julie's blog as much as Julia's spokespeople claimed she did. I do think that Julie was quite serious about cooking, and I agree, makes MAFC far more accessible to everyone. Try the chicken recipe!

[Max]

I think you do a real disservice to MAFC by saying Powell made it "more accessible" to everyone. The whole point of the book was to make French cooking accessible to American audiences. Read it - the writing is clear, detailed, and straightforward. Each recipe includes several asides that help a newcomer understand what they'll see, where it can go wrong, and how to troubleshoot. I don't really see how a blog that essentially said "hey look, I'm going to attempt these recipes without reading them through and I'll throw a big tantrum when it goes awry" does much to help.

I think Powell was serious about doing something that brought her a lot of validation. I'm not willing to say she was serious about cooking. And I'm not willing to forgive her calling Julia Child a b!tch just because Powell didn't have the sense to follow the damned directions.

[Elissa Altman - Huffpost Blogger]

She called Julia Child a bitch? (Actually, I didn't know that). Can you point me to the blog entry where she did that?
The fact is that MAFC is probably on its way to the Times bestseller list, after nearly 50 years. That's huge--and I do think that it's a good thing that a whole new generation has been introduced to the book. Who can possibly believe that's a bad thing?

[Mij13]

But I'm disappointed to learn Julia didn't approve. Reading Julie's blog is fun, and makes MAFC more accessible to people like me, who would never have remembered it otherwise. I'd have thought Julia would have been flattered to find out that somebody thought to do what Julie did; and ESPECIALLY someone who is NOT serious about cooking. Were her cookbooks only for serious chefs? I'm not sure I even want to see the movie now!
JC's roast chicken recipe scares me, too. I do rub it with olive oil or butter and garlic, and just add some herbs de provence half way through. She is right though, about basting.