Child of legend
I first met her at an IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) conference in Washington in 1986.
My good friend Zanne Stewart, food editor of Gourmet Magazine, introduced me to her and explained that I had opened a little cookery school in east Cork in Ireland. Julia was so gracious and interested, I eventually showed her a few photos I had brought of the school and gardens, the hens and the local produce.
Later in the day as she gave her keynote speech, she called me to the podium and introduced me to 1,200 delegates and told them all about the little cookery school in Ireland where she would love to go. She never made it to Ireland but every time I met her in subsequent years she would ask about the school.
Julia Child, more than any other person, single-handedly changed the way Americans think about food - through her TV shows and numerous cookbooks she introduced Americans to French food and took the mystery out of cooking by teaching basic techniques. Her gravelly voice, unpretentious manner, legendary clumsiness and nonchalant humour endeared her to millions worldwide.
Julia Child was born in 1912 into an affluent family in Pasadena, California, and graduated from Smith College in 1934. After college she worked in publicity and advertising in New York. During World War II she worked with the Office of Strategic Resources in Washington DC, Ceylon and China.
Julia wasn’t even remotely interested in food until she met the urbane Paul Child, who had lived in France and was passionate and deeply knowledgeable about food and wine. They married. Julia set about learning to cook from Irma Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking but it wasn’t until her husband transferred to France that her culinary education really began. She enrolled in the Cordon Bleu in Paris, where she met Simone Beck (Simca) and Louisette Bertholle and together they established an informal cooking school, L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes.
A few years later they published one of the greatest cookbooks of all time, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. &
Julia went on to co-found the American Institute of Food and Wine with Robert Mondavi in 1981. She was loved by millions, was an active member of IACP, always in demand yet always gracious and encouraging. She never endorsed products and was much admired for her integrity and refusal to follow food trends slavishly, she used butter and olive oil and never advocated low fat products.
Her lovely kitchen from her Boston home is now meticulously reassembled at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institute.
