![]() ![]() ![]() Her impact on American culture opened her audience’s eyes to the world of fine cuisine, fresh ingredients and the joy of celebrating life with friends and guests. Julia’s Impact on American Culture and Cuisine It was my first experience watching a variety of American professionals talk about their cooking styles, native foods and regional cuisines. My favorite was the Emmy winning series with Julia and a series of Master Chefs. She shifted her focus to contemporary American cuisine and developed other cooking series including Julia Child and Company, Dinner at Julia’s, Baking with Julia, Julia and Jacques Pépin at Home. She wrote 12 cookbooks and filmed over 200 TV cooking shows featuring classic French cuisine. Julia became passionate about her cooking. But it was her style and charm, her casual approach which instilled confidence in her audience and the success of her recipes that made her name a household word. Yes she started it all! She also helped finance the series by giving cooking classes in her home to friends. When Julia and Paul retired to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Julia convinced the local Public Television Station, WGBH – Boston, to try a new idea in educational programming – a cooking show with Julia Child as the chef and instructor. ![]() It was the decade of entertaining at home, joining a gourmet club, occasionally dining at the expensive French restaurant and enjoying French Champagne, foie gras, chocolate souffles, Chardonnay and Sancerre. Julia’s first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was purchased by thousands of men and women who wanted to learn about the sophisticated French cuisine. In the early 1960s, there were very few women chefs and food writers. A move to Cambridge, Massachusetts – a new career at age 48. Julia’s husband enjoyed French wine and Julia gradually began to impress him with her mastery of classic French cooking after enrolling in the Le Cordon Bleu in 1949. In 1948, after the war, Julia and Paul Child moved to France when he was assigned to the American Embassy in Paris. However, her husband described her as an awful cook. She enrolled in a cooking school in Los Angeles to prepare for marriage. I n 1946 Julia married diplomat Paul Child. She notes that she was too tall at 6 feet 2 inches to join the WAVES (Women Accepted as Volunteer Emergency Serviceworkers) or the WACS (Womens Army Corps) but the OSS accepted her. She served with the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services, which was the forerunner of the CIA). During the war she had the opportunity to work for the United States government in Washington D.C. After graduation she moved to New York hoping to become a famous novelist but instead worked in the field of publicity and advertising from 1934 until the start of World War II. She went to the east coast to Smith College in Massachusetts in 1930 where she enjoyed acting in theater, creative writing and basketball. Julia in the Workforce – Before, During, and After World War II Her first memorable culinary event was eating a “caesar salad” in Tijuana at the restaurant of Caesar Cardini with her parents in 1925. She was a Southern California gal, born in Pasadena in 1912. The first half of Julia’s life was quite interesting but gave no hint of the impact she would have on American culture and cuisine. Their teaching style and collaboration led to their famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking which was published in 1961. The friendships changed American cuisine and history when the three women opened their own cooking school, L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes. She met two women who became dear friends, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, in her studies. This season I am enjoying the series Julia that explores the second half of her life, defined by the moment when Julia Child enrolled in the Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris to learn to savor and prepare French cuisine. ![]()
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