Julia Child, cookery teacher, died on August 13, 2004
ST PAUL saw the light on the road to Damascus, Archimedes while soaking in the bath. Julia Child's moment of illumination came in a restaurant in Rouen in 1948. Until that moment, Mrs Child knew nothing of French food. She had never tasted crème fraîche or encountered a shallot. Nor had most Americans. Their menus revolved around Jell-O, Cream of Wheat and a single, rubbery, species of cheese. Almost single-handedly, Mrs Child was to change all that. Under her trilling and exuberant guidance, Americans came to embrace at least the cooking of France. Mrs Child determined to show that French cooking could be fun; that even a frazzled New Yorker, after a day at the office, could cobble up a mean boeuf bourguignon. Her eruption on television, in 1962, made the point superbly. She had just produced 734 pages, in two volumes, called “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. This, the work of ten years, was still a mite intimidating. But Mrs Child appeared on set with a frying,pan, a portable hot-plate, an apron, a whisk and a dozen eggs, and merrily whipped up an omelette as she was being interviewed. In the book, the process took ten pages; on screen, it took two minutes. She was launched as a star. Americans had seen TV chefs before, but not like this one. The towering Mrs Child was a maniac with blades, never meeting a knife she didn't like; she once jointed a chicken with a sword, and was spoofed bleeding to death on “Saturday Night Live”. Dishes were tasted liberally, and fingers licked. She drank as she went, recommending a glass for any tired cook, and her sing-song aristocratic tones (“Bon appétit!”) grew steadily more extravagant. Mistakes were summarily dealt with. An offending loaf was tossed over her shoulder among the potted plants; a misflipped potato pancake was scraped off the range and back into the pan; her false teeth were firmly readjusted in front of the camera. She began her demonstration of coq au vin by dropping a whole chicken on the floor, dusting it off and remarking: “It's OK. No one's looking.” Behind the fun lurked a stickler for exactitude. French cooking, she believed, was about rules; it was as much science as art. Nothing in her background made her a gourmet. She ate prodigiously as a child, but so did her equally tall sisters. Though they were a rich family, the food was poor; her mother, who kept a cook, could make only biscuits and Welsh rarebit.Julia misbehaved, and smoked her father's cigars; she remained a smoker half her life, despite the risks to a discerning palate. As a national institution, with her turquoise kitchen and copper pans eventually enshrined in the Smithsonian, she was excused from changes in fashion. She loved red meat with a passion, while America switched squeamishly to chicken; her cookery included lashings of eggs, butter and cream, when the national waistline was alarmingly expanding. “Just slowly incorporate another stick of butter,” was Mrs Child's soothing response to emergencies with sauce. She could hardly think of another larder essential, except potatoes; and these too, when cooked, demanded to be buried in butter and cheese. In 2000, when she was awarded the Légion d'Honneur for bringing the delights of France to Americans, she was served all her favourite things: oysters, caviar, Dover sole, duck, profiteroles and a good deal of champagne. Her life could appear one long indulgence of comfortable houses and perfect meals. Yet Julia was no snob. She encouraged all the clumsy, aspiring cooks who wrote to her and sought her autograph; and when stuck in an airport she would eat a hamburger quite happily, comme tout le monde.