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.