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<\/p>\n\n\u201cShe would have loved this,\u201d said\u00a0Bob Spitz<\/a>, author of \u201cDearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child,\u201d a new biography of the iconic chef who brought the art of French cooking to the American masses.
\nIn honor of what would have been Child\u2019s 100th birthday, the\u00a0Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America<\/a>, the keeper of the extensiveJulia Child Papers<\/a>, ensured that her memory was alive and well during an entertaining and informative daylong symposium. As part of the centenary, the Schlesinger is also hosting an\u00a0exhibition<\/a>\u00a0featuring a selection of Child\u2019s papers and memorabilia, as well as those of her friends, colleagues, and collaborators, through March 22.
\nThe broad narrative of Child\u2019s life is familiar. A tall, jovial woman with a distinctive voice, she co-wrote a famous how-to guide to French cuisine and went on to create and star in a beloved television cooking show that helped to change fundamentally the way that Americans relate to food. But the conference, with its focus on three important places in Child\u2019s life (Paris, Cambridge, and the local television studio), offered listeners a story that was more intimate, and even profound.
\nAn American in Paris<\/strong>
\nPanelists talked of Child\u2019s life in the French capital, her enrollment in the famous cooking school\u00a0Le Cordon Bleu<\/a>, and her relationship with Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle, her collaborators on the exhaustive \u201cMastering the Art of French Cooking.\u201d\u00a0Alex Prud\u2019homme<\/a>, Child\u2019s great-nephew, said that an early, rejected version of the book \u201cwas 700 pages on nothing but soups and poultry.\u201d
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\n\u201cOne of the most important things she learned\u201d while in Paris \u201cwas how to shop like a true French person,\u201d said Alex Prud\u2019homme, who co-wrote Child\u2019s 2006 memoir, \u201cMy Life in France.\u201d
\nIt was in Paris that Child found \u201ca meaningful role to her life,\u201d said Spitz. Cooking and teaching others how to cook became her life, and the city\u2019s open-air markets became her culinary playground.
\nWine merchants, fishmongers, and butchers were Child\u2019s unwitting instructors and collaborators. \u201cOne of the most important things she learned\u201d while in Paris \u201cwas how to shop like a true French person,\u201d said Prud\u2019homme, who co-wrote Child\u2019s 2006 memoir, \u201cMy Life in France.\u201d She realized quickly, he said, that \u201cyou didn\u2019t start by talking to the butcher about cuts of meat, you talked to him about the weather, and you asked about his daughter. Then you would eventually ask him what he was cooking, and then, after about a half an hour, he\u2019d start showing you the really good cuts of meat.\u201d
\nChild\u2019s Cambridge<\/strong>
\nNeighbors and friends shined light on Child\u2019s Cambridge years, the four decades she and husband Paul spent in their home on Irving Street near Harvard Yard. In Cambridge, they developed a cherished circle of friends, and became an important part of the culinary community in Boston, helping to support and mentor budding chefs.
\nChild, recalled the Boston-based chef Michela Larson, was a \u201cmentor, teacher, and inspiration.\u201d She was also, said Larson, \u201cfunny, informative, bold, and she was a woman.\u201d
\nCambridge was ripe for Child, not only in what she brought to the kitchen, but also in the broader culture, according to longtime friend and neighbor Dorothy Shore Zinberg. The city had a wealth of women with Ph.D.s who were unemployed or underemployed, many residents who had taken advantage of postwar programs like Fulbright grants to travel and study abroad, and an influx of refugees who had come to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And, she said, they all cooked.
\n\u201cThis was a male society in Cambridge, as you cannot imagine. Julia in a funny way changed it and gave people permission to be citizens in full participation,\u201d said Zinberg.
\nLike many good parties, the afternoon included a brief singalong. Zinberg, a lecturer at\u00a0Harvard Kennedy School<\/a>, brought along an ode written for Child by the late Peter Gomes, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the\u00a0Memorial Church<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0Harvard University<\/a>. He had written it for a farewell party for Child as she prepared to leave for California. The Radcliffe crowd, accompanied on the piano by Mark DeVoto, musicologist and the son of Child\u2019s friend Avis DeVoto (who was instrumental in bringing Child\u2019s papers to the Schlesinger) sang in her honor.
\n\u201cThe Julification of everybody\u201d<\/strong>
\nThe symposium also honored Child\u2019s indomitable spirit and legendary charm.
\nOne of the aging Child\u2019s fondest pastimes was a trip to her favorite burger joint near her Santa Barbara home, said Prud\u2019homme, accompanied by a search for the perfect spot to eat lunch and take in the view. Invariably the outings meant rolling up some long, unfamiliar driveway along the California coast marked with a prominent \u201cprivate\u201d sign. Child always assured the uneasy Prud\u2019homme with a laugh that if \u201canyone asks us we will just tell them we are looking for Mr. Smith.\u201d
\nOne audience member told the story of a young woman who was in tears in the aisle of a local grocery store a few years ago, at a loss about how to cook a meal for more than 100 people at\u00a0Harvard Divinity School<\/a>. Suddenly, a tall woman approached and asked if she could help. The towering stranger walked the woman through the store, telling her what to buy and offering her cooking tips. Only later did the young woman realize her savior had been one of the world\u2019s most famous chefs.
\nChild connected with people, from those on the street to those in high office. She once counseled U.S Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, said DeVoto, never to say cheese when posing for a picture, but to \u201cAlways say souffl\u00e9.\u201d
\nChild\u2019s husband even had his own term for her charm. He called it the \u201cJulification of everybody,\u201d said Laura Shapiro, who delivered the symposium\u2019s keynote address. In a 1946 letter to his brother, Paul recounted how his soon-to-be wife had prepared for a long road trip by packing several bottles of whiskey. At the Canadian border, she easily persuaded a guard to allow their \u201ctraveling bar\u201d into the country despite the rule permitting only one bottle of alcohol per person, as \u201cJulie\u2019s charm won over the guard\u2019s sense of duty.\u201d
\nThat same quality enchanted her TV fans.
\nThe \u201cauthentic\u201d Child on TV<\/strong>
\nWhile watching tapes of her first cooking shows, Child was appalled by her \u201cswooping gasp.\u201d She called herself \u201cMrs. Steam Engine,\u201d said Shapiro, journalist and author of \u201cJulia Child: A Life\u201d and \u201cPerfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.\u201d But that style proved to be a vital part of her appeal, a source of the authenticity that helped her connect with her widening TV audience. She created, said Shapiro, \u201ca direct relationship with each viewer.\u201d
\nFurther insight into her TV career came from the man who helped to create \u201cThe French Chef.\u201d
\n\u201cI just remember a wonderful time,\u201d said Russell Morash, her producer and director, who recalled creating the early show in the makeshift kitchen of the Boston Gas Company, with the help of a truck filled with cables and cameras, Paul diligently washing the show\u2019s dishes, and Julia, who despite getting a small shock every time she touched her stove because of a technical glitch, never complaining.
\n\u201cWhat a great lady,\u201d said Morash. \u201cShe was so much fun.\u201d
\nSome deeper lessons<\/strong>
\nThe panelists suggested that she saved generations of Americans from Spam and canned-soup casseroles after she introduced them to the joys of butter and French cuisine, and persuaded them to be unafraid of what they ate and not be intimidated by the kitchen.
\nBut Child was part of a wider revolution. Her TV show first aired in 1963, the same year that Betty Friedan published the groundbreaking book that helped spur the century\u2019s second wave of American feminism, \u201cThe Feminine Mystique.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat we learned from Julia, more than how to cook, was how to think, how to reimagine life at home in a way that did not demean or sentimentalize the woman at the center of it. Nobody ever called Julia \u2018The Little Woman,\u2019 \u201d said Shapiro.
\nAfter the session ended and Prud\u2019homme headed for a reception, he mused over what Child would have thought of it.
\n\u201cShe was very modest, but I think she would have loved this event. She loved a party, and she loved talking about food, and she loved Cambridge,\u201d said Prud\u2019homme. \u201cI think she would have said, \u2018Let\u2019s go have some Champagne.\u2019\u201d\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We toasted JC’s 100th birthday at a wonderful celebration at Radcliffe last week. Here’s an overview: Bon app\u00e9tit! Julia at 100 Radcliffe celebrates the life, legacy of the famed French chef By Colleen Walsh Harvard Staff Writer Wednesday, September 26, 2012 Photos by Kris Snibbe\/Harvard Staff Photographer Friends, family, former colleagues, and devoted fans gathered…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n