Julia Child, a veteran in the culinary world, was a renowned American Chef who is regarded as one of the greatest contributors in the field of introducing and popularizing the French cuisine to the Americans. A food writer who created great impact on the Americans with regard to French cooking through her famous cookbook titled Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Julia child who lived from the 15th of August 1912 to the 13 of August 2004 also hosted a number of popular television shows like The French Chef, Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home, and Baking With Julia, which won a number of awards. Julia Child recipes are based on creativity and a unique amalgamation of French tastes with existing American ones which have won her a lot of patrons throughout America. Julia herself is a high achiever who has a number awards to her credit.
Professional Life of Julia Child
Julia’s career in the culinary world starts with a meal at Rouen, France which steered her life to the world of food, cooking and authoring about food, specifically the French food, in the post war times. The meal which had seafood dishes comprising Sole Meuniere and oysters, served with some of the best wines from the country, enlightened her spirits regarding French food which was instrumental in shaping her inclinations towards the French cuisine. A student of Le Cordon Bleu school for cooking at Paris, her first attempt at writing French dishes for Americans started with her association with Simone Beck at the Cercle Des Gorumettes, a cooking club. The very first Julia Child recipes can be considered to have started when Beck urged Julia to join her in along with another friend Louisette Bertholle in writing her book on French foods for Americans. Julia’s first culinary school was started in Paris in an unofficial way when she, along with Beck and Bertholle, started training American women in French cooking, in an educational setup which they called L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes ( which can be translated into English as the School of the Three Food Lovers). The next few years were spent by the three colleagues travelling extensively around Europe conducting food research tours. Julia Child’s job mostly involved translating the French recipes into American and in the course making them as appealing to the American culinary senses as possible.
Noteworthy Works of Julia Child
Julia Child has made noteworthy contributions in the field of cookbooks and television shows.
Culinary Inventions
Though not an inventor in the conventional sense of the word, Julia child showed American cuisine, how they could incorporate French cooking using ingredients that were available to them. This in a way can be considered as invention of recipes which were customized to the American taste preferences and affordability.
Television Shows
Julia Child is a well-known television personality who worked in some of the best cookery shows which revolutionized the American perception of the French cuisine. Some of her famous cookery shows are discussed here:
· The French Chef- A WBGH production, this television show is one of the elements that created an impact on the Americans about French culinary culture. French food was usually regarded as expensive and one meant for being on restaurant menus owing to the rareness of the ingredients used in the American markets. Julia changed the concept entirely by presenting the preparations which seemed “out of reach” to most Americans in an easy and acceptable manner. She suggested the preparation of French recipes using local and inexpensive ingredients and this made Julia Child recipes one of the most accepted ones from the French cuisine.
· Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home is an educative and entertaining program where Julia along with French Chef Jacques Pepin showed innovative ways of cooking traditional French foods in an entertaining and educative way. The show which was aired on public television channels included a number of Julia Child recipes made in collaboration with Jacques Pepin whose sense of humor and charismatic way of presenting the recipes, demonstrating their preparation and sharing the techniques used in preparing them the best, has endeared the duo to the audience.
· Baking with Julia – this television program which spanned from 1996-1999 over four seasons, involved Julia Child inviting a pastry chef or professional baker who showed ways of baking which could be easily followed by amateur bakers in their kitchens.
Cookbooks
Mastering the Art of French Cooking – this book by far is the most famous book of Julia Child in which she contributed along with her friends Simone Zbeck and Louisette Bertholle, both of whom were French writers. The book is published by Knopf in two volumes in 1963 and 1970. The first volume deals with how the recipes from the French haute cuisine could be customized to suit the more simple and practical style of the American cuisine. The second book deals with baking in details. Both the books are well detailed out and very informative.