Poloroid by Elsa Dorfman, 1988
Some pretty intense things happened in 1963. The Kennedy Administration severed our ties with Cuba. Alcatraz Penitentiary closed up shop. Bob Dylan released Blowin’ in the Wind.
Most importantly to me, The French Chef premiered on WGBH, introducing America to Julia Child.
It is impossible to overstate how much influence Julia Child had on American eating habits. She wasn’t the first cook to have a TV show, since that honor belongs to Philip Harben, a restauranteur from England. She wasn’t even the first celebrity chef in the US, since that was unquestioningly James Beard. But she was so fun and genuine, so distinctive, so large and good natured and real that she seemed to invite viewers into her kitchen — but even moreso encourage them to enter their own. American cuisine was never the same.
There was something supportive about Julia’s approach. Even now, when I watch clips on YouTube, I feel like she’s on my side, like she really wants to share the pleasures of good cooking and good food. And she wasn’t interested in making fine cuisine intimidating! There’s a famous episode of her first show in which, after cooking a massive potato pancake, she fumbled flipping it onto the platter, catching half the dish while the other half fell on the stovetop. But the show was filmed live, and Julia was a live wire — so she just scooped it up, patched it back together, and looked right in the camera as she asked, “If you’re alone in the kitchen, who is going to see?”
Early in her marriage, Julia was trying to please her older, more worldly husband with a duck dish. It exploded and set the oven on fire. If she could recover from that and go on to become one of the first culinary superstars, well, you and I can surely bounce back from a bad day.
Her kitchen, with its extra-tall counters to accommodate her six-foot-two height, is now at the Smithsonian. It this video, staff and lucky volunteers pack it up to be moved to a new exhibit. It’s amazing and gratifying to see the care they take with her well-worn pans and cookbooks. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, even if we don’t use quite as much butter as she liked.
