More about Julia

With the movie where Meryl Streep plays Julia Child in the
theaters, a lot of people are writing about her. I’ve already
commented on the Michael Pollan
article. Here are two other posts worth thinking about:

• Don’t Buy Julia
  Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking — You will never cook
  from it in slate.com takes the point of view that:

  The inconvenient truth is that although the
  country’s best-loved “French chef” produced an unparalleled
  recipe collection in Mastering the Art, it has always been
  daunting. It was never meant for the frivolous or trendy. And it
  now seems even more overwhelming in a Rachael Ray world: Those
  thousands and thousands of cookbooks sold are very likely going
  to wind up where so many of the previous printings
  have — in pristine condition decorating a kitchen
  bookshelf or on a nightstand, handy for vicarious cooking and
  eating.

  I acquired a one-volume copy last summer when I was cleaning out Bonnie’s
  house. I admit I haven’t yet cooked anything from it, and it is
  fairly pristine, although Bonnie cooked a lot from quite a
  number of her cookbooks. But I expect to change that this month
  — I won a box of organic cake flour from King Arthur Flour,
  and unlike most of my other cookbooks, Julia has recipes that
  specify (and presumably were tested with) cake flour.

• Rachel
  Laudan, in her blog about food politics and food history,
  writes a post comparing Julia Child with Elizabeth David, who
  wrote the books about French cooking that caused her generation
  in England to discover it. She says:

  So although their dishes overlapped, David and Julia offered their audiences quite different ideas about cuisine. David’s was this breath of scented air, recipes as poetic guides to possibilities, a touch of sophistication and class for the aspiring. Julia’s allure was the challenge, the hard work, the mastery the guaranteed results that offered entry into a tempting international world.

  Neither vision had much to do with what French housewives, still
  reeling from World War II, actually cooked (here and here),
  an observation not a criticism.