Julia Child and The Art of French Cuisine

Today I want to write about a woman who is a reference for me. If you know its history, you will immediately understand what my tastes and style are in the kitchen.

I would like to introduce Julia Child with a phrase: “You can cook if you put your mind to it” that was her maxim (which also inspired the animated film Ratatouille). Julia Child was an influential chef and cookbook author, and was responsible for introducing French cuisine to the American public through her cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking ." certainly one of the most popular books in our store), as well as through his famous television show "The French Chef".

Additionally, Julia Child also influenced the name of our project. For the name Claudia&Julia, we were inspired by the film Julie&Julia, which represents the parallel life between Julia Child and the food blogger Julie (who recreated all her recipes in 365 days). My name is Claudia and Julia was the name that my husband Jordi and I wanted to give our future daughter. We had talked about it thousands of times. But fate had other plans for us and now we are parents of three beautiful boys but no girls (although we don't rule out having a little Julia one day). As you can see, this is a special post for me!

Let's start at the beginning of his story:

Julia was the eldest of three children and after graduating from art high school in California she moved to New York, where she worked in advertising. During World War II he enlisted in the Office of Strategic Services in Washington.

Up to this point and for the time that Julia Child lived, her career is impressive. Well, we have only just begun with his story.

She married Paul Cushing Child, a member of the American diplomacy. He was the one who introduced her to French cuisine. She grew up tasting the typical beef of the region, when she arrived in Paris she fell in love with the refined style of local gastronomy. The passion of both of them for French cuisine and the refusal of this imperious woman to remain renegade at home like a housewife, meant that after some diplomatic adventures she was able to pursue her training at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cooking academy.

She joined Le Cercle des Gourmets, a women's club, and there she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholie, with whom she decided to write a French cookbook for Americans. It must also be added that at that time there was no book of French recipes translated into English, making Julia Child a pioneer and the link between two cultures that were so far apart geographically and gastronomically. In 1951, the three friends founded the French cooking school for United States residents in Paris: "L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes." Until the Child couple had to return to the United States and move to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She wrote for the Boston Globe and made her first television debut with her show “The French Chef,” which was a ratings success.

Julia brought the complexity of French cuisine to Americans, creating a style, a philosophy and even a spirit. It was not just French cuisine and its traditional method, it was his passion, the details, his way of speaking and above all: enjoying food.

Julia and her book, The Art of French Cooking

Martín Berasategui and David de Jorge point out in the prologue to “The Art of French Cooking” that it is “a compendium of perfect hedonism” and a “heartfelt declaration of love for food,” bringing together “the key elements of great cuisine.” of the West”

If you want Julia Child's book " The Art of French Cooking " you can get it in our new Claudia&Julia cookbook section.

In the book he delves into recommendations on the most suitable utensils for each cooking (by the way, Julia was a great lover of Le Creuset utensils). He recommends "not skipping the basic instructions" and dedicating yourself diligently to cooking, because mastering it "is a matter of practice." "My goal is to teach how to cook," he says, and he pursues it with more than 500 recipes in which "the most important ingredient is the love of cooking itself."

Love that begins in the product - he already warned in 1961 about how tasteless fast-fattened chicken is - and culminates in the detail of delicate and elegant presentations, so typical of Gallic taste.

His is a classic recipe book: bouillabaisse, quiches, soufflés, crêpes, stews, mousses, pâtés and cakes such as tatin or charlotte, which opened the doors of television for him, where he debuted with "The French Chef" on NBC in 1962 and continued to promote French cuisine until 2000, four years before his death, at the age of 92. He also published more than a dozen books. In the photograph we can see their typical Bourguignon stew served in a white Le Creuset cocotte .

Her "careful cuisine", as she defined it, educated her native country gastronomically, of which she said that "in the fifties people ate it in any way." This role as ambassador of French cuisine earned her the Legion of Honor award from the country where she was born as a chef.

Julia Child Recipes

Julia popularized a large number of cooking recipes. On our blog you will find some of the most popular:

• Cheese souffle (how to make an authentic soufflé)
• Quiche lorraine (surely one of the most popular quiches in history)
• Creamed spinach (Julia's original recipe, with a note about the cream used)
• Quiche à la tomato, niçoise (different from the quiches we are used to, without cream)
• Coq au vin (chicken in wine)
• Boeuf bourgingnos (a classic slow-cooked chup chup stew)