It took 48 years after it was published, but Julia Child has her first book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, on the best seller list. From the NY Times,
“Amazing not just because the book is almost half a century old, costs $40 and contains 752 pages of labor-intensive and time-consuming recipes — the art of French cooking is indeed hard to master — but also for what those recipes contain.
In a decade when cookbooks promise 20-minute dinners that are light on calories, Ms. Child’s recipes feature instructions like “thin out with more spoonfuls of cream” (Veau Prince Orloff, or veal with onions and mushrooms, pages 355-7) or “sauté the bacon in the butter for several minutes” (Navets à la Champenoise, or turnip casserole, pages 488-9). And for a generation raised to believe that Jell-O should have marshmallows in it, there is plenty of aspic — the kind made with meat.”
When I first started cooking, I made quite a few recipes from this book, and I still make Julia’s beouf bourguignon. The recipes were frequently complex, laden with fat, and usually good, but are at this point, rather dated.
Do you have a favorite Julia Child recipe?
The potato salad that my mom has made over and over again, my entire life, is Pommes De Terre A La Huille (French potato salad), from Julia Child’s “The French Chef Cookbook” – a tattered paperback which I now own. It is dressed with “sauce vinaigrette”, found on the previous page. Simple, delicious, perfect…always loved it – still do.
Happily, my mom came across this recipe at some point in the early 70′s, saving me from a lifetime of HER mother’s (my grandma’s) way-too- eggy and yellow version, which calls for enough mayonnaise to choke a mongoose. My mom serves hers with a dish of homemade mayonnaise on the side – for those who can’t live without. And capers. And sometimes anchovies, for special occasions!
How much mayonnaise would one need to choke a mongoose, hypothetically? ;)
It is a well known fact, that mongooses have a low tolerance for mayonnaise.
Wouldn’t that be “mongeese”? And they actually have a medium to high tolerance for mayonnaise, which means that using enough of the stuff to actually choke a mongoose is really saying something.
This is fascinating, albeit on an extremely trivial level. How exactly was this tolerance for mayonnaise discovered? An extremely brief Google search turned up…this thread.
I believe the force-feeding of mayonaisse to mongooses and/or mongeese would result in some very militant stinky, white-kid with dreadlock action PETA creeps showing up outside your door hurling insults at your customers.
Perhaps even throwing fake blood on Lindsay Lohan.
Sorry, can’t condone it.
It’s just something any real foodie knows ;)
As QV says, the only way to get the best out of a mongoose, is to force feed it mayonnaise through a tube. Once they are properly fattened, the livers are sliced very very thin. I use them as an extra layer for a burger.
I inherited my Julia Child from my grandmother after she passed, and it is an indispensable guide for solid, basic French cooking. I follow her guide for roast chicken and quiche’ anytime I have a lapse or need to reconnect with the original foundation of a dish and get away from being too clever. I love her potato gratin recipe as well. It is funny that you mention the “laden with fat” issue. I wonder if there is is an absolute correlation between cooking with fat, gaining weight and being unhealthy. Just anecdotally, I find I eat less when I cook with more fat, because I feel satiated much sooner. Additionally, I am much more satisfied with the meal. Long live Julia Child and fat!
“I wonder if there is is an absolute correlation between cooking with fat, gaining weight and being unhealthy.”
I’d suggest Gary Taubes’ book about “Good Calories, Bad Calories” as a good read to think about the current fear of fat and the actual problems of excess refined carbs in our food.
What Julia Child’s book also contains is the foundation of knowledge and skills that served people for almost a century before Mrs Child was taught them. To say it’s fat misses the point. The French teach themselves skills that they can apply to any kind of cooking. The closest American culture comes to giving people useful food skills is to offer random bits of information encouraging people to pay more attention to the ‘star’ than the content. I think it’s amazing that the book has moved to the best seller list, 40, 50 years later. Maybe eventually we’ll master the art.
Really, it’s all about portion size and appetite control. When I think about what my grandparents–hearty German stock, living in the middle of Illinois–used to eat for their meals, I just about keel over. Bacon, bacon, pork, sausage, cheese x 10, butter, butter, cream, bacon, beef, and then some additional butter. All the time. If a meal didn’t have meat, it was suspect. Yet they were skinny as rails and both lived into their 90s. Now I know people who own gym memberships, are constantly on a diet, and have type 2 diabetes and are morbidly obese. The reason (among many) for the difference is that people of my grandparents’ era ate small portions, didn’t really snack between meals, and ate almost nothing processed.
Yes, I still make Julia’s quiche lorraine. I learned to cook with Julia, and treasure that experience. Most of her recipes are not to my liking any longer, but her cream of spinach soup and quiche bring back sweet memories.
The Charlotte dessert was interesting to make and a complete disaster! In the late 70′s, I once made an entire dinner party meal, one of my first such gatherings, as a young bride, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
During a vineyard dinner I catered last weekend, I was approached by a participant who was raving about a vinaigrette used as part of a Salade Nicoise. “What was in that vinaigrette? It was so fresh and flavorful!” I explained: Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil. She was amazed that something so tasty had so few ingredients. I referred her to “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” for more classic French recipes.
Over the past few years, I’ve enjoyed adapting Julia’s recipes and exposing more people to the joys of great food.
Saw Julie & Julia and really enjoyed it so much it inspired me to search for an old copy of “Mastering…”. I found a 1964 missing a few pages and so far I’ve made the Onion Soup taking 5 more steps than I usually do and it was wonderful.
Definitely “Potiron du ronde”, a pumpkin soup cooked and served in the whole pumpkin. I made it years ago for a party, and people mention it still. The dramatic presentation was as responsible as the flavor for making it an indelible memory.
The 18-page recipe for a basic French baguette, which spells out every blessed step. Once you realize that she’s merely (!) explaining everything you need to know about baking a yeast bread, the instructions aren’t that formidable.