My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, 2006
The cover of my paperback has asticker that reads “Now a Major Motion Picture” and encourages one to read the book and see the movie. Of course, I’m doing it backwards. I saw the movie with my good friend Julie first. Then I read Julie Powell’s book about her blog about her attempt to prepare all 500+ recipes from a 40-year old cookbook in 365 days (Mastering the Art of French Cooking). Even though it’s still posted, I didn’t read her blog—the book was entertaining enough. Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously is available and if you are in the mood for light-hearted cooking adventures and disasters, I recommend it. Mrs. Child didn’t care for Julie Powell’s efforts, once they were brought to her attention, thinking them frivolous about a subject dear to Mrs. Child’s heart, but she was ninety-one years old and no doubt out of touch with the younger generation Julie Powell represented. But I liked it, and my BFF Julie did, too. (It was her book I borrowed.)
The movie bounced back and forth from adventures Julia Child had in France as a newly married woman and finding her life’s vocation, and the adventures Julie Powell who by daytime worked at a thankless secretarial job and by night embarked upon this grand attempt to give her life some direction and meaning. Julie’s husband, while understanding and supportive, had a lot to put up with. So, the movie was telling two almost equally interesting stories, but the Julia Child portion tended to take dominance because Meryl Streep, in a wonderfully faithful performance, played Julia Child. Oh, by the way, my BFF Julie was one of the few members of the movie audience that afternoon with natural God-given color in her hair!
All this led me to read first Julie Powell’s book, and next Julia Child’s book, published posthumously. Alex Prud’homme, Paul Child’s great-nephew, is a writer and had often talked with his aunt about writing such a book. Toward the end of her life she finally agreed that now would be a good time. She, who remained sharp of mind to the end, told stories while Alex took notes and the book gradually took shape.
What can I say about the book, My Life in France? It is not a cookbook, it has no recipes. I suppose it is a memoir, full of Julia’s coming into her own, realizing her full potential later in life than most people do. It’s a personal story, with photographs. Paul, besides his government jobs, was an artist, a painter and photographer. He photographed Julia in their tiny kitchen in Paris, in picturesque settings, and with her Chef friends.
(The two photos inserted in the text are by Paul Child. They were too busy to send out Christmas cards, so they made up for it sending out sweet and sentimental Valentine’s Day Cards!)
Julia fell in love with France and decided that those Americans who thought the French stuck-up expected them to be haughty and distant and so they were. If one expected them to talk with you and be friendly, they were. Julia was never shy, and had little French when she arrived in France but that did not keep her from shopping and pointing and smiling and using bad French to try to communicate. Because she was always so friendly, the French populace was invariably agreeable with her.
She told the trials and tribulations of her husband’s work for the Foreign Office, of not knowing where your next posting would be, of dealing with petty bureaucrats, of living through the McCarthy years in France, where the Red Menace was near and the government failed every so often. She wrote about their travels, their sightseeing, their mutual love of good food and wine. The latter soon caught up with them and they came down with “tummy troubles”. The doctors diagnosed them as having “American stomachs” unable to handle the load of rich foods and varied wines they had been subjected to. So for a time they had to sup on bland foods and forego the rich cream sauce, the lovely buttery sauce, the cheese, and the wines until their tummies recovered. A lesson in moderation learnt the hard way!
As you probably know, Julia went to La Cordon Bleu to learn to cook the wonderful foods they enjoyed in restaurants. What you probably don’t know is how difficult it was to get a good culinary education there at the time, and how difficult it was to wrest a diploma from the head of the school after one did. By that time, Julia had made friends with chefs all over town, as well as the chefs at the school, so a word from time to time from one of them helped things along.
She also met the two women, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, who were trying to write a book of recipes for the American trade. When they asked Julia if she would like to help (they were getting bogged down), she jumped at the chance. She discovered at the age of 40 that she needed to cultivate an orderly mind, which had always been under-utilized. She researched, tested, wrote endless letters, had meetings to compare notes, and otherwise threw herself into the project. Measurements were different: cups, ounces, grams. The ingredients were different: American flour and meal was sterile and had a long shelf life, as opposed to the more moist and unrefined French flour and milled grains that grew maggoty if not used pretty soon. This difference in mass and weight affected the amount of fat needed to make bread, pie crust, etc. The same fish had a different name from market to market. Vegetables were known as one thing here and another there. It was a horrendous undertaking. Julia never flinched: she embraced the project whole-heartedly.
She had a legion of friends and contacts on both coasts back home to help her with the publishing end of things. Her French friends were timid about dropping the publisher they had talked to, even though (a) he had no experience or employee with experience in cookbooks and (b) they had nothing in writing, and (c) he never DID anything. Julia prevailed and sent a letter of dismissal to one and began negotiations with another. The rest is history.
This is a delightful book, full of personal (but not too personal) tidbits. It makes me want to rent some French Chef DVDs from Netflix to watch again, now that I know how hard she worked to learn to teach, to be authoritative without being dogmatic. And also knowing how hard she worked to make these recipes accessible to and almost foolproof for the “servantless American housewife”.
Having been inspired, I am now working on Mother’s Pot Roast. Any woman of a certain age remembers her mother preparing the roast, braising it, adding a little water and vegetables all around it. She then put the covered pot in the over and let it cook while she and the family went to Sunday School and Church. Sunday dinner was ready when they returned home.
I’ve made it twice now and my husband loved it both times, even though there were real differences. For instance, the second time around I cut slits in the meat and stuffed them with garlic.
But I loved both the books and the movie, and I know you will, too!
