Julia Child and Julie ... and I

I just fin­ished watch­ing "Julia and Julie", an American film by Nora Ephron (When Harry met Sally) which par­al­lels the lives of two women, Julia Child, a sort of syn­the­sis of Maïté, Mapie, Philippe Etchebestand Julie Andrieuwhose kitchen has even been installed in a muse­um, and Julie Powell, a young American who is chal­leng­ing her­self, forty years lat­er, to make the 524 recipes in Julia Child's book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year.

Cooking and the love of cooking

This is not a film about cook­ing, but about the love of cook­ing, and above all, about what the prac­tice of cook­ing can bring to women whose lives are not "per­fect", far from it.

I haven't always loved "cook­ing". I have always liked to enter­tain my friends and offer them a plen­ti­ful and tasty table. Twenty years ago, a friend of mine was a great fan of Robuchon, he had bought one of his books and made his own "chal­lenge" by mak­ing one or two of the great chef's recipes every week­end. I couldn't under­stand why any­one would make life so complicated.

Many trips, many restau­rants, two expa­tri­a­tions lat­er, my life start­ed to get real­ly dif­fi­cult. On a scale of 1 to 10, Julia Child would be a 3, Julie Powell a 5, and I would be a 9.50.

And then, with­out any par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge, I start­ed cook­ing. Reading and col­lect­ing cook­ing blogs. Imagining all those recipes, mak­ing some of them. Experimenting, try­ing to recre­ate world flavours in my Casablanca kitchen, with­out hav­ing the ingre­di­ents. Diving into old cook­books from the last cen­tu­ryand even from the cen­tu­ry before last, thanks to the mag­ic of the internet.

To "col­lect" recipes. And, like Julie, to share with my friends, but also on a blog.

The Julia Child phenomenon

It is unfair that Julia, who was the great ambas­sador of French "fam­i­ly" cook­ing, is so lit­tle known in France. This tall woman, a lit­tle phys­i­cal­ly bor­rowed because of her height (what an act­ing per­for­mance, by the way, by Meryl Streep who is "only" 1,68m !) plunged pas­sion­ate­ly into the dis­cov­ery of our cui­sine when she accom­pa­nied her hus­band to France after the war.

She fol­lowed a high-level pro­fes­sion­al train­ing course at the famous Cordon Bleu school and soon began to give lessons to her fel­low coun­try­men. With two friends, she embarked on what would be her life's work: "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".

She went on to give demon­stra­tions and TV shows, and her book was reg­u­lar­ly republished.

A bon vivant, she care­ful­ly test­ed and retest­ed her recipes, with her two friends, until they were perfect.

She had fun on tele­vi­sion, and nev­er flinched when some­thing went wrong: instead of redo­ing the take, she explained how to make up for mis­takes and save a dish.

Adapting French cuisine for American women

At the time, glob­al­i­sa­tion was not what it has become. Many ingre­di­ents were not found on the oth­er side of the Atlantic. Animals, fruits and veg­eta­bles were not per­fect­ly identical.

The serv­ings were not the same either, Julia explains at the begin­ning of her book that the quan­ti­ties giv­en for three peo­ple would be suit­able for six in France, point­ing out that the ser­vice is not the same: starter, main course and dessert in the United States (hors d'oeuvre), starter, main course, sal­ad, cheese and dessert in France!

And, of course — and this has not changed — the mea­sureswere not the same either. But here we are still at the same point, cups and spoons on one side, grams and cen­til­itres on the other!