Who doesn't need food? Please tell me if there's any, and I'll be doubtful that the person is a human being. Every creature - human, animal, plant - needs energy from foods in order to keep themselves alive. It is one of daily life's basic need. It is something that human being can not refuse, - especially when their stomach's empty - even a skinny supermodel on her strict diet would secretly eat crackers after the show. Or a person laying in the hospital bed in his coma, they'd give him infusion, a glimpse of hope towards a patient to keep him alive.
I bought the novel in an second-hand book shop in a department store in Ipoh, Malaysia in the time when my family visited my Dad. They sold books in very lovely price, my eyes strolled along some rows of novel titles, and then got captivated by this one; My Life in France. My sister would go studying abroad to France a week after that Malaysia visit, so I thought this would be okay for her. Without any further considerations, I decided to buy it. Previously I heard good responds from my friends of
Julie and Julia, I haven't watched it yet though.
It's a story about
Julia Child, an American woman who is passionate about cooking after moving to France. The book is more like an autobiography about her; as a cook, a teacher, and a writer, written by Alex Prud'homme. Her love of food started by the time she and her husband moved to the country with its delightful cuisines. It is exciting to read how she loved a country so much. She appreciated the cultures, she fell in love with almost everything; the town, the language, the markets, the people, and of course... The delicacy of French food. It's a book with only texts on every pages, but I could feel her prettiness through the book. I guess it's true that when people fall in
love, they themself become a lot prettier to the other people.
The book tells the readers about her life, her food and cooking experience, and her efforts on familiarizing France cuisine to American people, especially cooks. She started to learn how to cook by the time she fell in love with the food tastes, and enjoyed it ever since. Her book (co-authored with Simca Beck Fischbacher) - Mastering the Art of French Cooking - first published in 1961 was telling on how to cook French traditional recipes. Later on, Julia had an opportunity to host a cooking programme on TV in America, called The French Chef TV Show from 1963 to 1973. She wrote several books about cooking in her late days.
I've never known that cooking would be this complicated, especially in making a cooking book. Each selected recipes been analyzed in the kitchen, been tested many times until the result became (almost) perfect. The process wasn't always smooth, sometimes it needed to be tested all over again if the taste went wrong or less perfect. Sometimes with another alternative ingredients or another utensils; to gain perfect combination. We can imagine how long will it took for only one recipe to be written with the most perfect approach of cooking. That was the way she worked on her recipes in the kitchen. Slow but careful approach. She said that she was the type of person who wanted to know everything about a dish- what worked or didn't, why, and how to make it better. There would be no unsolved questions in her master recipe. She would be glad to do experiment herself in the kitchen, even though it sometimes took a long time. She did boulabaisse, french bread, and another lots of french recipes (apparently there are lots of French words and phrases regarding recipes on this book. It's hard to remember, though).
Some French cooking techniques to be used to cook the recipes were modified to fit with cooking methods for American cooks, since her first book was targeted to American audiences. The Americans really want nothing but
speed and magic in the kitchen, thus the French recipes needed to be modified to meet the American cooking manners. Julia noted;
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking was something akin to my firstborn child, and like any parent; I wanted to be perfect".
Those days, Julia and Simca communicated using mails from several countries. They exchanged recipes, shared tips and tricks of recipes (to be tested on kitchen), and most of all discussed their book scripts through the airmail. Sending letters was popular back then, since there was still no internet around. Using airmail, senders have to estimate some time before sending out the letters regarding the process in postal agencies and sending time. This would make senders wait some times anxiously, without even knowing the mail being sent safely or stuck somewhere. It might took one to two months to finally get a reply from the recipients. Wonder if there was any kind of confirmation to senders about status of the mail they've sent. This is totally different from mail-sending system these days, where people can easily discuss something anywhere anytime, at the tip of their fingers. Time and places are not matter anymore. Internet generation wouldn't know how it feels like to anxiously waiting for an air mail.
She also did some French culinary documentaries and cooking lesson programme for American TV. They might
be one of the few documentary records showing how food was once made almost entirely by human hands rather than by machines. Julia, who was first interested in audiences who were
devoted to serious, creative cookery became a bit loosened regarding her cooking substances to public. As well as her first published book, the message of the programmes was to familiarize cooking to American people especially French cooking. It then became vary, recipes she presented at the show became a lot general. And it was fortunately a good timing. The show brought good responses, it was one of the first cooking shows in the world. There are many cooking programmes on telly these days (I can tell some of which broadcasted in Indonesia. Every channel has one cooking programme I suppose), perhaps this was one of the impacts of Julia's TV shows in the past.
"He was living link to the greats of the past, the kind of dedicated cuisinier that had so inspired my love of France and its food. And, like Curnonsky, Vergé could not have come from anywhere but France". During her days in France, Julia met a lot of people who were seniors and experts in French cooking. Some were her teachers back in her cook-studying period, some were friends of friends she knew at some events, some were chefs she met at her favorite restaurants. All of them expressed true genuine love for cooking. They were true chefs. One of them was Chef Vergé, a chef of restaurant Le Moulin de Mougins.
"When I see some of the skinny little people in my restaurant pecking at their food like sparrows, I remember our village, where everyone ate heaps of sausages and pâtés and beef, and fish and pheasants, and geese, and venison, and chicken". He conveyed that the joy of eating should cherished and of course it should be enjoyed anytime hunger striked out. I agree to him regarding this (well, I'm a devoted eater!), however this should also be viewed in terms of health.
From my point of view, Julia and Paul Child was a ideal couple. Mr. Child, he was very handy and all. He was a type of guy that could be rely on in every situation. He took photographs, he painted. His style matched up to her. Most of all; he supported what his wife had did. I think she was very lucky to have such wonderful husband.
After the war, people in many countries travel overseas a lot. Societies started to see another bright sides of the world, rather than confined in their home country. Travelled a lot and learned new cultures, then started to realize that world is wide and big and has lots of interesting things to explore. She didn't seem to reflect the mainstream after-war effect liability. After many wars by that time, societies of each nations generally couldn't cared much on appreciating overseas' cultures, mostly people were blinded from patriotism for their beloved country. That was what made them gave less attention on other countries' unique cultures. It's fascinating to read an appreciation of other nation's citizen about another country; about France in the old time, the 1940s and 1950s, from a perspective of an American woman. She also appeared in Time magazine cover in taun 1966. This might merely be fondness of other nation's culinaries, but the bigger picture is that this can be viewed as an attempt of bridging cultural divide between France and America.
I recommend this book to my big sister who is now studying in France. Though this might not be any use, but anyway it's fine, right? Reading books in random topics which has no relation to you before? You would feel like travelling, but actually you don't travel. It's exciting.
I could feel the genuineness of her cheery personality through the words. I could also feel warmth and tenderness and sincerety of her. Her life was all about passion! She recalled that France was her spiritual homeland, where apparently it had become a part of her, and so did her to France. Beautiful details and all. But most of all what I adore from the book is the optimism of Julia Child of struggling to achieve what she really wanted. And of course; the messages.
"Too get the proper results, one had to be willing to sweat over it; the preliminaries must be performed correctly and every detail must be observed".
To be honest, I'm still lacking cooking skill. However, am still learning though it might not be a significant effort. The way she told her story somehow encouraging readers to try some cooking stuffs and that cooking is fun. One of her famous books; From Julia Child's Kitchen was considered as if it was a private cooking school.
"And the great lesson embedded in the book is that no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing. This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook - try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!"
"The pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite - Toujours bon appe'tit!"
Oui, madam. It's true. :)
Photo source:
Wikimedia (kitchen interior)
