Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child (80 page)

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Authors: Noel Riley Fitch

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BOOK: Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child
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CHAPTER 11
CORDON BLEU (1949–1952)

Unpublished Sources

Interviews
: JC, DC 4/30/93, 3/9/94, 2/2/96, and 1/10/97, LB 7/12/92, Helen Kirkpatrick [Milbank] 9/19/95, Francis Myer Brennan 10/7/93 and 9/23/94, Janou Walcutt 2/3/95, Hélène Baltrusaitis 7/28/93, Rosemary Manell 4/30/93, Debby and Fisher Howe 9/28/94, Louise Vincent 7/18/95, Ailene Martin Berrard 5/8/94, Susy Davidson 2/25/94, Harriet Healy 4/5/94, Gay Bradley Wright 2/5/96, Elizabeth Heppner [McIntosh] 11/3/93, Elizabeth (Betty) Kubler 9/26/94, Anne Hastings (granddaughter of Madame Saint-Ange) 9/30/94, Lizabeth Nicol 8/3/94. Philadelphia Cousins 3/31/95, Suzanne Patterson 5/24/93, Mark DeVoto 12/14/94. Karen Walker interview with Elisabeth Brassart 2/9/95 and Darthea Speyer 1/31/97.

Correspondence
: Shakurra Amatulla to NRF, 7/7/96; JC to editor of
Life International
, 12/18/51 (on poor administration of Cordon Bleu); LB to JC, 10/3/82 (courtesy Peter Kump); Joseph C. Sloane to NRF, 1/13/95 and 7/19/95; Catharine (Kitty) Carton Smith to NRF, 1/31/95; JC to Jeffrey Meyers, 10/4/84; Helen Milbank to JC, 10/4/82 (courtesy Peter Kump).

Archives
:
Schlesinger:
PC letter-diary to CC, 1950–53; correspondence JC, SB, LB, AD, FC, Madame Brassart (3/28/51), Max Bugnard, Betty and George Kubler; JC, “L’Histoire de la Chef Française” (2-page typescript MS); typescript menus of “French cooking school;” copies
Embassy News;
“History of Our Relations with Ives Washburn,” 12/30/52; Beck and Bertholle manuscripts; transcript of Foreign Service Spouse Oral History, 11/7/91.
Cordon Bleu, Paris:
records and publications
(Le Cordon Bleu Revue Illustrée de Cuisine Pratique et des Arts Ménagers
, vols. 16, 26, 37).
Private:
datebooks of JC and PC, 1948–53; JC/PC vacation correspondence; AD, “Memoir About Julia,” 10/16/88 (courtesy Mark DeVoto); Peter Kump video of Bramafam and Simone Beck.
Beinecke:
correspondence PC and Richard E. Myers.

Published Sources

“a horrifying chore”: JC,
From JC’s Kitchen
, 153. The first account of the fish pounding for mousse, which she mailed to “Bien Maître” Bugnard: JC, “It Took 11 GIs, Girl to Make Fish Cakes,”
Boston Globe
(Feb. 13, 1964): clipping.

“you would have to pass”: JC, “Cooking with Julia: A Soulful Chicken Soup,”
Food & Wine
(Jan. 1995): 30.

“delicately known as”: Frances Levison, “First, Peel an Eel,”
Life International
(Dec. 13, 1964): 83.

“first-class feasting”: Catharine Reynolds, “Paris Journal: One Hundred Years of Le Cordon Bleu,”
Gourmet
(Jan. 1995): 53.

“One of the reasons I married her”: Grey Stevens, “Ivan and Dorothy,”
San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle
(Oct. 11, 1981): 32.

“one of the great encounters”: Michael James, “Simca Beck—Master of The Art of French Cooking; An Affectionate Portrait,”
Food & Wine
(June 1987): 108.

“a tall blonde”: JC, “Introduction” to SB with Suzanne Patterson,
Food & Friends: Recipes and Memories from Simca’s Cuisine
(NY: Viking, 1991).

“instant chef”: John L. Hess and Karen Hess,
The Taste of America
(NY: Grossman, 1977): 191.

“I had there”: Julian Street,
Where Paris Dines
(NY: Doubleday, 1929): 51.

CHAPTER 12
MARSEILLES (1953–1954)

Unpublished Sources

Interviews
: JC, Rosemary Manell 4/30/93, John L. Moore 5/20/94, Robert W. Duemling 1/11/95, Fisher and Debby Howe 9/28/94, Mark DeVoto 12/14/95, Paul Sheeline 2/26/94, Elizabeth (Betty) Kubler 9/26/94, Philip and Mary Hyman 6/18/95.

Correspondence
: Nancy [White] Hector to NRF, 11/5/96; J. Roland Jacobs to NRF, 4/3/95; Howard B. Crotinger to NRF, 2/14/95 and 3/14/95; E. Lee Fairley to NRF, 5/11/93 and 6/5/95; Joseph C. Sloane to NRF, 11/13/95; JC to Paulette Chaix, 4/67; JC to Eleanor and Basil Summers, 2/14/54; AD to JC, 9/25/82 (courtesy Peter Kump); Nancy [White] Hector to NRF, 11/5/96.

Archives
:
Private:
JC and PC datebooks and address books, 1953, 1954, 1955; AD, “Memoir About Julia,” 10/16/88 (courtesy Mark DeVoto); JC to DC correspondence (courtesy DC); 1950s
Michelin Guides
(courtesy Philip and Mary Hyman).
Schlesinger:
PC letter-diary to CC, 1953–55; correspondence JC, DC, SB, LB, MFKF, Katy Gates, and Paul Sheeline; Houghton Mifflin contracts and correspondence.

Published Sources

“moved through Europe”: Theodore H. White,
In Search of History: A Personal Adventure
(London: Cape, 1979): 356.

“Most people were scared”: Foreign Service Spouse Oral History, “An Interview with JC” (Nov. 7, 1991): 8.

“all copy from one another”: JC was using Escoffier’s 4th (1948) edition, Simca his 1900. For an English edition, see Auguste Escoffier,
The Escoffier Cookbook
(NY: Crown, 1969).

“an imperial look in her eye”: JC,
From JC’s Kitchen
(NY: Knopf, 1975): 20.

“To choose bouillabaisse”: Raymond Oliver,
Gastronomy of France
, trans. Claude Durrell (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1967): 163.

“Populist … an honorable word”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “The Citizen,”
Four Portraits and One Subject: Bernard DeVoto
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963): 41.

CHAPTER 13
A LITTLE TOWN IN GERMANY (1954–1956)

Unpublished Sources

Interviews
: JC, LB 7/12/92, Rosemary Manell 4/30/93, John L. Moore 5/20/94, Mark DeVoto 12/14/94.

Correspondence
: Lyne S. Few to NRF, 4/20/95; E. Lee Fairley to NRF, 5/11/95 and 6/5/95; Freifrau Dorothea von Stetten to NRF, 7/28/96 and 9/5/96; Fitz Hier to NRF, 8/7/96; Martha Culbertson to NRF, 3/18/95; James M. McDonald to NRF, 5/10/96 and 6/10/96.

Archives
: CIA, U.S. Depts. of State and Justice (latter still pending), and USIA (“file routinely destroyed in January 1986,” letter to NRF, 6/7/93).
Schlesinger:
PC letter-diary to CC (their only surviving correspondence of the Bonn years is the period from 6/56 through 10/56); correspondence JC, AD, SB, LB, Jane Foster (10/15/55), Hadley Mowrer.
Private:
JC and PC 1954–56 datebooks, PC to JC correspondence April 1955; AD, “Memoir About Julia,” 10/16/88 (courtesy Mark DeVoto).
Smith College:
JC, transcript of Smith Oral History (10/16/72):
25–21. Beinecke:
correspondence PC and Richard Myers.

Published Sources

“snuggled along the curve”:
Theodore H. White at Large: The Best of His Magazine Writing 1939–1986
, ed. Edward T. Thompson (NY: Pantheon, 1992): 188. White’s comparison between Bonn and Cambridge, MA:
In Search of History: A Personal Adventure
(London: Cape, 1979): 314.

“a wrinkled mummy”:
White at Large
, 318.

“secret war”: R. Harris Smith, OSS:
The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency
(Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1972): 366. The “hysteria,” says David Caute, led to 10 dismissals and 273 resignations between May 1953 and June 1955:
The Great Fear: Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower
(NY: Simon & Schuster, 1978): 246, 307, 315.

“ignorance … existed largely”: Robert McNamara, with Brian VanDeMark,
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
(NY: Random House, 1995): 32–33.

“the golden age of food processing”: Harvey Levenstein,
Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America
(NY: Oxford, 1993): 101.

CHAPTER 14
BACK HOME (AND COOKING) ON THE RANGE (1956–1958)

Unpublished Sources

Interviews
: JC, DC 3/9/94, Francis Myer Brennan 10/7/93, John L. Moore 5/20/94, Helen Kirkpatrick Milbank 9/19/95, Robert M. Duemling 1/11/95, Stuart and Rosalind Rockwell 9/30/94, Fisher and Debby Howe 9/28/94, I. Guy Martin 9/30/94, Zanne Early Stewart 11/15/96. Group interview with Erica Prud’homme, Rachel Child, Jonathan Child 9/17/93.

Correspondence
: Lyne S. Few to NRF, 4/28/95; John L. Moore to NRF, 9/14/94; E. Lee Fairley to NRF, 5/11/95.

Archives
:
Private:
JC datebooks 1956, 1957, 1958; copies of PC’s government records, 8/57; Charles F. Whiting, “Development of the Communities of Francis Avenue and the Norton Estate,” Cambridge, MA, 3/66; AD, “Memoir About Julia,” 10/16/88 (courtesy Mark DeVoto).
Schlesinger:
correspondence of JC, AD, JC, SB, and William Koshland; Houghton Mifflin contractual matters; mss. of JC’s cooking classes; PC to CC, 11/56—4/59.
USIA:
#93–2375 (1993).

Published Sources

“despised”: David C. Acheson,
Acheson Country: A Memoir
(NY: Norton, 1983): 201.

“precooked frozen gourmet glop”: John L. Hess and Karen Hess,
Taste in America
(NY: Grossman, 1977): 62–63.

“Splendid Nitze”: PC,
Bubbles from the Spring
(n.p.: Antique Press, 1974): [28]. When published the poem was entitled “A Chime to Be Pealed Upon a Pentapolloi Carillon.”

“Station Wagon Way of Life”: Harvey Levenstein,
Paradox of Plenty
(NY: Oxford, 1993): 101, 137.

“gruesome”: AD’s 1957 letter to JC (about diet books) is quoted at length in Levenstein,
Paradox of Plenty
, 136.

“adult version of baby formula”: Levenstein,
Paradox of Plenty
, 137.

“trade-offs, favors”: Robert Clark,
James Beard: A Biography
(NY: HarperCollins, 1993): 143.

“Elegance of Cuisine”: Craig Claiborne, “Elegance Is on Wane in U.S.,”
New York Times
(April 13, 1959): 1.

“This nation is more interested”: quoted by Claiborne (above) and in Clark,
Beard
, 188.

CHAPTER 15
“I AM AT HEART A VIKING” (1959–1961)

Unpublished Sources

Interviews
: JC, Fisher and Debra Howe 9/28/94, Erica Prud’homme 9/22/94, Rachel Child 2/24/94, Anita Hinckley Hovey 5/25/94, Mari and Peter Bicknell 3/21/94, Gay Bradley Wright 2/5/96, William Koshland 10/8/93, Judith Jones 10/7/83, Mark DeVoto 12/14/94, John L. Moore 5/20/94, Robert M. Duemling 1/11/95, Karen Hess 12/1/95, Jacques Pépin 12/5/95, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton 11/17/93.

Correspondence
: Bjorn and Eline Egge to NRF, 3/3 95 and 5/30/95; Jens P. Heyerdahl to NRF, 3/1/95; Lyne S. Few to NRF, 4/20/95; Froydis Dietrichson to NRF, 5/23/95 and 6/7/95; Mrs. Edward (Margie) Schodt to NRF, 2/6/95 and 2/25/95; Judith Jones to NRF, 12/3/96.

Archives
:
Private:
JC’s datebooks for 1959, 1960, 1961 (largely abandoned, only a few weeks with notations); McWilliams letters DC, JC, and “Pop and Phila” (courtesy DC); AD, “Memoir About Julia,” 10/16/88 (courtesy Mark DeVoto).
Schlesinger:
correspondence JC, SB, AD, Judith Jones, CC/FC, Houghton Mifflin, William Koshland; PC letter-diary to CC is voluminous during 1959–61. Knopf business is housed both with the JC Papers, Schlesinger, and in the Knopf Archives, Univ. of Texas.
WGBH:
“A Taste of Norway” (video), 1992.

Published Sources

“you have to know”: JC, “That Lunch in Rouen,”
New York Times
(May 16, 1993): 16.

“woolen”: Eduard J. Linehan, “Norway: Land of the Generous Sea,”
National Geographic
(July 1971): 1.

“I am at heart”: “A Taste of Norway,” Morash Productions (video), 1992.

“To La Belle”: JC, SB, LB,
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
(NY: Knopf, 1961): v. Paul had begun the dedication “Vive La Belle France,” but Jones changed it to “To.”

CHAPTER 16
LAUNCHING THE BOOK (1961–1962)

Unpublished Sources

Interviews
: JC, William Koshland 10/8/93, Judith Jones 10/7/93, Narcisse Chamberlain 9/7/94, Gregory Usher 7/2/93, Erica Prud’homme 9/22/94, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton 11/17/93, Paul Sheeline 2/26/94, Mimi Sheraton 12/3/95; Ruth Lockwood 5/7/93, 12/18/94, and 1/30/97, Russell and Marian Morash 12/14/94, David H. Bain 8/10/93, Patricia and Herbert Pratt 5/24/94 and 12/12/94, Edward Martin 8/11/93, Robert Buckeye 8/11/93, Catherine and John Kenneth Galbraith 8/9/93, Emily (Wendy) Beck 4/12/96, André Soltner 11/2/96 (French Culinary Institute Escoffier conference), Betty Rosbottom 1/18/97, Paula Wolfert 1/25/97, David O. Ives 1/29/97. Joan Reardon interview with JC, fall 1987. Barbara Sims-Bell interview with JC, 7/1/89.

Correspondence
: Rachel [Prud’homme] Child to Peter Kump, 10/4/82; Russell Morash to JC, 10/5/82; Narcisse Chamberlain to JC, 10/2/82 (courtesy Peter Kump); James Beard to Knopf, 10/12/61; Peter Davison to NRF, 1/15/96; Joan Brewster to NRF, 3/14/95; Henry Becton (WGBH) to Linda Koch Lorimer, 10/9/96; Marian C. Schlesinger to NRF, 3/7/97; E. S. Yntema to NRF, 2/1/97; Judith Jones to NRF, 3/5/97.

Archives
:
Schlesinger:
correspondence JC, DC, SB, James Beard, LB, Judith Jones, AD, William Koshland (Knopf), WGBH, Ruth Lockwood, James Beard, Helen Evans Brown; JC to SB 9/29/91 recalls the first time they made the Reine de Saba cake.
Private:
McWilliams family letters and memoirs, courtesy DC; AD, “Memoir About Julia,” 10/16/88 (courtesy Mark DeVoto).
Middlebury College:
Bread Loaf files, correspondence PC, Paul Cubeta, and AD.
Smith College:
Smith Oral History.

Published Sources

“O Julia, Julia”: PC,
Bubbles from the Spring
(n.p.: Antique Press, 1974) [38].

“[T]he most comprehensive,”: Craig Claiborne, “Cookbook Review: Glorious Recipes,”
New York Times
Oct. 18, 1961.

“he made it his role”: Evan Jones,
Epicurean Delight: The Life and Times of James Beard
(NY: Knopf, 1990): 258.

“Reine de Saba”: JC,
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
(NY: Knopf, 1961): 677–78.

“I adore both women”: James Beard,
Love and Kisses & a Halo of Truffles: Letters to Helen Evans Brown
, ed. John Ferrone (NY: Arcade, 1994): 299 [Dec. 16, 1961].

“the worst”: Beard,
Love and Kisses
, 300.

“Paul was such a perfectionist”: James Wood, “Greater Tuna Salad,”
San Francisco Examiner
(Nov. 4, 1990): line-type 189–92.

“flipped when she saw”: José Wilson, “Christmas Bound,”
House & Garden
(Dec. 1961): 21, 196.

“one of the most satisfactory”: Naomi Barry,
International Herald Tribune
(March 26, 1962): 8.

“the most lucid volume”: Craig Claiborne, “How to Cook by the Book”
Saturday Evening Post
(Dec. 22–29, 1962): 74.

“lack[ing] a certain”: Sheila Hibben, “Briefly Noted,”
New Yorker
(Oct. 28, 1961): 207.

“Child, Beck, and Bertholle”: Raymond Sokolov,
Why We Eat: What We Eat
(NY: Summit, 1991): 94–95.

“No previous”: Evan Jones,
American Food: The Gastronomic Story
(Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1991): 178.

“What JC did”: Camille Paglia quoted in Christopher Lydon, “Queen Julia,”
The Improper Bostonian
(March 27–April 9, 1996): 12.

“A JC job”: Robert Clark,
James Beard: A Biography
(NY: HarperCollins, 1993): 205.

“so complicated”: MFKF,
Conversations with M. F. K. Fisher
, ed. David Lazar (Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1992): 102.

“academic tribal reservation”: Robert Manning,
The Swamp Root Chronicle: Adventures in the World of Trade
(NY: Norton, 1992): 312.

“a carbuncle of cabals”: Wallace Stegner,
The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard DeVoto
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954): 214.

“brother and sister”: Jones,
Epicurean Delight
, 272.

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