As Always, Julia

I have always been a fan of Julia Child, not least because we share the same birthday.

What a pleasure to read this collection of letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto in the 1950s, as Child was working on Mastering the Art of French Cooking with colleagues Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.   Background and bridge material is provided by Joan Reardon, but this is all Avis and Julia. 

The two women ‘met’ when Child, living in Paris, wrote to DeVoto’s husband, writer Bernard DeVoto, in response to a magazine essay on knives, and Avis replied.  The two women bonded right away, and corresponded in great detail throughout the 1950s and beyond.  This book is a tribute to the lost art of letter writing – the intelligent, incisive and conversational style seen here is a far cry from the contemporary penchant for emoticons and abbreviations.

Julia and Avis discussed more than just food in their letters – McCarthyism, politics and the literature of the era are a large part of this collection, although French cuisine is at the heart of the book.  Julia’s passion for the book project, despite numerous hurdles with publishers, coauthors and ‘translation’ of classical French cooking to an American audience, remains strong.  

One of my favorite themes in the book is the running conversation between Avis and Julia over the pros and cons of ‘modern’ advances such as the garbage disposal (“pig”), canned food, chest freezers and the frozen food to put in them – absorbing primary-source cultural history.

My one quibble with the book is Reardon’s use of asterisks and footnotes to explain or contextualize historical and cultural facts.  While some notes are helpful, others assume little knowledge of the era – have we dumbed down as a society so much that a note explaining who Nikita Khrushchev and Adlai Stevenson were is necessary? 

This volume, forthcoming in December 2010, will be a lovely companion piece to Noel Riley Fitch’s biography of Julia Child, Appetite for Life, and gives a richer historical perspective on Child and her masterpiece for fans of Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia.

Bon appétit!

(Advance copy courtesy of the publisher and netGalley)