Feminism and Julia Child – Reflections on Her 100th Birthday

Courtesy of Julia Child’s Menu Cookbook

I am struck today with both the poignancy and irony, not to mention brilliance, of the life, career, and posthumous celebration of Julia Child.  Here is a woman who trail-blazed through the mid-20th Century Feminist Movement by celebrating a life in the kitchen –  by first, in a tizzy of perfectionistic fury, writing the modern and definitive volume documenting Classic French home cooking, tirelessly insisting on its value to publishers who doubted everything about her, and then single-handedly, igniting the revolution that was to become “food media” on the fledgling inauguration of 1960s television.  Here she was, Smith-grad cum much-rumored spy, cum housewife, cum Cordon-Bleu grad, cum superstar food author, professional, tv personality and the Grand Dame of inspiration to millions!  She was the torch-bearer, in the middle of a revolution –  before anyone even realized there was one!  While Barbara Billingsley and Donna Reed were pushing their vacuums in a housedress and pearls and admonishing the Eddie Haskel-esque characters of the time, she was becoming the ultimate in Grade A,  Top-of-the-Class moguls (in the best of senses), sans any of the egotistical baggage so common today!  She nailed the model, no, she made the model!  In a word – A-MAZ-ING!!!!!

There may be people who are already sick of or otherwise perplexed by the ubiquity of the celebrations for the 100th birthday of Julia Child.  I am not one of them.  I have to tell you that I am so nostalgic today and I have been feeling this way for weeks.  When Julia died a few years back, I felt that her memory was not being properly sanctified.  Now, I feel that finally, it is.  I am sure this is partly because of my age and all those years, beginning in the 1960s when she began to mean something to me.  I can understand that those who were born in the 60s, 70s and beyond don’t have the same perspective or depth of meaning.  I think I could just cry over Julia and my memories of her – the rudimentary sets on her earliest shows, her little shirtwaists, her simple and unpretentious demeanor, her sense of humor, her lovely house in Cambridge in the later shows and all the books set to chronicle her amazingly inspiring life.  In the beginning, I think, the actual food she was obsessed with was beyond me and that of my family – we were a simple, basically meat- and-potatoes household, but, what she did intrigued and inspired us and opened up a whole new world of possibilities.  More than anything, though, it was her infectious enthusiasm that kept us glued to our little black and white tvs back then, and to this day on our flat-screens, watching re-runs over and over.  I will never pass by a show with her, be it The French Chef, or all of those with Jacques Pepin and others in the Cooking with Julia series.

For me, more than anyone else, except for my Mom, I am inspired by Julia – it is the kind of “try it and see what happens” attitude she encouraged and the “don’t worry if it is screwed up” perspective, that moves me into the kitchen to try something out, day after day.  My hat is off to Julia Child – the absolute real deal – and an amazing feminist, for her unadulterated pursuit of her dreams, throughout her lifetime,  and especially because she was dedicated to her craft right up into her 90s – there is the model for me!!!!!  She’s someone that you can say did exactly what she wanted to do – the best definition of freedom – during the decades when it wasn’t fashionable to want to stay in the kitchen and cook.  Many of us, myself included, spent years marching around with a briefcase and in a suit from Alcott and Andrews, tie included, trying to figure out what the real ideal of feminism was.  Hahaha, how it makes me laugh now, as I am doing exactly what I want to do right this very minute – writing about food and someone who inspires me, directly from the heart!  To think it took me 58 years to figure this out!

I am so happy with the NYTimes Dining Section today – with her portrait on the headline and the loving article there (I won’t attempt to explain the absence of mention in the Star Ledger), and all of the fun dedications on the internet.  I am particularly in love with the illustrations from “Bon Appetit! The Delicious Life of Julia Child” by Jesse Hartland.  Check these out – they are wonderful!

As a final thought, although I am sure to write about Julia again and again — I am happiest today with the feeling that Julia unites so many people across the globe – in their kitchens both literal and in their imaginations – with the desire to cook and have fun with it.  How wonderful to say that here is a person who millions of people feel connected to and inspired by, at age 100, in a positive way –  don’t I wish that there were more people who had this power!  Kudos to you, Julia – there will never be another like you!

So, what to do with all of this today?  I am going on an adventure to try to engage in as many Julia-inspired activities that I can.  I don’t know exactly what this will entail as of this moment, but I am going with the “do what you feel inspired to do” approach.

My final cake at ICE Pastry and Baking – June 2011 (complete with hand-made gum-paste flowers all around – notice the morning glories??):

    thanks, Julia for keeping me going forward with my dreams!  I was “so” the old lady of the class – but what fun I had!!  This was not the best cake in the class, by any means, but I am proud of it and happy that I took the plunge to enroll in Pastry school when I was 56 years old!

Herewith a selection of new pics from my yard today: