History

Get the Inside Skinny on Julia Child and Her French Writing Partner Saturday

Half of the team behind <i>Mastering the Art of French Cooking.</i>
Half of the team behind Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

You’ve seen the movie, but how much do you really know about the partnership of Julia Child and her French co-author, Simca Beck, as they struggled to produce their seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961? Culinary Historians of Chicago marks Julia Child’s centenary with a talk by Prof. David Strauss, a Child devotee and scholar, who says “Without Julia’s insistence on educating American housewives in basic cooking skills and Simca’s knowledge of the recipes available to middle-class French households, the book would not have succeeded… The story of their lively and sometimes stormy relationship tells us much about the personalities of these two women, while also revealing cultural differences between France and America which fueled their controversies.” The talk is tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. at Kendall College and is $5 for the general public; get more information here. If you can’t make it, like most Culinary Historians and Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance programs, it’s recorded by WBEZ, who have just added some recent programs to their online library— check out author Jennifer McLagan talking about her new book Odd Bits and the very funny co-authors of The Chicago Beat Cop’s Guide To Chicago Eats here.

Get the Inside Skinny on Julia Child and Her French Writing Partner Saturday