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| Julie and Julia | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 7 2009, 09:10 PM (304 Views) | |
| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 11 2009, 01:10 PM Post #16 |
Mouth Breather
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It deserves the attention -- both volumes are great reads and teach more cool little tricks than any other cookbooks I know, even though the recipes themselves use more flour and butter than I ever do these days -- I haven't cooked a single one of them in decades, though I have stolen any number of ideas from them. Another useful book called La Technique came out 20 years after Julia's, with pictures of every stage of cooking 50 or so essential dishes (including, yes, boning a duck). I wonder if Julia's niece is also her heir, and is now rolling in dough again. That would be nice. Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Aug 12 2009, 08:45 AM.
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| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Aug 24 2009, 05:34 AM Post #17 |
Revered in the UK
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Here's a very funny article on the skyrocketing sales of the cookbook - and people's reaction to the recipes: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/24julia.html?_r=1&hp Hopefully, the success of Inglourious Basterds will NOT lead to massive sales of Louisville Sluggers. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 27 2009, 10:15 AM Post #18 |
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Mouth Breather
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Way cool. I've decided to do Boeuf Bourgingon, pork fat and all, as soon as the weather cools, and invite some intelligent people over to taste it. We'll see if it's disgusting... |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 27 2009, 11:24 AM Post #19 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Paul, you’ll want to read the amusing follow-up review of “I Know How to Cook” in yesterday’s Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/dining/26fren.html?_r=1&ref=dining Tomatoes! Quelle horreur! |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 29 2009, 03:31 AM Post #20 |
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Mouth Breather
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When I make beef stew I don't use tomatoes either, and I don't get complaints. My secret is to use chicken stock rather than beef stock -- makes a lighter and more interesting sauce. And thanks, Frank. I ordered the book. It looks a damn sight more practical than Julia's. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Aug 29 2009, 05:50 AM Post #21 |
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Revered in the UK
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I have two friends who have acquired the Julia Child cookbook and who have both told me of how they're busy substituting stuff you can eat these days for ingredients called for those days. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 29 2009, 08:20 AM Post #22 |
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Mouth Breather
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But then it ain't Julia's cooking, is it? I never have cooked out of the book: the recipes are too complicated; you need a full staff to do them, not to mention a huge stock pot and lots of other things I don't have and don't want, all in the service of producing food that was already out of style when the book first came out. I may like the one Frank posted about though. It's old-fashioned too, but at least it's practical. I'm more interested in home cooking than restaurant food anyway. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 29 2009, 04:17 PM Post #23 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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It does seem typically American to buy Julia’s recipes and then throw out the ingredients that define her cooking, but I guess the point is that people are in their kitchens having fun. As to her recipes being dated when they came out, I don’t know, but her timing seems to have been perfect for the American market. Craig Claiborne’s New York Times Cookbook also came out in 1961 and uses equally appalling amounts of butter, heavy cream, and flour. He was the product of a European cooking establishment, as well. The book eventually sold over a million copies. Combine the two cookbooks with the whole Kennedy thing and you can see that we were probably just ready for some European glamour around then. Claiborne quotes M.F.K. Fisher: “the basis of French cuisine is butter, that of Italy olive oil, of Germany lard, and of Russia sour cream. Water or drippings are attributed to English kitchens, and to those of America, the flavor of innumerable tin cans.” If you’d eaten at my house in the 1950’s you’d know how true that was. (Sorry, Mom!) Have you ever eaten a pork chop bleached white in a pressure cooker with a side order of canned peas? One last thing: did you notice the translator of the Je Sais Cuisiner book is Clotilde Dusoulier? What a wonderful name! I’m still ready for some European glamour! |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 29 2009, 07:55 PM Post #24 |
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Mouth Breather
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I've always considered Clotilde an immeasurably sexy name. Maybe it was Bardot's name in one of her movies or something. I don't remember. When I said classical cuisine was out of fashion in the early Sixties, I was talking about the rise of the "cuisine minceur" movement, which based everything on drastic reductions of stocks instead of the old flour and butter sauces. That was exciting then, and it's still the best and healthiest way to make a decent sauce. But here I am pontificating about healthy food, and I have macaroni and cheese with lobster in the oven. Burp. Of course you are right: we all wanted to be Europeans in the early Sixties. Jeez, that went away, didn't it? I just leafed through Julia and one thing that tickled me was how she keeps plugging Almaden Mountain Red. I guess that was why everybody started drinking it. It seems pretty damn dinky today, but who dreamed that American wine would surpass French wine in just one generation? Things have changed more than we sometimes think, folks! |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Sep 3 2009, 09:17 AM Post #25 |
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Mouth Breather
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I just read the book Julie and Julia, and it's better than the movie. In fact, it's one of my favorite books ever. That girl Julie is funny, which the movie misses, giving all the comic scenes to Streep -- so in a way Gravy's right: the movie would be more satisfying if the real character got a little more of the action and all the good scenes didn't go to the fantasy version of Julia Child. Not to put down Streep at all -- her performance is a wonder, but it's not impossible to be a wonder when you're playing a bigger than life cartoon of an already-outsized person. I suggest reading the book first; that might be more fun than the way I did it. |
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7:51 PM Nov 25
