Chef Julia Child Dies Julia Child was the first person to bring French cooking to the American masses. The legendary chef died in her sleep at her home in California at the age of 91. (File) Chef Julia Child Dies Famed Culinary Figure Brought French Cuisine to U.S. Masses Aug. 13, 2004 Julia Child, the woman who brought French cooking to the American masses, has died. She was 91. Child died Thursday in her home in Santa Barbara, Calif., said her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. She would have turned 92 on Sunday. With her warbling voice, tall stature and penchant for decadent French fare, Child swooped on to the American food scene just in time. Her many cookbooks and television shows saved America from frozen TV dinners and recipes with canned mushroom soup. The wave of food appreciation and gourmet cooking she started continues to influence eating today. The appeal of The French Chef, her popular, no-frills PBS television show in the 1960s, was based on "Child's charm, lack of pretension and endearing klutziness," according to Washington Post Book World. Her tendency to drop pans and cut herself was endearing but it was also born of necessity the show was on such a low budget they could only afford to film scenes once. In addition to winning an Emmy and a plethora of culinary awards, Child received two ultimate career honors. One was when The New York Times called her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), a "masterpiece;" the second when Dan Akyroyd spoofed her on Saturday Night Live. Child found his sketch hilarious. She also helped found both the International Association of Culinary Professionals and the American Institute of Wine and Food. Child had a refreshing down-to-earth candor that translated to how she cooked and taught: "You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces just good food from fresh ingredients." California Girl Becomes Gourmet Chef The future chef was born Julia McWilliams on Aug. 15, 1912, in Pasadena, Calif. Her mother was a free-spirited Smith College alumna and her father an aristocratic, conservative Republican farm consultant. Child, her brother and sister were all unusually tall and athletic. Though the expectation was that Child would be a wife and mother, she attended Smith, where she was a C student. Though she dreamed of being a basketball star, Child moved to New York City and wrote ad copy. When World War II began, Child joined the Office of Strategic Services precursor to the CIA and was eventually sent to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Though not much more than a glorified file clerk, in 1944, she helped the OSS cook up a shark repellant to protect the Navy's boats. Child also soon met her husband-to-be, artist, poet, gourmand and OSS cartographer Paul Child. They married in 1946, relocated to China, and Paul introduced her to Chinese cuisine. Child often said that her initial interest in food came from always being hungry. It wasn't until they moved to France, though, and had their first meal in Rouen, that Child found her life's true passion. "I just couldn't get over it," she once told ABC News. "I'd never eaten that way." She soon enrolled in classes at Paris' Cordon Bleu culinary school, the only woman in her class. She supplemented her education with lessons from France's great chefs. She was also motivated by a desire to cook well for her sophisticated husband. Our Lady of the Ladle As a student in Paris, Child met two other kindred cooks and they spent the next nine years putting together the definitive French cookbook for Americans. The book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was a best-seller and critical hit, lauded for its helpful photographs, exquisite attention to detail and demystifying fine dining for the masses. An infamously late bloomer, Child's first book was not published until she was 49. She did not appear on air until she was 50. In 1966, Time magazine put her on the cover, calling her "Our Lady of the Ladle." By the late 1970s, Child was a cultural icon, appearing on television writing books and articles and a cooking column for the Boston Globe. Then the 1990s hit and, as Child told The New York Times, "nutrition has reared its ugly head." This didn't bode well for Child, whose recipes were laden with butter, salt and cream. She soon earned the title Queen of Cholesterol. Not one to be put down, though, Child rallied against the food police, insisting that everything was fine in moderation. Her secret to a long life, she often said, was "red meat and gin." "Now we're eating all this fat-free, fake stuff, and we're getting fat anyway because we're not satisfied," she once told People. But Child did stay on top of the times, making concessions for shorter preparation times and lighter ingredients. Bon Appetit! Child's "meat and gin" ethos fared her well, except for a mastectomy in 1968 due to breast cancer (the cancer never returned), her health was good. Her husband, though, had a series of strokes in 1989 and died in 1994. The two never had children. Child continued to work well into her 80s and early 90s. In 1993, she became the first woman inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame. When she gave up her Boston home and retired to Santa Barbara in 2001, she donated most of her kitchen to the Smithsonian Institution. At her 90th birthday party in 2002, a guest held up an issue of the National Enquirer with the headline: "Most Guys Would Rather Marry Julia Child than Sexy Pamela Lee." "Even me, an old stubborn French chef, I've learned from Julia," said fellow television chef Jaques Pepin. "She has the ability to meander through the whole fad and fashion of food and go right to the truth." Child's verve for life came through in many moments. When StarChefs.com asked what advice she would give young cookbook authors, she said: "Be fun. Be helpful. Be generous." Asked by ABC for her eating and living advice, she said "No seconds, a little bit of everything, no snacking and have a good time. I think if you follow that, you're going to be healthy and wealthy and wise." Child's usual television sign-off became a part of the American vernacular and also expressed her way of life: "Bon Appetit!"
