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Haunted by Julia... Oh Julia, Julia, Julia...


chefzadi

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I have had several Italians insist to me that it was the other way around: Marco Polo brought pasta to China.

I have to admit this is news to me too. Never heard the story before. What instead seems pretty certain is that Marco Polo did not bring pasta to Italy, I have been often told that the whole story was a urban myth spread by the advertising of a Canadian company. And BTW yes, there are historians that doubt his getting to China. One of the theories is that he actually learned the tales he wrote down in "Il Milione" from a fellow prisoner while captive of the Genovese, at the time sworn enemies of the Venetian Republic. I have to admit that I'm no expert on this aspect, just summarizing a very well explained article I happened to read a while ago that pointed out big incongruence in Polo's story.

As far as pasta goes there is a big distinction to be made. Romans already knew fresh pasta and there are documents references to what was called laganae -presumedly the root for lasagne- which are described as similar to tagliatelle or pappardelle.

Dried pasta on the other hand comes very probably from the Arab domination in Sicily and moved from there to Genova through commercial exchanges. Most historians agree that the Arabs developed the drying process first: the old name for pasta tria, still surviving in Sicily, Liguria and some areas of Puglia, would be directly derived from the Arab ithrya, which, as far as I've read, should mean dry dough (any Arab speaker here?). The fact that tria production is documented in Sicily in the early XIII century, about 50 years before Marco Polo's travels, is enough to dismiss the Chinese connection. There are a few Italian historians who claim that actually the Arabs developed the process in Sicily, but the explanations for this always seemed a bit cloudy to me.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that until America sent peanuts to China for Dan-dan noodles and tomatoes to Italy for the sauce, neither nation's pasta was of particular interest.

(sits back and waits)

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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I thought peanuts originated from Africa, but you're right: They're from the Americas.

Although earliest archeological records reveal that the groundnut plant originated in Peru, according to Hammons(1994)the first probable domestication of groundnuts took place in the valleys of the Panana and Paraguay river systems in the Grain Chaco area of South America.

See more here:

World Geography of Groundnut: Distribution, Production, Use and Trade

I haven't read the whole article, but it looks very scholarly and chock-full of information. Just look at that references list!

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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One thing I think we can all agree on is that until America sent peanuts to China for Dan-dan noodles and tomatoes to Italy for the sauce, neither nation's  pasta was of particular interest.

(sits back and waits)

Good point. You could still make a decent carbonara or some vermicelli with clams without tomato though, and that's interesting enough to me :wink: .

Actually tomato only met pasta quite some time after its arrival in Europe, middle XVIII to early XIX century probably, and that for a very simple reason: pasta was more often than not eaten as a sweet entremet, cooked in milk and served with sugar and spices, usually cinnamon. Would you like tomato with that :smile: ?

Il Forno: eating, drinking, baking... mostly side effect free. Italian food from an Italian kitchen.
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Dried pasta on the other hand comes very probably from the Arab domination in Sicily and moved from there to Genova through commercial exchanges. Most historians agree that the Arabs developed the drying process first: the old name for pasta tria, still surviving in Sicily, Liguria and some areas of Puglia, would be directly derived from the Arab ithrya, which, as far as I've read, should mean dry dough (any Arab speaker here?).

I speak Algerian Dersa, it's sprinkled with French and some Spanish as well. Thanks to the Italian (most were Sicialian) settlers in Algeria we call pasta, well pasta.

As far as I know ithrya means dry dough. But I could use some confirmation from those here who speak classical or standard Arabic.

In Algeria we make fresh pasta from semolina flour as well. This type will have a sauce.

Certains types of dried pastas are used more as fillers, extenders or thickeners in soups, such as Orzo and Vermicelli is cut into small sticks for this purpose. We also make berkoukes with sauces, usually a lamb ragout or a vegetable sauce.

(I think some of these posts should be split into a new thread).

I can be reached via email chefzadi AT gmail DOT com

Dean of Culinary Arts

Ecole de Cuisine: Culinary School Los Angeles

http://ecolecuisine.com

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God bless her.  Mastering the Art is by far the most messed-up cookbook I own.  And in my world, the more junk you've spilled on a cookbook, the better it must be!  I think my copy has at least 20 post-its sticking out of the side.  To this day, it remains a relevant and trustworthy go-to cookbook for basic recipes and techniques.

Bon appetit!

Your post made me realize that my copy of vol 1 of "Mastering the Art..." is also my most messed up cookbook... AND.. It's my second copy... the first one I got for XMas in 1966 and it fell apart years ago.

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I ALWAYS turn to MAFC first. I have made chocolate mousse many times in my life, but it wasn't until recently that I turned to Julia for her take on this. (The Busboys have sampled CM in several popular restaurants and declared them inferior.) I made the best chocolate mousse EVER from her instructions. I made the mistake of mentioning this to the Busboys, so I think I may be required to show up at their house with some. That will be OK with me if, in return, I get to have some of Busboy's homemade sausage.

I used her instructions for making French onion soup and made some for a neighbor who had a acquired a French boyfriend (at the time). He had to get on the phone to THANK ME for the most "authentic" soup he had had in America.

I will bow to NO ONE for my adoration of this woman.

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I'm sure she had to deal with a certain amount of attitude as she was starting her journey -- I call it the "Housewife with a Hobby" dismissal -- but I never read or heard anything about it. Anyone?

I saw her do a 92nd Street Y panel with Boulud and Pepin, about 10 years ago. She was glorious in red and purple and fielded a marriage proposal from the floor with grace and humor. My favorite line from the night: When asked if she had much negativity about using butter and cream in her cooking back when she started, she boomed, without missing a beat, "well, we didn't have all these nutritionists running around telling us to be afraid of our food!"

Gotta love her.

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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I'm sure she had to deal with a certain amount of attitude as she was starting her journey -- I call it the "Housewife with a Hobby" dismissal -- but I never read or heard anything about it. Anyone?

I've never though of it like that..thankyou!

I saw her do a 92nd Street Y panel with Boulud and Pepin, about 10 years ago. She was glorious in red and purple and fielded a marriage proposal from the floor with grace and humor. My favorite line from the night: When asked if she had much negativity about using butter and cream in her cooking back when she started, she boomed, without missing a beat, "well, we didn't have all these nutritionists running around telling us to be afraid of our food!"

Gotta love her.

That is too funny!

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As pointed out already here, some saint-making or hagiography is associated with her, accelerating lately. (People employ her picture as talisman; official Relics can be seen at the Copia museum.)

Even saints start human. She got criticism for faux-pas here and there. (The "housewife with a hobby" criticism came actually after she was well established, and tried to teach French cooking to the French public, to a cool reception). Which fills out the picture (at least the human one), and doesn’t alter her charm or inimitable flippant style (and enjoyably imitable voice). These factors helped her demystifying role (also mentioned in this thread).

Another part of understanding her real contributions, I think, is appreciating that there were good, competing sources in book form for US home cooks interested in the sort of cooking that JC’s book taught in 1961. (I just glanced at some of them.) Some were deeper, some were wider-ranging, some were around longer. What Child did that they didn’t was to go onto television, and into people’s living rooms. That was new. At first briefly, to promote her book; but she was effective, and she stayed. She came into my family’s living room in black-and-white on the US TV network then called NET (National Educational Television). “This is Julia Child. Bon appétit!”

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At different periods throughout time, and in different fields, there are windows of opportunity that spring forth and usually there is someone who will take advantage of that opportunity to some degree. Someone, or perhaps many people. Julia Child was one of these people. She had a strong influence on cooking in America and produce which still carries on to this day.

What Julia did was special, yet if Julia hadn't done it, somebody else would have. The difference, and what exponentially increased the impact she had is that Julia was special. When special people do special things the impact can be staggering. Who Julia was, the person, the passion, the unbridled enthusiasm and how she treated people is the difference.

The best comparison I can think of to Julia Child is Arnold Palmer in golf. Both are truly ambassadors in their field. Who they are is what magnified the impact of their achivements. Every successful TV Chef/Cookbook Author knows they have her to thank in large part for their monetary success the same as every golf professional knows how much Palmer contributed.

My bottom line point is, when special people do special things it has a profound impact. There was only one Julia and she was special.

Charles a food and wine addict - "Just as magic can be black or white, so can addictions be good, bad or neither. As long as a habit enslaves it makes the grade, it need not be sinful as well." - Victor Mollo

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She's venerated and revered precisely because when you look at what's going on in the world of food right now, very few people come close to what Julia did: she made it possible for people the world over to engage in the notion that things could be better, foodwise, and she did it in such a way that made it accessible to everyone, regardless of background or capability.

That's a rare and talented gift. More power to her.

Soba

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what's so great about her? what put her on the map. i know that she had a cooking show and she wrote cook books but i know alot of people that did that. what set her apart fro mthe rest. i think sh'e sreally beyond my time, but i ust hear so much about her. did she invent something to revolutionize cooking or soething like that?

...so you are related to ee cummings, and must be 12 years old!!!

She is the matriarch of modern cuisine. If you were truly a chef (trained and a leader of the cuisine)...this would not be a mystery. :wink:

To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art La Rochefoucauld

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what's so great about her? what put her on the map. i know that she had a cooking show and she wrote cook books but i know alot of people that did that. what set her apart fro mthe rest. i think sh'e sreally beyond my time, but i ust hear so much about her. did she invent something to revolutionize cooking or soething like that?

...so you are related to ee cummings, and must be 12 years old!!!

She is the matriarch of modern cuisine. If you were truly a chef (trained and a leader of the cuisine)...this would not be a mystery. :wink:

I don't know about that. I'm 35 and I do not have this connection to Julia Childs. I remember seeing some of her shows on PBS, but it did not have any relevancy to me. A few people here mentioned how bad it all was before she came on the airwaves. That America was not the America I grew up in. I also grew up in household where everything was made from scratch and my parents grew Korean herbs and vegetables in the garden.

I learned about French cuisine from the source, travel and through marrying a French chef and working with him in restaurants.

And let's not assume we are all North Americans here. Many true chefs, in France for instance don't know or care who she is.

I'm not trying to be contentious. :smile: Egullet is an international forum with a large North American membership, but it's still international. And yes, I know chef koo is in the States, but he's much younger than I am. By the time he was learning about food, there were many more voices and experts to learn from. She may be the matriarch of modern American cusine, but her cuisine was French cuisine. So in answer to Chef Koo's initial question, she invented nothing but revolutionized a country (not the world) called America which is sometimes confused as representing the world. :biggrin:

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Besides, to realize just how much of what many of us call recent history the current generation doesn't know, you probably have to be a teacher. :laugh::biggrin:

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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what's so great about her? what put her on the map. i know that she had a cooking show and she wrote cook books but i know alot of people that did that. what set her apart fro mthe rest. i think sh'e sreally beyond my time, but i ust hear so much about her. did she invent something to revolutionize cooking or soething like that?

I was a bit surprised by chef koo's post because in my mind, his questions were basically answered by the other posts. From these posts, I know that Julia Child was a very popular TV cook to "ordinary" Americans back in the '50's & '60's. She rescued American households from the processed homogenization of American cuisine by showing Americans how to cook French dishes at home, with a personal style that makes friends & influences people (which is not easy to do).

As for me, I grew up knowing Julia. As an American of Chinese descent, I was assimilating into American culture, which included American TV programs. In terms of food programs, that would include Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, The Galloping Gourmet, Yan Can Cook, the CIA, as well as other PBS food shows.

When Julia passed away, I wanted to find and got a list of websites that recounted all of the tributes and memories of her life. That's how I found the eGullet website. And the rest is history ...

In a certain way, I understand cubilularis' point. Yes, I can get carried away that others don't appreciate Julia like I do. What? You don't know who Julia Child is? And you're a chef?? Mind you, this thread is about Julia Child. Those who could care less about Julia wouldn't be reading or posting in this thread (unless to say, "You're raving!"). At this point, there's more than enough info in this thread about Julia to initially satisfy the uninformed. And there's also plenty of room to explain to those who say, "I don't get it about this Julia thing."

There is a culinary history that should not be discounted or ignored. I would expect a chef, trained and/or working in America, to have (and/or willing to have) a basic knowledge & understanding of American culinary history. And to me, Julia Child is part of that American culinary history. Am I asking too much?

Russell J. Wong aka "rjwong"

Food and I, we go way back ...

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what's so great about her? what put her on the map. i know that she had a cooking show and she wrote cook books but i know alot of people that did that. what set her apart fro mthe rest. i think sh'e sreally beyond my time, but i ust hear so much about her. did she invent something to revolutionize cooking or soething like that?

...so you are related to ee cummings, and must be 12 years old!!!

She is the matriarch of modern cuisine. If you were truly a chef (trained and a leader of the cuisine)...this would not be a mystery. :wink:

I don't know about that. I'm 35 and I do not have this connection to Julia Childs. I remember seeing some of her shows on PBS, but it did not have any relevancy to me. A few people here mentioned how bad it all was before she came on the airwaves. That America was not the America I grew up in. I also grew up in household where everything was made from scratch and my parents grew Korean herbs and vegetables in the garden.

I learned about French cuisine from the source, travel and through marrying a French chef and working with him in restaurants.

And let's not assume we are all North Americans here. Many true chefs, in France for instance don't know or care who she is.

I'm not trying to be contentious. :smile: Egullet is an international forum with a large North American membership, but it's still international. And yes, I know chef koo is in the States, but he's much younger than I am. By the time he was learning about food, there were many more voices and experts to learn from. She may be the matriarch of modern American cusine, but her cuisine was French cuisine. So in answer to Chef Koo's initial question, she invented nothing but revolutionized a country (not the world) called America which is sometimes confused as representing the world. :biggrin:

Very well written and relevant; unfortunately the reality is SHE INSPIRED Jacques Pépin and other great Chefs of the world and pioneered French cooking into the modern world (and to the USA/Canada)...

Chef/Owner/Teacher

Website: Chef Fowke dot com

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There is a culinary history that should not be discounted or ignored. I would expect a chef, trained and/or working in America, to have (and/or willing to have) a basic knowledge & understanding of American culinary history. And to me, Julia Child is part of that American culinary history. Am I asking too much?

Yes and no. She was hugely inspirational to a certain generation who in turn was hugely influential to the next generation. But this next generation of trained cooks/chefs has greater access to culinary schools and highly trained chefs (quite a few are foreign) to learn under. Julia Child's was a home cook not a professional chef. A culinary student now who is being taught by a chef who has 10 or more years work experience in FDR is not get gonna all juiced up when he/she sees Julia on TV or reads one of her cookbooks. And yes, thanks to her the culinary world in Amerca has grown in leaps and bounds.

I wonder if Masayoshi Takayama should be sent a short biography of Julia. :biggrin:

Very well written and relevant; unfortunately the reality is SHE INSPIRED Jacques Pépin and other great Chefs of the world and pioneered French cooking into the modern world (and to the USA/Canada)...

Isn't Jacques Pepin really American at this point. And they did those shows together. I don't mean to nitpick (ya smell a nitpick coming on? :biggrin: ). My points upthread weren't questioning the significance or grandness of her contributions in America, they were addressing someone's point about "true chefs."

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I'm the one who started this thread. Now I know the significance she had to North Americans. But since she was not a part of my cultural/culinary landscape when I was attending school in Paris, training in Europe, working in different parts of the world I can't say that she influenced me or that I love her like so many have poetically and emotionally expressed here. I know about her now, but I just don't know her in the same way that others do with deep affection. It's not that I dislike her :laugh: Even now teaching a French based culinary curriculum she just doesn't come up. She comes up in recreational cooking classes as in do I recommend her books for learning French cooking.

I can be reached via email chefzadi AT gmail DOT com

Dean of Culinary Arts

Ecole de Cuisine: Culinary School Los Angeles

http://ecolecuisine.com

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Somewhere between Escoffier and "say-eeve the liver!" came that bumbling, knowledgeable, endearing, what-the-hell cook-chef-comedian-ambassador who was Julia Child. She took life by the scruff and shook it, hugged it, savored great bites and swallows, and served it up with a delicious sauce and a kind word.

Our pre-VCR PBS Saturday afternoons were spent in rapt attention, hurriedly writing down the recipes and the steps, pretending that we could FIND fresh cepes and four black truffles at Safeway. Instead, we sometimes repeated a former success, a steamed broccoli with sauteed crumbs or a sole Veronique.

My children are now all wonderful cooks; one is a pastry chef and another does all the cooking for his family. We copied bechamels and souffles, we chopped in the correct fashion, we folded and sifted and dredged. We marveled at the pastry case as she effortlessly rolled and folded, pushing those big hands into that fragile dough until it yielded to her mastery, becoming a neat container as surely as if she had stitched up fabric on her Singer.

All toques doff, and a 21-cork salute. We'll never see her like again. Thank God for reruns.

rachel

Edited by racheld (log)
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As a Canadian I hate to admit the USA took hockey and made it entertaining and approachable to the masses...

Julia did the same for food. With the help and support of Jacques Pepin (La Methode, La Technique...the turning point in international acceptance of French techniques) and other great chefs, she personally allowed French food to enter the 20th century. Without her the American masses (...and through them the world...all great food is an off-shoot of what America wants and desires) the world would still see French cuisine as beef bourguignon, crepe suzette and French fries.

These past sentences are not meant to be inflammatory, intentionally, just a Canadian’s opinion on who and how the culinary world is controlled by the money and the desires of the population in America through a beast/appetite awoken by Julie through her passion and approachability to French cuisine, that had previously been made pretentious and unapproachable by the French as a nation…

To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art La Rochefoucauld

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As a Canadian I hate to admit the USA took hockey and made it entertaining and approachable to the masses...

<SNIP>

These past sentences are not meant to be inflammatory, intentionally,

The hockey comment was the only inflammatory thing I've read so far ... :laugh:

A.

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that had previously been made pretentious and unapproachable by the French as a nation…

I've heard this theory before. That the French as a nation conspire to be pretentious and unapproachable. They still act like that on purpose. :raz:

As a Canadian I hate to admit the USA took hockey and made it entertaining and approachable to the masses...

I guess the Americans are now trying to make soccer entertaining to the masses. I wonder if the sport will ever catch on in Europe, Latin America, Asia (except Japan and Africa? If it ever does, boy we better thank those wealthy Americans.

culinary world is controlled by the money and the desires of the population in America

Odd, I've eaten at upscale restaurants outside of America that didn't have a single American in the place. I wonder if top tier sushi restaurants in Japan are eagerly catering to wealthy Americans.

I read a post in the NY forum discussing the cost of a meal at Masa. "Is it worth it?" seemed to be the burning question. Points were made that top tier places in France and Japan can be as if not more expensive. I wonder if the wealthy Americans are choosing not to spend top money in America and spending it in France and Japan or of if those countries have consumers who can and are willing to spend alot of money on eating out. Hell, I've been to more expensive places in Korea. And when I was in Saipan average Joe Blow Japanese and Korean tourists would spend $100.00-$150.00 just for a single coconut crab. And that amount only represents a portion of the bill. Factor in drinks and other dishes and the tab skyrockets.

I didn't find any of your comments inflammatory, just grossly out of scale, perhaps even jingoistic.

Back on topic to Julia. You love her. It's obvious to me why people love her deeply. The cultural context of her greatness and significance is obvious to me. It is also obvious to me that that cultural context is not the Global paradigm or standard.

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I didn't find any of your comments inflammatory, just grossly out of scale, perhaps even jingoistic.

Back on topic to Julia. You love her. It's obvious to me why people love her deeply. The cultural context of her greatness and significance is obvious to me. It is also obvious to me that that cultural context is not the Global paradigm or standard.

Love the use of jingoistic:

We don't want to fight

But, by Jingo, if we do,

We've got the ships,

We've got the men,

We've got the money, too.

The expression "by Jingo" is apparently a minced oath that appeared rarely in print, as far back as the 17th century, a transparent euphemism for "by Jesus," but it has also been given origins in languages which would not have been very familiar in the British pub: a corrupted borrowed word from the Basque language "Jianko," meaning "God". A claim that the term referred to Jingo of Japan has been entirely dismissed.

During the 19th century in the United States, journalists called this attitude "spread-eagleism". This patriotic belligerence was intensified by the (apparently accidental) sinking of the Maine in Havana harbor that led to the Spanish-American War. "Jingoism" did not enter the U.S. vernacular until the twentieth century.

Worried about your use of paradigm:

From the late 1800s the word paradigm refers to a thought pattern in any scientific disciplines or other epistemological context. Initially the word was specific to grammar: the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines its technical use only in the context of grammar or, in rhetoric, as a term for an illustrative parable or fable.

For linguistic purposes, Ferdinand de Saussure used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities.

The best known use of the word in the context of a scientific discipline was by philosopher Thomas Kuhn who used it to describe a set of practices in science. It was and is widely abused. Kuhn himself came to prefer the terms exemplar and normal science, which have more exact philosophical meaning. However, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as:

what is to be observed and scrutinized,

the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject,

how these questions are to be put,

how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted.

The formally-defined term groupthink, and the term mindset, have very similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger scale examples of disciplined thought. Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse, mathesis and taxinomia, for aspects of a "paradigm" in Kuhn's original sense. Read more about this in the paradigm shift, sociology of knowledge and philosophy of science articles, where these words are placed in context.

reference: Wikipedia

But I digress. This is bigger then this thread. I am not American. I believe the USA controls all new trends in food and fashion; I will start a new thread once I have properly researched the subject and searched for the correct nomenclature!

To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art La Rochefoucauld

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