Appetite for Life

by Noel Riley Fitch

  SPRINGTIME WITH KNOPF

  Spring and the annual Constitution Day celebration marked both the first anniversary of their arrival in Norway and the launching of Julia’s career as author. While the Norwegians celebrated the end of Danish rule on May 17, 1960, Julia and Simca celebrated the end of almost a decade of work on their cooking masterpiece. The season of vœrsyk had passed, and with spring came a letter from Mrs. Judith Jones of Knopf saying she was “convinced that this book is revolutionary and we intend to prove it and to make it a classic.” Senior editor William (Bill) Koshland and Jones were cooking their way through the book, Mrs. Jones explained in the May 6, 1960, letter. Koshland’s first letter on June 30 credited “Avis’s missionary work with me over the years.”

  Avis gave the manuscript to Koshland, a vice president of Knopf, who enjoyed cooking, and not to Alfred Knopf himself, because, as she said later, he and his wife, Blanche, would not have known what to do with themselves in the kitchen. She also knew that Blanche was enthusiastic about Knopf’s Classic French Cuisine by Joseph Donon and would consider this new book competitive. Koshland said, “I immediately gave it to Judith, who was sold on it.”

  Because she was a young editor, Jones enlisted a reader’s report from senior editor Angus Cameron to accompany her report for the editorial committee meeting. Cameron had worked on Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking and was both an excellent cook and an experienced editor. Jones’s reader’s report called the book “first-rate and unique” in its teaching of techniques: “I swear that I learned something from this manuscript every few pages.” Cameron’s reader’s report called it “an astonishing achievement” and “the first really useable cookbook of fine French cookery I have seen.” At the committee meeting (Jones was too low in rank to attend), Cameron argued that the book was a working French cookbook which would make books that were merely compilations of recipes more functional. The Knopfs apparently disagreed. Blanche, so the story goes, walked out. Alfred said, “Oh well, let Jones have a chance, why not?”

  The terms of the contract, dated June 24, were that the manuscript be submitted in full by August 15 with publication slated for the fall of 1961. The advance of $1,500 seemed like a fortune compared with the $750 from Houghton Mifflin, but in reality it did not begin to cover the expenses that the authors incurred over these many years. The money was an advance against royalties of 17 percent on the first 10,000 copies, 20 percent to 20,000 copies, and 23 percent thereafter (computed, typically, after booksellers’ discounts, thus equivalent to 1990s percentages). Julia asked that their lawyer (nephew Paul Sheeline) be sent the contract first for approval.

  Knopf (as had Houghton Mifflin) demanded that their contract be with Julia Child only (she would have a separate contract with her partners). They also would use different line drawings (subject to her approval). John Moore sent all his drawings and Paul’s photographs to Knopf without any request for reimbursement.

  Mrs. Jones was a respected young editor of Knopf’s cookbooks and also an accomplished cook who had spent three years in France with her husband, Evan, a distinguished food writer and historian. She loved French food. “I spent about two months” on the cookbook, she says, “and felt, ‘This was the book I had been waiting for all my life.’ I had only one old French cookbook, and I was always frustrated because they didn’t tell you enough. There were so many secrets to French cooking and the only way I learned was by watching someone.” This enthusiasm and thoroughness come through in their months of correspondence. She praised the organization and clarity of the manuscript, and Julia in turn praised her editor’s professional eye.

  Julia devoted the summer of 1960 to book details and typing lengthy correspondence to keep her co-authors apprised of every detail. She went through the manuscript several times, sending in her last line edits on August 31. The problems that emerged were twofold. The size of portions, which Jones and Cameron thought too small for American appetites (“2½ pounds of meat won’t do for 6–8 people”), was resolved by Julia’s decision to use a half pound of meat per serving.

  The second issue involved Jones’s request for old favorites such as cassoulet and more hearty peasant dishes, especially more meat dishes (the latter a request from a “male editor,” probably Cameron). Julia sent a long list of dishes already included that were earthy peasant dishes. In all, Julia mailed four new recipes to Jones at the end of July: carbonnade à la flamande (beef and onions braised in beer), cassoulet (French baked beans with sausage and goose), pièce de boeuf, and paupiettes de boeuf (braised stuffed beef rolls).

  Julia got embroiled with Simca in a quarrel about the inclusion of goose in the cassoulet: every time Julia typed up the recipe, Simca changed her mind (“I remember Julia saying to me, ‘That old goat!’—she was just so tired of the book,” declared Avis). To Jones, Julia wrote, “Ah, so French she is!” Simca declared that the white bean dish was not cassoulet without goose, with Julia maintaining that Americans had trouble finding goose. Julia prevailed with the recipe, but the “blah-blah” (their reference to the text) spoke of the “infinite dispute” about the ingredients of the dish, the authenticity of goose for anyone preparing it in the Toulouse manner, and included preserved goose in a variation of the dish (this resolution is typical of the book).

  Increasing the number of French bourgeois dishes would still not have pleased implacable critics like Karen Hess, who told me in 1995, “Julia and her collaborators were cooking haute cuisine like the chefs, not like the French woman at home … who cooks in pots that can be stirred occasionally during the day. Julia’s fussy cooking is what chefs with time and staff do. Mastering is restaurant cooking, not home cooking.” Hess “missed the point,” says Jones, who maintained that the book included peasant, bourgeoise, and haute cuisine, “practically everything French cuisine had to offer.” Indeed, the volume offered domestic dishes such as pot-au-feu and several beef stews (daube) along with haute cuisine dishes such as pâté de canard en croûte and others using such expensive ingredients as lobster. Hovering between these two extremes—extremes that chef Jacques Pépin compares to a Thoroughbred horse and a plow horse—is cuisine bourgeoise, prepared in homes with hired cooks and in bistros. Julia and Simca’s book, both Pépin and esteemed culinary historian Barbara Wheaton agree, is in “the tradition of cuisine bourgeoise with touches of haute cuisine.”

  Aside from the four additional recipes, Jones only “tinkered” with the details, she says. Some of the details included cutting down on the number of techniques for making an omelet, changing the phrase “main” recipes (with variations) to “master” recipes, and not using the “paper collar stuff” for soufflés that Dione Lucas used because “it is not done in France” and “why complicate things?” Julia wrote to Jones. They also agreed that the simple line drawings should be limited to kitchen equipment, to techniques in the making of omelets, soufflés, and pastry puffs, to cutting procedures for artichokes, beef, mushrooms, and to the making of several desserts.

  Years before, Julia and Simca had worked out the format for the book, the two-column approach with the ingredients on the left and the directions on the right. They insisted on keeping this format, having a running guide at the top corner of each page, and using French accents—to which Jones heartily agreed. Judith more clearly matched the beginning of a new set of directions (in the right-hand column) with the beginning of the ingredients that went into the dish (to the left). Julia suggested that lines be drawn. The result made the directions even clearer.

  The style and clarity of this first volume, now considered a genuine masterpiece in culinary history, were already present when Knopf bought the manuscript. The few additional recipes and the usual stylistic adjustments (for example, taking out some dashes) were made, but there were so few apparent changes that the full manuscript was never returned to Julia in Norway before the copy editors saw it. Adjustments were made by letter. Julia approved of the illustrations by Sidonie Coryn, Warren Chappell designed the book, Paul wrot
e the dedication (“To La Belle France whose peasants, fishermen, housewives, and princes—not to mention her chefs—through generations of inventive and loving concentration have created one of the world’s great arts”), and Julia wrote a half page of acknowledgments thanking their teachers (Bugnard and Thillmont) and Avis DeVoto, among others.

  Paul made plans for his early resignation from the government (they were determined to be settled in their Cambridge home in time for the publication of the book in October 1961) and settled on the details of their vacation in Paris and Grasse for the end of September 1960. Meanwhile, among their final visitors that summer was Richard Bissell, Paul’s longtime friend and the self-assured chief of covert action under Allen Dulles of the CIA. They talked about the coming presidential elections but nothing about Bissell’s recent briefing of Vice President Nixon on the psychological warfare against Cuba’s Castro. (Not until the following April, three months after Kennedy’s inauguration, would they learn that Dick had masterminded the abortive invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.) When Julia’s father and Phila visited in September, Julia had to avoid any political talk, though she was fascinated to see tapes of the Nixon-Kennedy debates.

  The book demanded her immediate attention, particularly the difficult decision concerning the choice of a title. Family, friends, and the staff of Knopf were volleying with names for the book, mostly bad, such as “A Map for the Territory of French Food.” In a list Julia sent to Jones in mid-July were two titles closest to the final choice: “The Art of French Cooking” and “The Master French Cookbook.” By mid-October, Jones was tinkering with “The Mastery of French Cooking” and a thirty-one-word subtitle. Julia returned a list of twenty-six, including “Mastery of French Cooking” and her preference, “La Bonne Cuisine Française,” which Knopf immediately rejected. By mid-November, Judith submitted the title the Knopf staff had chosen—Mastering the Art of French Cooking—and on November 23, 1960, Julia said oui!

  When a new book entitled French Provincial Cooking, by English culinary writer Elizabeth David, appeared at the end of 1960, Julia was initially worried about their competition (“this is our most serious competition so far, I think”). But they all clearly saw the difference between the volumes. Julia noted that David’s book was not as easy to follow; nor was it classic French, though she admired David’s knowledge and “masterful” writing, which was conversational and anecdotal. Judith Jones said the recipes were too casual for Americans. She summed up the pitch Knopf would make for the book when she wrote to Julia on May 10 that Mastering was the “best and only working French cookbook to date which will do for French cooking here in America what Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking did for standard [American] cooking.”

  A STORM OF SNOW AND GALLEYS

  Paul sent in his resignation from the government on December 19, 1960, then a four-page letter to someone named “John” on December 23, 1960, mentioning the fact that in twelve years of service he received only one promotion. He wrote Charlie, “I do a great many things well, but the coercive structure of foreign service need and regulations makes no place for them.” His official resignation took effect on May 19, 1961, with his annuity of about $3,000 beginning one month after his sixty-second birthday, January 15, 1964, at which time he would have served sixteen years, one month, and a few days. They prepared for what promised to be a strangely snowless Norwegian Christmas. Paul wrote “A Christmas Prayer,” beginning “O, where art thou Snow?” and ending:

  Get going thou fluffy

  bastard, and pile up thine self on twigs

  and things. Art we in Florida or Norway,

  for God sakes? Amen.

  The “prayer” worked and they celebrated a white Norwegian Christmas holiday with the Howes and Robert Duemling, the young man with whom Paul had walked to work in Washington, who was visiting from Rome. For Duemling’s gift of wineglasses, Paul wrote more verse of gratitude, the last in a number of light verses this month, suggesting the relief and pleasure his decision to resign had brought. Duemling believed that if one of the Childs were to become famous, it would be Paul, with his array of talents and mental agility (“Paul was fascinating”). As he did for the birthday parties of Erica and Rachel in the 1940s, Paul made a spiderweb of string, filling the living room and directing the Howe children to their presents. After a feast of goose (which disappointed the children), they had dessert and coffee at the Howes’ house.

  When Frances Willis left as U.S. ambassador to Norway, Clifton and Leonie Wharton, their dear friends from Marseilles, arrived. Julia and Paul almost regretted their decision to leave early, but they were in an excellent position to prepare the embassy staff and the Norwegians for the arrival of the first Negro ambassador to rise through the U.S. Foreign Service. Even before Wharton presented his credentials to the King, Paul and Julia gave a party to introduce them to their Norwegian friends.

  From the time of JFK’s inauguration in January 1961 until May 18 when the galleys were returned to Knopf, Julia was overwhelmed every day with checking details, compiling lists, composing letters, and responding to the copy editing of their manuscript. Every logical and organizational skill she learned in the OSS was put to excellent use. “You are such an extraordinarily efficient worker,” Mrs. Jones informed her.

  For more than four months she did all the work required of the authors. About the only input that came from her co-authors was a request from Louisette to have her name changed (she had recently divorced), but it was too late. Also she wanted Cooking changed to Cuisine in the title, but Julia dismissed this as overused in recent titles and not simple enough. Simca requested a few changes in the introductory comments on wine (they dropped the reference to Grand Marnier because Simca’s grandfather developed the formula for Bénédictine—they changed it to soufflé à la liqueur). “Ah, the French! I don’t envy Kennedy having to try and persuade De Gaulle about anything!” Julia wrote to Judith Jones.

  Simca lined up a series of articles to include their recipes in Cuisine et Vins de France, and Julia gave an interview and photographs for two illustrated articles in a Norwegian women’s magazine. Judith Jones was delighted: “If we can wrestle up the same kind of publicity that you have been getting for yourself in Oslo, when you are here in New York we should really get this book off the ground.” In a letter to Jones, Julia had revealed her understanding of the importance of promotion for the success of the book and her own career as teacher and journalist: “But [I] will not, under any circumstances, be a ‘figure,’ merely an authority, I hope. It is a tough racket to crack among the NY magazines, but I want to do it.”

  Week after week the snow fell, melted, and fell again. The mails from Oslo to New York City carried letter after letter and package after package with illustrations and galleys. Avis DeVoto’s friend Benjamin Fairbank cooked the recipes and found several flaws in them, and a second copy editor found inconsistencies in the subdividing of the book, each with a different typography. These problems were all resolved to make this a book with clear directions and uncrowded pages. Julia was determined to complete the galleys in time to pack before the arrival of her family, which planned a last-minute holiday visit.

  The Algerian crisis, and Julia and Paul’s recognition that the book was their first priority, led them to cancel the family visit and a final trip to Paris. They would go straight to New York City and devote their time to reading the final proofs, which incorporated the galley corrections. Julia was also determined to do the index herself. She had nine days after sending in the final galleys to pack and to attend farewell parties. The Howes said, “There were lots of farewell parties for them. People were in total tears when Julia and Paul left Oslo.” Bjorn Egge, who would soon go with the UN peacekeeping force to Zaire, expressed the sentiments of the Norwegians: “Julia and Paul [were] excellent representatives of their country in Norway…. We are also proud to underline the fact that Julia and Paul, after their return to the States, became the best ambassadors of Norwegian culture we could ever d
ream of.”

  Chapter 16

  LAUNCHING THE BOOK

  (1961 – 1962)

  “Cook-books are fairy-tales for grown-ups.”

  The Times (London)

  FOR HER FORTY-NINTH birthday and at the brink of a new career and a new home, Paul Child wrote his wife a birthday sonnet:

  O Julia, Julia, Cook and nifty wench,

  Whose unsurpassed quenelles and hot soufflés,

  Whose English, Norse and German, and whose French,

  Are all beyond my piteous powers to praise—

  Whose sweetly-rounded bottom and whose legs,

  Whose gracious face, whose nature temperate,

  Are only equaled by her scrambled eggs:

  Accept from me, your ever-loving mate,

  This acclamation shaped in fourteen lines

  Whose inner truth belies its outer sight;

  For never were there foods, nor were there wines,

  Whose flavor equals yours for sheer delight.

  O luscious dish! O gustatory pleasure!

  You satisfy my taste-buds beyond measure.

  Staying in New York City and Lumberville after landing on June 5, 1961, Julia and Paul read proofs, then rushed to Lopaus Point for rejuvenation of body and soul, salt air, and the ministrations of many lobsters and fresh blueberries. They also corrected proofs for the index they had prepared before returning to Cambridge with George and Betty Kubler to show them their Irving Street house, recently vacated by the tenant. The day following Julia’s birthday, the furniture stored in Washington, DC, arrived at Irving Street. Architect Bob Kennedy (Edith’s eldest son) conferred with them on plans for renovating the kitchen and adding an elaborate entrance tower to the third-floor apartment, which they would rent out. While they were awaiting the shipment from Oslo, they joined Avis in Vermont, where she was working for the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference outside Middlebury. Paul’s photographs of the poets and writers were called, by the assistant director of Bread Loaf, “some of the best” ever taken “on the mountain.” Julia had little time to help Avis in the office because she was correcting the last page proofs. There was talk of Julia and Paul returning the following year.