France may be the most
astonishingly different culture in all of Europe. Not denigrating any other country and we all
have our favorites. Lived in Spain for
years and love the country. Lived in Germany
and would never utter a complaint. Great
Britain? Hell yes!
So, you see, I’m not claiming
that France is the best or even that I like it the best. I’m only saying that for my money France’s
culture is the most astonishingly different.
Depending on your outlook, that can be either bad or good. In my case, extreme enchantment.
I’ve heard a lot of travelers
remark that Parisians are rude and follow that up with: It’s expensive and we hated it! As though Paris is all there is to France.
That opinion isn’t limited to Americans.
Heard it a lot from Germans. To aid you on your voyage of discovery, I
offer this advice: The French way is not
like America’s or Germany’s way. Accept
that and you’ll relax and enjoy this strangely fascinating country and its
people and way of life.
Unlike many of my fellow
countrymen, I have always had a fabulous time in France, Paris included.
Recently I blogged about
adventures in Provence and that laudatory book by Peter Mayle, A Year In Provence.
Well, now I’ve got another
book that will make you grab your bib and buy a First Class ticket on Air
France: My Life In France, by Julia Child, with Alex Prud’homme.
I’ll confess that I carried
this book in my man-purse everywhere I went.
Couldn’t put it down and didn’t want to.
Those who know me will spew out slanderous accusations that Julia’s love
of wine spurred me on, drove me to drink and drive. You fools, that what a wife is for, so I can
drink and ride and read! I also took it
to my favorite bakery cum coffee shop. Multi-tasking, reading in English,
speaking to the irresistible women around me in German. Yes, yes, men too. But, always back to the book and my new
friend, Julia.
Have both my loyal readers
heard of Julia Child? She’s the famous
chef who almost singlehandedly brought French cuisine into America’s homes and
kitchens, with her seminal work: Mastering the Art of French Cooking,
volumes I and II.
My
Life In France, written by Julia and Alex Prud’homme, uses
Julia’s multitudinous letters, reminiscences, and her husband’s letters and
photographs to tell the often humorous and frequently intimate story of her
love affair with the country and it’s cuisine.
She started out as a normal
American woman, with only a smattering of cooking knowledge. Her knowledge of
France was a dark void. As she wrote on
Wednesday, November the third, 1948: “As
I gazed through the portal at the twinkling lights of le Harve I had no idea
what I was looking at…In Pasadena, California, where I was raised, France did
not have a good reputation.”
As she and her husband sat at
a table in the Norman restaurant La Couronne, her husband translated what the
waiter at the next table said to his patrons, explaining where the chicken they
ordered was raised, how it will be cooked, which side dishes would go best with
it and which wines would be suitable.
Her comment said it all about
the difference between French and American culture. “Wine?
With lunch?”
But, Julia was a woman of
strong attitudes and stronger passions.
Once the tastes and flavors of the French kitchen enveloped her, her
path opened and widened with the popping cork of each bottle, and the placement
of each pot on the stove.
What I found so enticing about
My Life In France is the intimacy of
how it was written, as if a very famous chef offered a glass of wine, sat down
at your kitchen table and told you her life’s story, amid lengthy struggles,
staggering failures and heroic successes.
As some would say, My Life In
France is a painting that includes warts and all. Interesting? Fascinating? Oh, hell YES!
Most of all, it’s a story of
the development of a passion and following that passion like a lit fuse to a
stick of dynamite, in spite of the nay-sayers and dream killers many of whom
were family members. The story is so
unlikely and convoluted that it could only be replicated in the saccharine
sweet pages of a romantic novel.
And speaking of romance, it’s
also the tale of a lifetime love affair between Julia and her husband Paul, and
the unlikely journey of togetherness, yet always keeping Julia’s passion in the
forefront.
As she wrote so simply and
eloquently: “…the sole meuniere I ate at
La Couronne on my first day in France, in November 1948…was an epiphany!”
Julia, wherever you are, I
want you to know how much I enjoyed this little chat. And, I dearly hope both my readers do, too. I
hope they will all have their own epiphany and find the trail that leads them
to follow even their most unlikely dreams.
And to that end, dear readers,
I raise a glass….Á votre santé!
I’ll buy it! She’s ever so interesting! I’ve read Julia Julia and Appetite for Life A Biography of Julia Child. Julia Julia made me love her and Appetite made me awe her. So, I’m up for reading a autobiography and you clearly were enchanted. I’ve Appetite and will pass it to Jan to give you.
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