# Rude article about Julia Child: "Do Not Buy her Book" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 2, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667 "2009-09-02T18:55:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/81 "2009-09-04T15:36:43Z")
Yes, I was wrong to post that review. No, there are NO Mexicans in my little town, in the middle of winter, anyway. I was just a bored housewife looking through that book to pass the time, snowed in with a child and a sick man, and writing down some ideas to try when the weather got better. I was wrong wrong wrong to write a review without even trying the recipes, even though I said everything sounded really tasty. I’m sorry. But I don’t think he should have personally gone to the trouble of tearing my head off. It’s so easy to be judgmental and obnoxious and in attack mode on the anonymous internet, isn’t it? I feel bad, I’m sorry. Is that grovelling enough? Thanks to Mr. Bayless’ classy response, I lost all interest in cooking Mexican cuisine and continue to dish out white anglo gruel here in my little suburban enclave. And he’s still a douchebag. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/82 "2009-09-04T16:43:59Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > This is a very strange comment. Amazingly wrong in many ways all in one small post, quite an achievement. > Some cookbooks _are_ more fun as items to read than as real life instruction manuals. I love one, [Claudia Roden’s _The Book of Jewish Food_](http://www.amazon.com/Book-Jewish-Food-Odyssey-Samarkand/dp/0394532589), more for its history lessons about non-Ashkanazi Jewish cultures than for its recipes even though they are excellent and accessible. Claudia Roden’s A Book of Middle Eastern Food is excellent also, I have a few favorite recipes out of there, you should try the ful medammes! ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/83 "2009-09-04T17:19:23Z")
Man. Considering so much of cooking is about joy and sensuality and taking pleasure out of good ingredients and the plentiful wondrous ways they can be combined, it seems really weird that there are so very many angry posts in this thread. I also think it’s amusing that the reviewer says that a book called “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” is practically deceitful in aiming to teach its readers how to, well, _master_ the _art_ of _French cooking_. Each of these terms prepares the book’s reader for the reality that these recipes are gonna be a lot more involved than boiling a bag of Rice-a-Roni, and I don’t think anyone who buys the book is expecting to be able to slap together one of its meals in the half-hour between arriving home and _American Idol_. Give us some credit, for God’s sake. Even lazy people can cook on the weekends too, right? ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/84 "2009-09-04T17:50:27Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > You give them the basic Betty Crocker cookbook first, then the next year you give them the Child cookbook. Add Beard on Bread and um, Im too lazy to go look it up in my shelves but I have a killer book on making desserts that I got for christmas about 10 years ago that has enough pictures to qualify as food porn… > > [food porn](http://epicute.com/) > > [more food porn](http://prettyprettyyumyum.wordpress.com/) \ Japan has [50 different flavors of KitKat?](http://prettyprettyyumyum.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/kitkat-comp/) Including Hokkaido baked potato and Hokkaido grilled corn? _Baked potato_ flavored _chocolate_?!? \ ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/85 "2009-09-04T18:00:35Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Julia Child was half plowed, as demonstrated by her casual acceptance when anything went wrong on camera. That’s a really disrespectful thing to say of a very accomplished lady. I wonder if it was just her distinctive warbly voice that makes people think she was a drinker. Her early shows on WGBH in Boston were essentially live to tape because of the very strict budget of public television then, as now. She wasn’t allowed to stop if anything went wrong. She said they did not stop at all unless there was a ‘terrible disaster’ like the sound not working at all or, one presumes, the set catching fire. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/86 "2009-09-04T18:20:44Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Why the heck did you review a cookbook when you hadn’t bothered to cook even one recipe? Why were you wasting time on such a fruitless exercise when you should have been preparing flavorless Anglo-Saxon gruel for your sick hubby? > > Mexican ingredients are hardly exotic here in Texas, of course. And they are pretty common in Chicago. Is your little town so isolated that _no_ Mexicans live there–or were you just unwilling to venture out of your little suburban enclave? > > Couldn’t you have picked a cookbook more to your liking? Wow, do you think you could act like a tiny shred more of a twat? I mean, “flavorless Anglo-Saxon gruel”? Comparing how easy it is to find Mexican ingredients in one of the largest cities in the country to a small town? Honestly? :rolleyes: I don’t know how to break it to you, but most of the country isn’t Texas or California or Chicago. It’s only been within the last 15 years we started getting the first trickle of Hispanic farm workers into the town where I grew up, which is the 4th biggest city in our state. There’s still not a large enough Mexican population to reliably find very many Mexican ingredients in the stores around there, and far as I know there’s still not a Latin grocery. We fare a little better where we are now, simply because we’re in the same Walmart distribution region as Lexington, but I’ve not seen the first Mexican in our town. I think it’s because it’s small, somewhat isolated, and there just isn’t enough arable land here in the mountains to support a lot of farm workers. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/87 "2009-09-04T19:03:01Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I only expressed my regret I didn’t live in old sunny Me-hee-co with access to a charcoal braizier and a bushel of exotic peppers and while the recipes sounded wonderful, it would be a while before I tried making them. Well. Mr. Bayless took offense that I didn’t even have the stones to try out his recipe, and who the hell was I to criticize his cookbook, anyway? The “stones” being charcoal briquets? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/88 "2009-09-04T19:47:16Z")
Just wanted to add that I watched this argument play out in real life at the bookstore I work at. Publishers weren’t prepared for the movie being as big as it was, so at the height of its popularity, with everybody coming in and asking for the book, it became instantly unavailable. If you wanted it, you had to special order it. I sat in the breakroom just last week listening to the managers calling all the people who had special ordered copies to verify that they _really_ wanted them, because we didn’t get enough copies in to fulfill all the orders. A lot of customers, after a week or two having passed since they’d seen the film, decided they didn’t want it after all and canceled their orders. These are the same people who would have bought the book right after seeing the film, had it been in stock, cracked it open and been instantly overwhelmed, then let it collect dust on the shelf forevermore. A percentage of copies of _any_ book that becomes a phenomenon will meet this fate, so I think the author of that article has a point. This isn’t really a dis… people loved the movie, got inspired, and as Americans, when we get inspired we wanna go and buy something. I’m no different. But if you want to try your hand at French cooking, and have little-to-no experience in the kitchen, that’s the wrong book to start with. Any decent bookstore employee would do what the author of that article did… recognize the enthusiasm, agree that Child’s book is a classic, and then recommend something more appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/89 "2009-09-04T20:04:05Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > Wow, do you think you could act like a tiny shred more of a twat? I mean, “flavorless Anglo-Saxon gruel”? Comparing how easy it is to find Mexican ingredients in one of the largest cities in the country to a small town? Honestly? :rolleyes: > > I don’t know how to break it to you, but most of the country isn’t Texas or California or Chicago. It’s only been within the last 15 years we started getting the first trickle of Hispanic farm workers into the town where I grew up, which is the 4th biggest city in our state. There’s still not a large enough Mexican population to reliably find very many Mexican ingredients in the stores around there, and far as I know there’s still not a Latin grocery. We fare a little better where we are now, simply because we’re in the same Walmart distribution region as Lexington, but I’ve not seen the first Mexican in our town. I think it’s because it’s small, somewhat isolated, and there just isn’t enough arable land here in the mountains to support a lot of farm workers. I was wondering why somebody reviewed a cookbook without trying any of the recipes. Once she realized some ingredients weren’t available in her area, she should have just put it down & selected another. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/90 "2009-09-04T20:10:07Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > The “stones” being charcoal briquets? > > 😉 [Lava stones](http://www.alibaba.com/product/lavastoneitaly-11231033-0/Lava_Stone_For_Cooking_Hot_Rocks_Baking.html), you plebeian. 😉 Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/91 "2009-09-04T20:30:53Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > I was wondering why somebody reviewed a cookbook without trying any of the recipes. Once she realized some ingredients weren’t available in her area, she should have just put it down & selected another. It’s something I wondered myself, and sort of beat-around-the-bush in my response, but a cookbook these days quite often isn’t just simply a collection of recipes, but quite often an insight to another culture and worth reading even if you have no intention or ability to make the recipes contained within. I would be more in line with your response if she had given a negative review based on the fact that she couldn’t find the ingredients, the preparations were too time consuming, etc. (then Rick Bayless could be justifiably pissed. Why buy a book on authentic Mexican cooking when you’re not going to bother with authentic Mexican ingredients and techniques?), but she gave a positive review, with the caveat that she hadn’t had an opportunity to try any of the recipes because of the availability of products. I suppose one wonders, why bother reviewing at all, but there’s more to the cookbook than just recipes, and, if her response was as she said it was, it’s a reasonable review. I would recommend for **salinqmind** to pick up a used copy of Zarela Martinez’s [Food From my Heart](http://www.amazon.com/Food-My-Heart-Remembered-Reimagined/dp/0028603613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252096162&sr=8-1), should she decide to give Mexican cuisine another try. It’s still going to contain ingredients like dried ancho peppers and masa harina, as well as preparations that require charring, seeding, and soaking dried peppers (that’s just an integral technique in Mexican cuisine) but there are a number of recipes with more easily found ingredients, and there’s a great personal narrative running through the book to keep it interesting on a literary level. Still, if you can’t find any Mexican ingredients in your location, you’re not going to do a good job of replicating the vast portion of its cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/92 "2009-09-04T20:35:28Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > Last point: if I were an editor and if I were her editor, I’d tell her to do a rewrite and be more concise and specific. > . Not an Editor but I would have her change the title. It should be “who should buy” the book. Julia Childs made a cooking schematic for French cuisine. The movie that is generating the book sales romanticizes the joy someone gets from mastering that art. The book should have been put in its’ proper context. It doesn’t help the review when the chef/author admits wearing out the book as a reference source but thinking it’s too complicated for the rest of us schmo’s. A 3-page recipe is not rocket science. Some people like to break out the good silverware and invite their close friends over to appreciate a hobby-gone-horribly-right. I understand the author’s point but the title doesn’t do justice to the article. So in the comic book guy tradition I’ll just say “worst title of a book review ever”. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/93 "2009-09-04T21:48:43Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > Wow, do you think you could act like a tiny shred more of a twat? Personal insults directed at other posters are NOT permitted in this forum. You want to insult other posters, go to the Pit. In Cafe Society, we assume that it is possible to listen to and share different opinions without calling each other names. You will NOT do this again, **CrazyCatLady**. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/94 "2009-09-05T01:00:11Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > \ > Japan has [50 different flavors of KitKat?](http://prettyprettyyumyum.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/kitkat-comp/) Including Hokkaido baked potato and Hokkaido grilled corn? _Baked potato_ flavored _chocolate_?!? > \ I would SO love to try some of the odd ones… like the lavendar and white chocolate ones … and some of the odd fruits we dont have in the US. _sigh_ I suppose Ill have to hope to win the lottery to go there sometime… ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/95 "2009-09-05T01:01:56Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > I was wondering why somebody reviewed a cookbook without trying any of the recipes. Once she realized some ingredients weren’t available in her area, she should have just put it down & selected another. Maybe becaus eit could have bene a gift from someone who knew she liked cooking … or maybe she didnt realize that it took ingredients she may not have easy access to … ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/96 "2009-09-05T01:58:55Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > I was wondering why somebody reviewed a cookbook without trying any of the recipes. Once she realized some ingredients weren’t available in her area, she should have just put it down & selected another. Should reviews not mention that the recipes rely on hard-to-find ingredients? I got an Indian cookbook for Christmas this year, and some of the recipes include ingredients which, according to the the author, are “not yet available outside of India.” No suggestions for possible substitutions, though. Great. One of the reasons to review a book is to tell other people what you thought about it. So a review that says “man, the recipes all looked great, but they were a bit complicated and had some hard to find ingredients” can be extremely helpful. For instance, if you were living in a small town in Kansas in the middle of winter but were craving some Mexican food, it might not be the book for you. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/97 "2009-09-05T18:00:09Z")
Tenebras, Tenebras, Tenebras:rolleyes: You obviously aren’t trying hard enough! Why don’t you know any Indian people? Jump in your car and drive around until you find some! Harangue them until they agree to send for those exotic ingredients direct from India! Search the web! Find some legally sanctioned substitutions, even if your grocery store’s “Indian Foods” section contains a bag of rice and a jar of curry powder! Heck, fly to India if you have to! You do have an outdoor tandoori oven, don’t you? Otherwise, if you don’t go that extra mile, well, Tenebras, that Indian cookbook is useful only as a doorstop and you will have to go on ladling out bland anglo gruel in your little suburban enclave the rest of your life… Now, tell me - have you looked through that book? Is it interesting reading? Did you enjoy looking at the pictures and imagining how the recipes would turn out? Are there chapters about the history of Indian cooking? Well, that’s not good enough. If you aren’t prepared to walk the walk and actually prepare a recipe…Look - just put the book down and back away. And for Gods SAKE!!! Do. Not.Ever. Talk. About. It. If anyone comes into your home, sees it on the bookshelf and asks you about it, a terse “No Comment!” from you should suffice. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/98 "2009-09-05T19:00:58Z")
That would be funny if we shared a border with India. ---
**Author:** ![SawEverythingTwice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SawEverythingTwice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SawEverythingTwice)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/99 "2009-09-06T02:07:05Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > My daughters regularly link to her abominations. > > The classic Drunken Chef is Graham Kerr, who onscreen was literally a “one for the pot and two for the cook” type, before he took the pledge. Dude’s still alive, which is amazing to anyone who watched him in the 70s, but his cooking is now all healthy and sucks. Clearly NOT food porn. > > I credit responsible parents and the groups working against drug and alcohol abuse for those who are unable to detect either on sight. As parents of my day were anything but responsible and were often drug and alcohol abusers we knew we could get away with anything at Joe’s house on Wednesdays because his mom was at her book club and would come home half plowed. Julia Child was half plowed, as demonstrated by her casual acceptance when anything went wrong on camera. According to the Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian she didn’t drink real wine on camera; they couldn’t afford it. It was water with Gravy Master mixed in. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667/100 "2009-09-06T03:19:32Z")
> [@](#): > > That would be funny if we shared a border with India. FYI: The Mexican border isn’t really all that accessible to most of the country. I have a good sized Hispanic population in my area and I would still find a recipe asking me to roast five different types of peppers hard to acquire the ingredients for. I have some recipe books with short simple directions. I have some with long detailed directions. I use the ones with the detailed directions the most often. Why? because the detailed directions recipes come out better. With the simple directions the authors take short cuts and make assumptions and sometimes you don’t read their minds correctly. If the directions are detailed I know that what I make will be exactly what the author intended. Give me long, detailed directions every day of the week! I think I need to go peruse E-bay for a copy of Ms. Child’s book. I’m feeling like my cookbook cupboard is now severely lacking. There’s no Joy of Cooking in there either. Scandalous! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rude-article-about-julia-child-do-not-buy-her-book/508667.md?page=6)