I’m not even sure what all of that means (“a roux?” would that be posh for golden-brown?) and I had lunch one hour ago, but somehow you’ve managed to make me salivate…
Cisco: I am a mod, albeit not in this forum, and I’m not seeing Miller do anything against the rules here. He’s disagreeing with your premise – that there’s only one way to read Ms. Schrambling’s article, and that is as an unacceptable attack on Julia Child and her entire life and career – but disagreement is allowed around here. He isn’t insulting you, and he isn’t threadshitting.
And, frankly, I’m with him on not understanding the depth of outrage y’all are expressing here. Not everyone likes to cook, and if you don’t, buying a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a waste of money. I think she is correct that way more people will ever buy it than will cook from it.
twickster, moderator, who saw Julie and Julia a few days ago, loved it, and was inspired not at all to go cook anything, complicated or otherwise
I’m sorry, where did the review limit it’s audience to those who don’t like to cook? Must have missed that paragraph. Writing a cookbook review targeted at those who don’t like to cook would be way south of stupid.
I am also of the belief there is no evidence for the ridiculous claim that MTAOFC will sit idle on most shelves. There is nothing that will ever back up that little claim.
I don’t think the article is rude. The author is just saying that most people nowadays will be put off by Child’s insistence that everything should be made from scratch, and if you’re just a casual cook who doesn’t have hours to spend cooking, you’re going to be frustrated by the recipes, most of which require extensive preparation.
I don’t know if that’s true or not…I’ve never read the book and don’t like to cook. But whether it’s true or not, it’s not a rude or insulting claim. If anything, it makes sense. Child was writing for homemakers, who didn’t work outside the home and had time to do all that.
It’s basically the same conclusion some food writers at the Boston Globe came to. After making one of the book’s duck dishes, they say:
I see from your post that you haven’t read the book. This “insistence” you speak of is totally off base.
ETA: The Boston Globe, with it’s numerous qualifiers, hardly agrees with the article posted in the OP. On top of that, the book was never intended to be for everyday fare.
Well, like I said, she may be wrong, but there’s a difference between being wrong and being rude. And both the Slate article and the Boston Globe article say the same thing…that the cookbook isn’t a good one for casual cooks. So, what’s the problem?
Bolding mine.
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t sound like you even read the Boston Globe article that you quoted, because it says no such thing. It implies totally the opposite, in fact.
Of course if you don’t like what Cisco is doing you could ask a mod, otherwise you can’t … but then someone can say the same about this post and it get recursively meta real fast.
In short: of course he can tell them to get out of his (or her) thread, and of course they are no obligation to listen. The op has every right to request that and to be ignored.
Read Julia’s book to find out about roux!
I can’t be the only one who buys cookbooks to read, even if I don’t make every recipe. And eBay says there are some barely used editions available…
Ordered it and paid enough to get it for the weekend - just in case I am inspired to try something new for the 3-day. I will read it Friday night, hit the Farmer’s Market Saturday morning, and see what I can do for a family BBQ on Saturday night.
In the meantime, I will pour a glass of wine and read a bit of Julia. I checked my shelves and I have The Way to Cook and Mastering the Art Vol. 1. Those two I won’t dispense with in a purge - too critical to me as references.
I love the lengthy descriptions, the short comments, the photos, the diagrams, etc. The Slate author is an idiot, and does not get it at all. She has done a disservice to amateur cooks through her misguided comments. If there was an ignore feature for general columns in the world, I would use it on her based on this column alone.
Harumph. Pass the pate and wine please.
Well to be a bit contrary, I kinda of agree with the article, but not all, and not at all with the tone. As always I’m sure the collection of geniuses on this board read and mastered the book the very first day they walked into a kitchen. But it is a complicated and intimidating work, and simply wasn’t written for today’s audience.
It was written when Most women were stay at home mom’s who did often cook for several hours a day and knew their way around a kitchen very well. It was a ‘step-it-up’ manual for people who were spending hours in the kitchen, and preparing meals from days ahead anyway, to move toward top class French cooking. And it was perfect for that and very successful.
But it isn’t appropriate for a new cook, looking to learn and make a few nice meals. Most people don’t have the time for that, they are just going to get frustrated. Plus most of the recipes are really dated. Heavy sauces, butter and cream. Today’s top French chefs don’t cook like tht anymore, except for rare occasions.
It would finding someone who wants to get them into computers, and giving them a book on dissecting the UNIX Kernal. It’s pointlessly complicated until you know you are ready to get something out of it.
A “roux” is flour sauteed in fat, often butter (which is often clarified.) The ratio is usually 1:1 by weight, but some cooks use a little more fat than flour. They are used both for thickening sauces/stews and for flavoring. Depending on how long they are cooked, they can range from a white roux (just cooked long enough for the raw flour flavor to cook out but not enough to change color) to chocolate or brick roux (very dark, but not burnt.) The lighter rouxs have little flavor, the darker ones add a distinct toasted, nutty flavor to the dish. Also, lighter roux have more thickening power than darker roux, and quite significantly so. Dark roux also take a lot of time (up to around an hour) to make on the stovetop and require attention to keep the flour from burning and totally ruining it.
It’s used in various cuisines. Obviously, with the name being of French derivation it features prominently in those and offshoot cuisines, particularly the Cajun/Creole of Southern Louisiana. The phrase “First, you make a roux” has kind of become a cliche of how all the recipes from that part of the States start, since roux (usually darker ones, from peanut butter to chocolate or brick in color) are featured prominently in the cuisine. French recipes tend to use the lighter roux, white and blond.
I don’t agree that it’s pointlessly complicated. For sure, it is not written with the same philosophy as your run of the mill “100 Meals in Under Twenty Minutes!” cookbooks, where every recipe depends on some commercially available processed food product as a base.
The nice thing about (volume one of, at least) MtAoFC is that it assumes that the reader is a novice. Everything is approached from a “first principles” angle. The kitchen is a laboratory of sorts - in the “science & experimentation” sense, and also in the “labour happens here” sense.
From what I have read and attempted so far, I don’t think that its recipes are beyond the grasp of the casual cook at all. They are merely beyond the reach of the lazy and disinterested cook. Clearly the recipes are not appropriate for the person who has about an hour to prepare and eat dinner during the work week, but most of us have the occassional day when we are able to spend a little time putting a nice meal together.
Julia Child shares some points in common with one of our contemporary “celebrity chefs,” Gordon Ramsey: A basic philosophy that good cooking is soemthing that everyone can accomplish, and that it’s worthwhile for regular people to spend some time in the kitchen – that it’s cooking (and more importantly eating) well is enriching, and that people who don’t take the time are impoverishing themselves.
I’m not sure if Julia would approve of the phrasing “It’s a fucking shame,” but I think that she’d be in general agreement with the sentiment.
To pretend that the methods in these books are beyond the reach of your average person misses the point, entirely. They were written for the average person. To say “I’ve been a cook for 26 years, and these books are hopelessly inaccessible to me” does a great disservice to the people who will make the inference that it would be a waste of time for them to pick it up.
Anybody with the inclination is capable of benefitting from these books.
I dare you to point to a single thing I’ve posted in this thread (other than this post here) that hasn’t been entirely on topic.
Miller and Cisco: we’ve already had a moderator rule in Post #42 (and I agree with her) that a discussion of whether the article in question is a “review” is not a hijack and not thread-shitting, but a legitimate aspect of whether the article is rude. So, that argument is done.
Miller, there’s no need for you to revive it with a dare, or even a double-dog dare. Seems to me that Cisco thought a discussion about whether the article in quesion was a review was something of a hijack. I can see where he might get that impression, but I think you were using the definition to get at whether it’s “rude.” So, it’s been ruled not a hijack, and there’s no need for you to rub Cisco’s nose in it.
The sniping at each other is now dead, right?
All persons more than a mile high to leave the thread!
After reading that, I have to go buy MtAoFC. I love a challenge in the kitchen!
For slow roasting or sauteeing? 
No it wasn’t. It was written at a time where housewifes were stay-at-home, sure, but bought TV Dinners, boxed cake mixes, everything new and fast fast fast and MODERN. The generation who spent hours in the kitchen preparing elaborate meals were the grandmothers of that generation.
And why must a cookbook be for “meals to eat after a long day at work” in order to be for today’s audience? People still might want to make a fancy Sunday dinner every once in awhile, or have a dinner party, or a holiday that they’ll host.
Frankly, it’s rather insulting and condescending to have the attitude that today’s homecooks don’t have the patience or skills to try anything in MtAoFC. No one is saying that people are gonna buy the book and make Boeuf Bourguignon on a Tuesday night after they get home from work at 7pm. But the article’s implication that people are incapable of cooking it at all is what’s really maddening.
Ok, I went back and read the article. I find little to snark on, really. IMO, the author is just speaking the truth: that eating and cooking habits have changed over the past 40 years or so and that while Child’s books is a masterpiece, it is not for everyone. I agree with her on that and on her last point: that in a few years, MTAoFC will still be huge, but that the film will look small, but then, I wasn’t a huge fan of the film.
The author also says that Child’s “more relaxed book”, From Julia Child’s Kitchen, is more approachable or less intimidating–and again I would agree.
I think where the author went wrong was in her use of hyperbole (the whisk reference) which falls flat and her muddled focus–is she attempting to slam the phenom the movie and book have become or just the movie or just the book? She’s not really clear and (IMO) she expresses herself badly.
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.
One final note: Julia Child, in her book,* My Life in France*, says that not only did she think this type of cooking wonderful and superior etc, but that she was also attempting to document a way of life that was changing in France even as she lived there. That is one aspect of the book that this author completely missed (and the film did too). Oh, and Julia Child probably wouldn’t have minded the word fuck–she could be fairly earthy herself.
ETA: and could we please move beyond the two schools of either deifying Childs (she does deserve many accolades of course) and marginalizing those who find her approach doesn’t resonate with them to Hamburger Helper or Mr Food? There is much middle ground to be had, and let’s be honest: we all like what we like and none of us are starving.