Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

What this episode is about

The content highlights a Thanksgiving-themed discussion, emphasizing the ongoing partnership with the Cooperative for Education, which aims to combat poverty through education in Guatemala. The hosts encourage listeners to contribute to the cause by sponsoring students and participating in a virtual event, underscoring the importance of educational access for underprivileged youth.

Key takeaways

• Stuff You Should Know's goodwill: they’ve raised $1.4 million for Guatemalan education—talk about paying it forward!
• Thanks to Julia Child, America traded jell-o beef molds for Michelin-star dreams. Bon appétit, indeed!
• Julia Child, the ultimate foodie influencer, corrected 1960s America’s culinary course with French finesse.
• Despite sounding British, Julia Child hailed from Pasadena; shows you can be posh without a passport.
• 20 bucks with Co-ed might not buy a turkey, but it can sponsor a Guatemalan student. Priorities!

Who speaks in this episode?

• Josh Clark (Host) · 25 min speaking
• Chuck Bryant (Host) · 25 min speaking
• Jerry Rowland (Guest)
• Nathan Winger (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Julia Child, Cooperative for Education, co-ed, Stuff You Should Know
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Smith College, shark repellent, OSS (Office of Strategic Services), OSS
3. 10:00 – 15:00: France / French cuisine, French cuisine, Julia Child, Paul Child
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Lordon Blue, Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, California
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, France / French cuisine, Judith Jones
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Judith Jones, Judith Jones's editors
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Julia Child, Paul Child, 5-second rule, Bustle magazine
8. 35:00 – 40:00: Costco, Costco hot dogs, Julia Child, DINER / In-N-Out Burger
9. 40:00 – 45:00: Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Spotlight: butter, Beef Bourguignon (Boeuf Bourguignon)
10. 45:00 – 50:00: Julia Child, French onion soup, chocolate mousse, French onion soup
11. 50:00 – 52:22: Stuff You Should Know, Carmel, Indiana, iHeart Radio, iHeart Radio app

Notable quotes from "Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"

• Co-ed Zoom hangout, and it's always super fun. We look forward to it. and this is how you can do that. You can join the cooperative for education for 20 bucks a month, and you…

  about Cooperative for Education · at 1:33

• We're talking about Julia Child, arguably one of the most well-known cooks, chefs of all time. Yeah, but I have to step out real quick because I've cut the dickens out of my finger.

  about Julia Child · at 2:56

• Familiar with Julia Child and you live in the United States and you like decent food that's not processed, you owe an enormous debt to Julia Child because you can argue that…

  about France / French cuisine · at 4:04

• Her because when World War II broke out she's like I want to become a spy. So she joined the OSS the office of strategic services the direct predecessor of the CIA and worked…

  about OSS (Office of Strategic Services) · at 7:37

• They were married for almost 50 years from 1946 until Paul died in 1994.

  about Paul Child · at 12:29

• Feel like that's something we say a lot on this show, but that's the case. within 10 years of being at Lordon Blue, she had sold her bestselling cookbook that you just bought, I guess. Did you get the OG?

  about Lordon Blue · at 18:57

• They assumed that you already had some sort of training, maybe apprenticeship, something like that. the mastering the art of French cooking did the exact opposite because…

  about Mastering the Art of French Cooking · at 20:49

• Publishers. and she got rejected quite a bit before she finally landed with a editor named Judith Jones at Alfred Knublishing.

  about Judith Jones · at 22:58

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Julia Child — Person · Primary subject · 25 mentions · first at 2:56
  Episode is a biographical overview of Julia Child's life, career, and cultural impact on American cooking
• Paul Child — Person · Significant related person / spouse · 3 mentions · first at 11:56
  Paul Child was Julia's husband and partner who supported her, helped facilitate their life in France, and collaborated on her career trajectory
• Judith Jones — Person · Editor / facilitator · 3 mentions · first at 23:02
  Judith Jones was the editor who championed Mastering the Art of French Cooking and previously published the English translation of Anne Frank's diary
• Judge Frank's father — Person · Referenced work connection · 2 mentions · first at 23:20
  Mentioned because Judith Jones edited/published the English edition of The Diary of Anne Frank, establishing editorial credibility
  Those are mine. we should also do an episode on Anne Frank sometime.
• Judith Jones's editors — Person · Referenced editorial group (ambiguous) · 1 mention · first at 25:42
  Mentioned briefly in a low-confidence recognition in the extraction; the transcript primarily references Judith Jones herself rather than a group of her editors
  Yeah. And Judith Jones, also the Bible.
• Dr. Belinda Beck — Person · 2 mentions · first at 18:22
  Cooking school that she runs out of her own kitchen with her who would become long longtime collaborators Simone Beck and Louisette Bertol. and they founded the school called…
• Louisette Berthol — Person · 2 mentions
• Dan Akaroy — Person · 1 mention · first at 3:16
  Well, that was a dead-on Dan Akaroy as Julia Child.
• Bill Donovan — Person · 1 mention · first at 7:49
  Strategic services the direct predecessor of the CIA and worked directly under no less than while Bill Donovan the guy who founded the OSS.
• Audrey Hepburn — Person · 1 mention · first at 24:46
  Yeah. there was a French chef in the White House kitchen. of course you had you mentioned Audrey Hepburn and wearing those French clothes, French designers. Jackie Kennedy was as well.
• Jackie Kennedy — Person · 1 mention · first at 24:50
  You had you mentioned Audrey Hepburn and wearing those French clothes, French designers. Jackie Kennedy was as well.
• Joe Garden — Person · 1 mention · first at 36:14
  Well, buddy, our friend Joe Garden, a friend of the show, former writer of The Onion. Joe lives there in Woodstock and he posts pictures on his.
• David Letterman — Person · 1 mention · first at 39:18
  She was also super charming and funny on TV appearances, but particularly Letterman. You can watch compilations of her on Letterman. She could hold her own against Letterman, no problem.
• Oscar Wild — Person · 1 mention · first at 41:06
  Yeah. And she had she quote she quoted Oscar Wild which I thought was great. But she said everything in moderation including moderation.
• Julie Powell — Person · 1 mention · first at 42:32
  It's really good. that is the story of a woman named Julie Powell who I think was sort of felt lost in life and wanted to dive into this project of cooking every recipe.
• Meyer Stre — Person · 1 mention · first at 42:52
  Oh wow. and Meyer Stre, I don't know if she won the Academy Award. I know she was nominated for playing Julia Child.
• Norah Efron — Person · 1 mention · first at 43:04
  So, it sort of tells those two stories together. And it's a wonderful movie from Norah Efron. But in that movie she's cooking all the recipes and one the big one from the book…
• Val Kilmer — Person · 1 mention · first at 46:11
  This is a good movie. RIP, Val Kilmer.
• Nathan Winger — Person · 1 mention · first at 51:20
  This is Nathan Winger or Winger.
• Kip Winger — Person · 1 mention · first at 51:26
  I think it's Winger in the tradition of Kip Winger.
• Alain Ducasse — Person · 1 mention
• Jacques Pépin — Person · 1 mention
• Little Chuck — Person · 1 mention
• Tom Snyder — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

• Mastering the Art of French Cooking — Book · Primary referenced work · 8 mentions · first at 19:10
  Presented as Julia Child's seminal cookbook that taught Americans French cooking techniques and helped launch her public career
• The Diary of Anne Frank — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 23:18
  Mentioned as another significant work edited by Judith Jones, drawing a parallel to the impact of 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.
  Nose for this kind of thing and she recognized that in mastering the art of French cooking. Not that it would be as important necessarily as the diary of Anne Frank, but that…
• Anne Frank — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 23:20
  Book edited by Judith Jones, who also edited Julia Child's cookbook.
  Those are mine. we should also do an episode on Anne Frank sometime.

Companies & orgs

• WGBH — Company · Local station / production partner · 9 mentions
  WGBH (Boston) produced Julia Child's early TV appearances and The French Chef; it's the local PBS station that launched her TV career
• Cooperative for Education — Company · Charity partner / call-to-action · 4 mentions · first at 0:39
  Hosts promote donations and a raffle supporting Cooperative for Education (co-ed) at episode start; listeners urged to donate
• OSS (Office of Strategic Services) — Company · Past employer / formative experience · 2 mentions · first at 7:42
  Julia Child served in the OSS during World War II; experience contributed to later life and introduced her to Paul Child
• Lordon Blue — Company · Culinary school · 3 mentions · first at 18:11
  The prestigious culinary school where Julia Child trained in French cuisine.
• OSS — Company · Referenced organization · 2 mentions · first at 7:42
  Mentioned as the organization Julia Child worked for during WWII, precursor to the CIA.
  Her because when World War II broke out she's like I want to become a spy. So she joined the OSS the office of strategic services the direct predecessor of the CIA and worked…
• Smith College — Company · Educational institution · 3 mentions · first at 5:30
  Julia Child's alma mater, where she studied before her culinary career.
  That the closest brush she had with being a gourmand and a host was when she was the chair of the refreshment committee for the senior prom and the fall dance one year at Smith College.
• Alfred Knopf — Company · Publisher · 1 mention · first at 23:07
  The publisher that eventually published Julia Child's cookbook after initial rejections.
  So she already had a pretty great nose for this kind of thing and she recognized that in mastering the art of French cooking. Not that it would be as important necessarily as the diary of Anne Frank, but that not necessarily.
• Le Grand Bleu / Le Clos du Tou's Gourmand — Company · Culinary collaborator / French school reference · 1 mention · first at 18:15
  The transcript references Julia's French collaborators and her cooking school (Le École des Trois Gourmands). The listed entity appears to be a restaurant or related French establishment referenced in the transcript (some naming ambiguity)
  Own kitchen with her who would become long longtime collaborators Simone Beck and Louisette Bertol. and they founded the school called Leole de Tuis Gormand which means the school of the three gourmands.
• Costco — Company · Incidental mention · 4 mentions · first at 35:31
  Mentioned in passing as a place Julia Child liked to get hot dogs, illustrating her down-to-earth personality.
  That's like their hot dogs. They have their own taste and it's an amazing taste, but they are on par with like a school lunch type hot dog in the best way. I got you.
• Stuff You Should Know — Company · 7 mentions · first at 0:01
  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
• co-ed — Company · 3 mentions · first at 0:39
  About Thanksgiving, we wanted to mention, we work have been working with co-ed, the cooperative for education, for many, many years, since they took us down to Guatemala, and they're, if you haven't heard us talk.
• iHeart Radio — Company · 2 mentions · first at 0:03
  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
• Top Secret — Company · 2 mentions · first at 11:17
  Clearance. It was, she really worked her way up the ladder in the OSS. I saw that she had top secret, the highest level security clearance for that assignment, which is it's…
• RISE Youth Development Program — Company · 1 mention · first at 1:44
  20 bucks a month, and you can collectively sponsor students in the RISE Youth Development Program. in 2026, more than 1,200 students are going to start school in rural…
• Sloans — Company · 1 mention · first at 6:57
  And was you know said she wanted to be a writer. She was an advertising copywriter for Sloans which was a furniture company. so that was her first gig. but she was always a…
• Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — Company · 1 mention · first at 7:42
  Her because when World War II broke out she's like I want to become a spy. So she joined the OSS the office of strategic services the direct predecessor of the CIA and worked…
• emergency sea rescue equipment section — Company · 1 mention · first at 8:39
  Yeah. And she actually was promoted to become a member of the emergency sea rescue equipment section.
• UNESCO — Company · 1 mention · first at 13:57
  First cuisine in the world to be recognized as a world heritage by UNESCO. That's how distinct and important French cuisine is. And this is the moment when Julia Child was introduced to it, this lunch at Luron.
• Top Chef — Company · 1 mention · first at 14:10
  Yeah. And as I understand it, French cuisine, I've watched a lot of Top Chef over the years.
• Smithsonian Museum of American History — Company · 1 mention · first at 19:22
  About 50 years after she enrolled at Lordon Blue, her actual kitchen that she cooked in would be in the Smithsonian Museum of American History as a permanent exhibit.
• Alfred Knublishing — Company · 1 mention · first at 23:02
  Publishers. and she got rejected quite a bit before she finally landed with a editor named Judith Jones at Alfred Knublishing.
• I've Been Reading — Company · 1 mention · first at 26:47
  She went on PBS at WGBH there in Boston for a book review show called I've Been Reading Ellipsies. And she was just doing a little demonstration on how to make an omelette. She…
• The French Chef — Company · 1 mention · first at 27:12
  Yeah. Within a year the French chef her first cooking show was on the air on WGBH.
• Peabody award — Company · 1 mention · first at 28:17
  Yeah. Yeah, that's right. she won an Emmy and a Peabody award for that show. and this is just a little feather in her cap. I think it was the first TV show in the United States to feature closed captioning for the.
• Bustle magazine — Company · 1 mention · first at 30:30
  Take over the kitchen as something that you love doing and that's for yourself, right? I saw Bustle magazine describe her as a bump, which I'm not familiar with, but they based on context, it seemed like it was a good thing.
• Snopes — Company · 1 mention · first at 31:54
  No, it wasn't. Snopes dated it back to at least 1989, but she once the closest they could find was that she was flipping a potato pancake and flipped it out of the pan onto the countertop and.
• The Onion — Company · 1 mention · first at 36:20
  Garden, a friend of the show, former writer of The Onion. Joe lives there in Woodstock and he posts pictures on his Instagram eating those Costco hot dogs.
• Tomorrow Show — Company · 1 mention · first at 38:48
  Incident I think about a month before that sketch where she was working with Jacqu Pepan on Tom Snider's tomorrow show where she had cut herself pretty bad and I guess that was the inspiration for that.
• Julia and Julia — Company · 1 mention · first at 42:25
  Yeah, for sure. if you've ever seen the movie Julia and Julia, did you see that?
• Academy Award — Company · 1 mention · first at 42:54
  Oh wow. and Meyer Stre, I don't know if she won the Academy Award. I know she was nominated for playing Julia Child.
• Endless Meal — Company · 1 mention · first at 45:48
  Surprisingly easy to make and the outcome is just amazing. I saw light, airy, silky, smooth, says the endless meal.
• Alfred A. Knopf — Company · 1 mention
• Hellmann's — Company · 1 mention
• Julia — Company · 1 mention
• Julie & Julia — Company · 1 mention
• L'Ecole des Trois Gourmands — Company · 1 mention
• La Couronne — Company · 1 mention
• Le Cordon Bleu — Company · 1 mention
• Lipton — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

• Beef Bourguignon (Boeuf Bourguignon) — Product · Representative recipe / signature dish · 1 mention · first at 43:16
  Cited as one of Julia Child's well-known recipes and emblematic of her cookbook's influence; referenced via the Julie/Julia film and episode discussion
  Which is essentially a beef stew with red wine. But again, you take some deceptively simple ingredients and put them together in the right way, it's going to produce a smash hit dish. And.
• French onion soup — Product · Representative recipe / personal favorite · 2 mentions · first at 46:16
  Listed among Julia Child's well-known recipes and the hosts' personal favorites; example of technique-driven comfort food
  And then of course, French Onion Soup. I know that you and I both talked on the air about our love for French onion soup.
• Costco hot dogs — Product · Illustrative preference / approachable food · 3 mentions · first at 35:31
  Mentioned as one of Julia Child's fond everyday food preferences to emphasize her approachable palate
  Yeah, it's worth people go to Costco just to eat the hot dogs and the pizza's not bad, too, but it's worth going to just for the hot dogs, which technically in a weird way gives it one Michelin.
• Cassoulet — Product · Representative recipe · 3 mentions
  Mentioned among classic French dishes associated with Julia Child's repertoire and cookbook influence
  Yeah, cassule that best of bean feast is everyday fair for a peasant, but ambrosia for a gastronome. though its ideal consumer is a 300 pound blocking back who's been splitting firewood.
• DINER / In-N-Out Burger — Product · Illustrative preference / approachable food · 2 mentions · first at 35:26
  Used to show Julia Child's lack of snobbery — she enjoyed everyday American foods like In-N-Out Burger
  Yeah. but despite all this, she was not a food snob. She was very approachable. she loved In-N-Out Burger.
• In-N-Out Burger — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 35:22
  Mentioned as one of Julia Child's favorite fast food places, showing her non-snobbish approach to food.
  Yeah. but despite all this, she was not a food snob. She was very approachable. she loved In-N-Out Burger.
• Liptin — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 47:02
  Product mentioned in passing during a cooking discussion.
  Don't you just get one of those Liptin packets?
• Costco hot dogs — Product · 2 mentions · first at 35:31
  She used Helman's mayo in her tuna salad. apparently she liked Costco hot dogs even.
• ketchup — Product · 1 mention · first at 16:06
  Yeah. You put a little ketchup on there, you're in hog heaven. Oh man, you and my daughter.
• broccoli — Product · 1 mention · first at 16:22
  No, she doesn't put on broccoli. She doesn't like broccoli, but she eats Yeah, I don't like broccoli either. Does she hate peas, too?
• soy sauce — Product · 1 mention · first at 17:05
  You're not supposed to eat much soy sauce, if any, with it.
• Helman's mayo — Product · 1 mention · first at 35:28
  She used Helman's mayo in her tuna salad. apparently she liked Costco hot dogs even.
• vermouth — Product · 1 mention · first at 37:39
  Very gross to me, but she enjoyed something called an upside down martini, which is you swap the vermouth parts in the gin. So, it's much more vermouth than gin.
• acetylene torch — Product · 1 mention · first at 39:58
  Well, she used an acetylene torch to melt the cheese, which is pretty hilarious. I had the impression that they didn't have the equipment she needed to make a burger. So, she made.
• Olive oil — Product · 1 mention · first at 41:21
  Health conscious and you're thinking like I don't want to use a lot of butter. I use olive oil or whatever.
• slow cooker — Product · 1 mention · first at 47:30
  Pepperini, and like maybe one other thing in a roast and you put it in a slow cooker and it's supposed to be a knockout dish and I can't wait to try it. Oh man, we got You got to watch Julia and Julie and Julia.
• iHeart Radio app — Product · 1 mention · first at 52:05
  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• A1 — Product · 1 mention
• Big Mac — Product · 1 mention
• gin — Product · 1 mention
• Lipton packets — Product · 1 mention
• peas — Product · 1 mention
• Pouilly-Fumé — Product · 1 mention
• ranch — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

• France / French cuisine — Concept · Core topic / cultural context · 7 mentions · first at 4:19
  French cuisine is central to Julia Child's influence; episode explains characteristics and significance of French culinary tradition
• Spotlight: butter — Concept · Recurring culinary motif · 3 mentions · first at 21:37
  Butter is discussed as an essential ingredient in Julia Child's approach and emblematic of her preference for real fats and ingredients
  Would become criticized for pushing things like real butter on people. and she would say things Well, if you're afraid of butter, use cream instead. which is at least as bad as butter. and her whole thing was yeah, you.
• Oscar Wilde — Concept · Quoted inspiration · 3 mentions
  Quoted (via Julia) for the line 'everything in moderation, including moderation' as an aphorism supporting her approach to food
• French cuisine — Concept · 6 mentions · first at 4:19
  Can argue that she almost single-handedly introduced America to real food through French cuisine.
• shark repellent — Concept · 4 mentions · first at 8:46
  Which was tasked with coming up with a shark repellent because sharks were a problem for downed pilots shipwrecked sailors. I think at least 20 sailors had been attacked by sharks since the beginning of the war and this is only a.
• chocolate mousse — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 45:21
  And what about chocolate mousse?
• French onion soup — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 46:16
  And then of course, French Onion Soup. I know that you and I both talked on the air about our love for French onion soup.
• search engine — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 49:35
  Love nerd math, so I did some calculations. Using my trusty search engine, I found out there are over 2600 episodes of Stuff You Should Know. we're just going to use 2600 to make it simple, he says.
• Giving Tuesday — Concept · 1 mention · first at 2:14
  Hang out with us, I think, in January at some point. And also, just a little FYI, Giving Tuesday is December 2nd, so that could be a good day to do it, too. And whenever you're…
• copper acetate — Concept · 1 mention · first at 9:52
  Ultimately was a mix of decayed shark meat, organic acids, and what was the, copper acetate was sort of the main ingredient that capped it all off.
• California rolls — Concept · 1 mention · first at 16:57
  Do you remember what kind she eats? Is it like California rolls or nigiri?
• nigiri — Concept · 1 mention · first at 16:57
  Do you remember what kind she eats? Is it like California rolls or nigiri?
• McCarthy hearings — Concept · 1 mention · first at 26:17
  When her husband Paul was called for the blacklisting blacklisted McCarthy hearings.
• closed captioning — Concept · 1 mention · first at 28:25
  Feather in her cap. I think it was the first TV show in the United States to feature closed captioning for the deaf and heart of hearing community.
• open captioning — Concept · 1 mention · first at 28:29
  Yeah, open captioning I saw where it was for everybody. Everyone read it, but yeah.
• 5-second rule — Concept · 1 mention · first at 31:27
  Well, yeah. Yeah, we did a whole episode on the 5-second rule.
• jug wine — Concept · 1 mention · first at 36:44
• California wine — Concept · 1 mention · first at 37:15
  Drinking was just bottom of the barrel stuff. And let's see what else we've got. And as a result, California wine became super dominant. essentially in part from her normalizing it.
• upside down martini — Concept · 1 mention · first at 37:37
  She also liked beer. And this sounds very gross to me, but she enjoyed something called an upside down martini, which is you swap the vermouth parts in the gin. So, it's much more vermouth than gin.
• steak tartar — Concept · 1 mention · first at 39:46
  Version in this one of a tartar. What do you call? Yeah. Of a steak tartar, but it was with ground beef and melted cheese. And he just sort of kept making fun of it and then he…
• French dip sandwich — Concept · 1 mention · first at 46:28
  There's two things in my life. If it's on a menu, I will get it. One is French onion soup and the other is a French dip sandwich.
• liver failure — Concept · 1 mention · first at 48:05
  Passed away at her home at the time in Monaceto, California in August 2004 of liver failure.
• Olympic swimming pools — Concept · 1 mention · first at 50:58
  Stuff you should know equates to the depth of 238,333 Olympic swimming pools.
• ABV — Concept · 1 mention
• boeuf bourguignon — Concept · 1 mention
• bon appétit — Concept · 1 mention
• cassoulet — Concept · 1 mention
• deaf and hard of hearing community — Concept · 1 mention
• quiche Lorraine — Concept · 1 mention
• Sauvignon blanc — Concept · 1 mention
• sole meunière — Concept · 1 mention
• sushi — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• La Couronne (Lacoron) — Place · Catalyst meal location · 1 mention · first at 13:20
  The Normandy restaurant where Paul Child first took Julia to a transformative French meal that inspired her career pivot
  This is in the Normandy region along the river there in northern France. And it has been a restaurant since the 1340s.
• California — Place · Setting · 4 mentions · first at 5:20
  Mentioned as Julia Child's birthplace and a location where she lived later in life.
  All right. sadly, we're at the end of this episode. and Julia Child met the end of her life at the almost age of 92. I think she was just a couple of days short of her 92nd birthday when she passed away at her home at the time in.
• Guatemala — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at 0:44
  Mentioned in the context of the podcast's work with the cooperative for education.
  Working with co-ed, the cooperative for education, for many, many years, since they took us down to Guatemala, and they're, if you haven't heard us talk about them, I'd be surprised, but their mission is to help eradicate,.
• Neptune Memorial Reef — Place · Final resting place · 1 mention · first at 48:24
  Julia Child's ashes were incorporated into this underwater memorial, reflecting her unique legacy.
  So, she's actually buried in one of the more interesting places I've ever heard of. Had you heard of the Neptune memorial reef before?
• Carmel, Indiana — Place · 2 mentions · first at 49:20
  All right. So, this is from Nathan Winger in Carmel, Indiana. And Nathan went through the trouble of calculating how many Olympic pools deep and how many Big Macs we are.
• Pasadena — Place · 1 mention · first at 5:20
  She was born in Pasadena. Apparently, her accent was one of those mid-Atlantic accents that she was taught growing up in private schools and private college, Smith College in.
• Normandy — Place · 1 mention · first at 13:08
  This is in the Normandy region along the river there in northern France. And it has been a restaurant since the 1340s.
• Cambridge, Mass. — Place · 1 mention · first at 26:33
  Right. So they brought him in. but they ultimately landed for good in Cambridge, Mass. And when she was, promoting her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I finally got it.
• Woodstock — Place · 1 mention · first at 36:22
  A friend of the show, former writer of The Onion. Joe lives there in Woodstock and he posts pictures on his Instagram eating those Costco hot dogs.
• Ceylon — Place · 1 mention
• Key Biscayne — Place · 1 mention
• Montecito, California — Place · 1 mention

Sponsors

• cooperative4education.org — Sponsor · 1 mention
• stuffpodcast@iheart.com — Sponsor · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:01 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too. And we're stuffed on turkey, wearing aprons, got a little gravy on the sides of our mouths.

0:21 And uh it's stuff you should know. That's right. Uh happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate Thanksgiving here in the US.

0:28 Mhm. And happy belated Thanksgiving to our Canadian listeners who celebrate it early.

0:34 That's right. Uh and since we're talking about Thanksgiving, uh we wanted to mention, you know, we work have been working with co-ed, the cooperative for education,

0:42 uh for many, many years, uh since they took us down to Guatemala, and they're, you know, if you haven't heard us talk about them, I'd be surprised, but uh their mission is to uh help eradicate, um poverty through education, and largely through the children of Guatemala. It's a great organization uh NGO that we've been working with for a long long time and we're working with them again this year.

1:04 Yeah. They see to it that kids who would almost certainly otherwise not have gotten any real education at all get a really great education um for fairly cheap too. They're a really really great effective charity which is why we've been working with them for so long. And one of the ways we work with them every year is to um raffle off a chance to hang out with us online.

1:27 Yeah. Virtually. Uh that's how we do things. But we've done this for a few years in a row now, like a a a Zoom, a co-ed Zoom hangout, and it's always super fun. We look forward to it. Uh and this is how you can do that. You can join the cooperative for education for 20 bucks a month, and you can collectively sponsor students in the RISE Youth Development Program. Uh, in 2026, more than 1,200 students are going to start school in rural Guatemala through this program. And that's their biggest class ever. And they really count on us and you guys to help make that happen.

1:58 Yeah. Uh, you can also give any donation that you like. They're happy with that. Um, but do this by December 19th. Uh, and you will be entered into a chance to hang out with us, I think, in January at some point. And also, just a little FYI, Giving Tuesday is December 2nd, so that could be a good day to do it, too. And um whenever you're ready, go to cooperative4education.orgsk and you can make your donations there.

2:27 That's right. 20 bucks a month can really go a long way. And just to brag a little bit about the stuff You should know army, since we've been working with co-ed, uh over $1.4 $4 million in charitable contributions have come uh from the stuff you should know army sponsoring a total of 172 RISE students over that time.

2:45 Cool. Thanks you guys for supporting co-ed so well. That's right. Well um Chuck, I say we get cracking with our episode today because I'm excited about this one.

2:56 We're talking about Julia Child, arguably one of the most well-known cooks, chefs of all time. Yeah, but I have to step out real quick because I've cut the dickens out of my finger.

3:11 That was pretty good. Actually, I wasn't even going to try it, but that was a dead-on Julia Child.

3:16 Well, that was a dead-on Dan Akaroy as Julia Child. I think you topped him to tell you the truth.

3:22 Yeah. you know, if you grew up in the 70s and the 80s uh and even into the 90s and you ever surfed around your uh cable TV to and cross PBS, there was a good chance that uh the wonderful uh Julia Child came into your life in some way. I I remember watching her a little bit when I was a kid even and just thinking like who is this this giant tall woman that talks funny

3:48 uh cooking in front of my face. But you were never intimidated by her, were you?

3:53 No. I mean, she was always just so friendly and uh gregarious. I just I I had an instant liking.

3:59 Yes. Um she was a very very likable person. Um, but even if you're not familiar with Julia Child and you live in the United States and you like decent food that's not processed, you owe an enormous debt to Julia Child because you can argue that she almost single-handedly introduced America to real food through uh French cuisine.

4:22 Yeah. I mean it it these days it's uh taken for granted that you know farmtot and ingredients that matter and food preparation and sort of taking pride in cooking at home like that is just so commonplace. Um but it that was not the case when Julia Child was coming into things. She really revolutionized and and sort of rocked America's culinary world.

4:45 Yeah. Like this was the time when she came around when people were making jello- molds with like um ground beef in them.

4:55 Absolutely. Like that was nice. That was like showing off for a dinner party kind of stuff.

4:59 Yeah, for sure. Um so we'll talk about all the impact she had and why she was so beloved. But um to start, we'll go a little further back toward the beginning. And if you've ever heard her speak, you you really did do a pretty good impression. A lot of people think that she is British and she um was not British. She was American. She was born in Pasadena. Apparently, her accent was one of those mid-Atlantic accents that she was taught

5:27 um growing up in private schools and um private college, Smith College in Massachusetts.

5:33 Yeah. She was Julia McWills. Uh that's how she was born. And uh didn't have British parents either. They were uh they had some money though. Her parents were pretty well to do. his her dad was a financeier and her mom was an aerys of a paper company. So, she grew up with a cook in the house. Um, but it wasn't it wasn't that that did it. Uh, as you'll see, she had quite a ciruitous route to becoming the most famous uh cook in the world. Uh, and had a had a pretty interesting life up until that point.

6:04 She really did, like a surprisingly interesting one. Um, she was apparently a disaster in the kitchen. um and really didn't start cooking until I think she was in her 40s, maybe late 30s. I saw that the closest brush she had with um being a gourmand and a host um was when she was the chair of the refreshment committee for the senior prom and the fall dance one year at Smith College. And that that's not really much of an exaggeration. That really probably is the closest she came to being a foodie before she got into cooking later on in life.

6:40 Yeah, she was a history student. Uh she was going to be a writer. Uh and like I said, she was tall. She was 6'2 and she was athletic. She played basketball. She played tennis. She played golf. Um she graduated in 1934 and moved to New York and was uh you know said she wanted to be a writer. She was an advertising copywriter for Sloans which was a furniture company. Um, so that was her first gig. Um, but she was always a well-liked person. She was very, like I said, gregarious. That wasn't just a TV persona. Um, very, very sociable. People really seemed to like her um, her whole life. She was a life of the party, but she wasn't like just, you know, even though she she loved her wine, she wasn't just some some souse at the party. She was apparently pretty, you know, responsible human. Even early on,

7:23 like if she put a lampshade on her head, she remembered doing it the next day. It was on purpose.

7:28 Yeah. Exactly. She was she also had a really great work ethic um which served her well throughout the rest of her career but really from the outset helped her because when World War II broke out she's like I want to become a spy. So she joined the OSS the office of strategic services the direct predecessor of the CIA and worked directly under no less than while Bill Donovan the guy who founded the OSS. Yeah, he was a general and apparently that she didn't, you know, have a whole lot of like direct interaction with him, but it was a a very big gig for her.

8:02 Uh, it was pretty menial work. Um, even though it was a a job of um, you know, responsibility that she was put in, it was kind of precomputer work, like they needed human beings to do stuff that computers would do. So she would type up profiles on uh note cards of OSS officers just to keep sort of in the file cabinet uh before they had you know computers to do that kind of thing along with um several other women that she worked with.

8:28 And um like I said she was charming. You said she had a great work ethic and she got promoted like several times through that job.

8:37 Yeah. And she actually was promoted to become a member of the emergency sea rescue equipment section. um which was tasked with coming up with a shark repellent because sharks were a problem for downed pilots um shipwrecked sailors. I think at least 20 sailors had been attacked by sharks since the beginning of the war and this is only a couple years in so they needed some sort of shark repellent that would keep sharks away um but that was also highly portable. Apparently, shark repellent did not exist to this point, and the shark repellent they came up with was so effective, it's still the shark repellent that's used today.

9:15 Yeah. Uh they would also, you know, bump into sea mines that were supposed to hit German hubot and detonate those, which is no good for the cause or for the shark obviously.

9:24 Yeah. So, you son of a So, oh man, what a line. So, she was uh in in the test kitchen essentially trying to come up with a shark repellent. Um, obviously had a lot of different tries on this. I think there were over a hundred different attempts at this recipe.

9:44 Um, and what they came up with ultimately was a mix of decayed shark meat, um, organic acids, uh, and what was the, uh, copper acetate was sort of the main ingredient that that capped it all off.

9:57 Yeah, copper acetate. They figured out mixed with black dye mimics the scent of a dead shark. And I guess sharks don't like to go near other dead sharks.

10:07 No, who would? And they figured out how to basically make this into a little cake.

10:12 Um, you know, a cake meaning like a little puck, not a cake, like a birthday cake,

10:16 right? And you could attach it to your life vest and it would apparently keep sharks away for six to seven hours.

10:22 It's not bad. No. And she very um facitiously but also charmingly referred to that shark repellent as her first big recipe.

10:30 You gonna say it like her? I Okay, let me [clears throat and laughter] My first big recipe.

10:37 Oh, that's perfect. That's also sounds like half of your Halloween characters. Yeah, it really was pretty bad.

10:44 Wait, hold on. Let me do it nasely. My first page. We had one person that wrote in said they couldn't get through it because

10:51 I know. I felt kind of bad for him. Oh, that's right. Uh, from 44 to 45, I think these were her last two years in the OSS. Um, she served as chief of the OSS registry, and was sent to some pretty far away places. She went to China, uh, and son, which is modern-day Sri Lanka, and had some really top-notch security clearance. It was, uh, you know, she really worked her way up the ladder in the OSS. I saw that she had top secret, the highest level security clearance for that assignment, which is it's just nuts. Um, one thing that uh we'll see later on is that she's basically always considered herself a feminist. And that's a good example of that. She worked her way to the top of the OSS to have the highest possible security clearance during the 40s at a time when women were not really

11:40 I know that women worked a lot to support the war effort but that seems like an unusual position for a woman at the time.

11:47 Yeah, for sure. Uh all that you know due to her hard work. Um one of the biggest things that happened though in the OSS uh was that she met her future husband uh Paul Child. He was an officer and I say that not you know in like oh she met her husband there so that's what matters but she met her life partner and love of her life who um helped nurture her career and serve her and they they by all accounts they just seem like this really really wonderful uh couple like the kind that you've always you know want to be in yourself that kind of relationship you know.

12:21 Yeah I saw from basically every source that talked about it that they were the envy of their friends.

12:26 Yeah. Um, so yeah, they stayed together. They were married for almost 50 years from 1946 until Paul died in 1994.

12:35 That's right. Uh, and the takeaway here is is they landed in France at one point in 1948 as part of uh, his assignment in the USS. And when they were in France, they and you know, it's it's that sliding doors thing. Had they not gotten stationed in France, who knows if we ever would have gotten Julia Child.

12:53 Yeah. Because he was a foodie and she wasn't. and he said, "Hey, I'm going to take you out to a real French meal and see what you think." So, he took her to this very famous restaurant. Uh, how do you pronounce that, Josh?

13:05 Laoron. Lacoron, which is the Crown. Uh, this is in uh the Normandy region along the river there in northern France. And it has been a restaurant since the 1340s. So, it is legit. Some people uh claim it's the oldest inn in all of France.

13:24 That's pretty cool. So, they know what they're doing with French cuisine, which by the way, if you don't really understand French cuisine, and I don't really claim to. I appreciate it, but um it's not like that's that's what Yumi and I are making on Tuesday night at home.

13:39 Uhhuh. Um yet, because I got her cookbook recently, and I'm very excited about it. Um, but just to kind of like a little back of the the envelope sketch of it, French cuisine, French cooking was the first cuisine in the world to be recognized as a world heritage by UNESCO. That's how distinct and important French cuisine is. And this is the moment when Julia Child was introduced to it, this lunch at Luron.

14:08 Yeah. And as I understand it, uh, French cuisine, I've watched a lot of Top Chef over the years.

14:13 Okay. uh all of it. In fact, uh French cuisine is is very humble, a very basic ingredients. It's not this fancy thing. Um you think of, you know, French food if you don't know much about as being like super super fancy, but it's actually very humble with very basic ingredients, but really quality ingredients, really perfect technique.

14:31 Um real fats, real butters, real cream. Uh that's French cuisine basically. It's like impeccable technique. uh com you know paired with very simple humble but very well sourced ingredients

14:44 well put I I hope so made by Frenchies you forgot that part yeah generally so at this lunch in 1948 uh her first French meal uh she had oysters

14:56 all right pulle fume wine which is the official sinon blanc okay and so munair munier means miller's wife so like you were saying humble simple dishes it's soul fish um that's fled and made with capers, lemon, butter, parsley, and not much more. Um and she said that that first true culinary experience, there's a few quotes I think we should trade off with.

15:23 Okay. She said that it was an opening up of the soul and spirit for me, that first meal, it changed her life quite literally.

15:32 Yeah. Uh she also said it was a kind of coming to Jesus. And what else? She said it was the most exciting meal of my life.

15:41 Yeah. And then that dish, that do soul that you know, you it's fried fish. You flour some soul, fry it up in some butter, put some I think I think uh the lemon and h parsley and capers is part of any uh what is it? The minè.

15:59 Munir, I think any mun that's basically what it is. But a very simple dish and that became one of her, you know, one of her big signature dishes.

16:06 Yeah. You put a little ketchup on there, you're in hog heaven. Oh man, you and my daughter.

16:11 So, because she was moved by She likes ketchup huh? Oh god, it's so annoying. She's very cool. We have a lot in common.

16:18 It gets her to eat some stuff she wouldn't normally eat. Uh, so that's good, I guess.

16:22 Like broccoli. No, she doesn't put on broccoli. She doesn't like broccoli, but she eats uh

16:26 Yeah, I don't like broccoli either. Does she hate peas, too? No, she loves peas. She, in fact, she eats frozen peas as a snack. Well, they're really that's probably like that distinction erases all of the similarities because I hate peas so much.

16:40 Oh, yeah. I hate them so much, Chuck. Yeah. She loves sushi now, which was a big surprise for us.

16:46 That's awesome. She just kind of started eating it when I got it and uh cuz I think she likes stealing my food.

16:52 So, it started as a joke and then now she's just eating it. Do you remember what kind she eats? Is it like California rolls or nigiri?

16:59 No, man. Like, yeah, And just any kind of crazy roll I get, she'll eat. Man, that's awesome. That's great.

17:05 Soy sauce, though. You're not supposed to eat much soy sauce, if any, with it. I don't care supposed to or not. I'm telling you what I like.

17:12 Oh, that's fine. I'm just saying like she's she's actually she could go to Japan right now and they wouldn't bat an eyelash at her for it.

17:19 Hey, you think I don't remember our sushi episode? I didn't know. We did the black hole episode twice.

17:25 That's a good point. Uh, all right. So, where are we? Julia Child has eaten this meal. Mhm.

17:31 Uh it blew her mind because she was raised on American food, like you said, was not a foodie. And not only American food, but in recent years, post-war American food, which is when stuff started to get really sort of mass-produced and not very good, like very processed. Uh and this French food just blew her mind.

17:49 Yeah. Um so she wanted to understand how that could happen, right? Yeah. So she started taking cooking classes and again like she's a total novice here and I think she's again in her late 30s. So this is 1948. She's about 36 at this time and her life has just changed like she's just figured out what she wants to do in life. So she starts taking classes uh ends up enrolled in Lordon Blue

18:13 uh in 1951. That same year, she founds her own cooking school that she runs out of her own kitchen with her uh who would become long longtime collaborators Simone Beck and Louisette Bertol. Um and they founded the school called Leole de Tuis Gormand which means the school of the three gourmands.

18:35 That's right. Uh I didn't get this verified but I did read somewhere that she was either the only woman in her class at Lordon Blue or one of only two maybe. Mhm.

18:44 Uh it just, you know, back then and you know, there's still a lot of sexism in in the in chef's kitchens and restaurants. It's come a long way, but for many many years, it was it was a profession of of white men. You know, I feel like that's something we say a lot on this show, but that's the case. Uh within 10 years of being at Lordon Blue, uh she had sold her bestselling cookbook that you just bought, I guess. Did you get the OG?

19:10 Yeah. Yeah. What's the name of that? Mastering the art of French cooking. That's right. 700 plus pages. And then about 50 years after she enrolled at Lordon Blue, her actual kitchen that she cooked in uh would be in the Smithsonian Museum of American History as a permanent exhibit.

19:27 Pretty neat. Pretty amazing. I say we take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about that cookbook that I got because it was groundbreaking to say the least.

19:36 All right. Learning stuff [singing] with Joshua and Charles. Stuff you should know. So, Chuck, uh, you said you mentioned the Mastering the Art of French Cooking, this, um, cookbook that, um, Julia Child made with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertol. Um, and it was designed specifically for America, for the United States, to introduce them to French cooking. And up to this point, cookbooks were basically like, take a a little handful of flour and throw it at, you know, the elf that's helping you and um, put a little oil in there and fold it together and voila.

20:46 Yeah. Um, like they were not very helpful and they assumed that you already had some sort of training, maybe apprenticeship, something like that. the mastering the art of French cooking did the exact opposite because having not that long ago been a total novice, Julia Child realized um what people who are being exposed to this new way of cooking, new foods, new techniques, new ingredients would need to know. And that was essentially everything. So they laid out everything that you would need to know to make these recipes in this cookbook.

21:18 Training anyone who bought this cookbook on French cuisine. Yeah. Like, you know, a recipe might have said, "Julian these carrots and then put them in butter." And she would say, "Well, what if they don't know what that means? Here's how you julianne." Right. And not only that, but here's the kind of knife that's ideal for that kind of thing.

21:36 And the butter, too. Yeah. And the Oh, boy. She talked a lot about butter. Yes.

21:40 Um, but like here are the tools, here are the techniques, and here's how you do all of these for these 524 recipes. And uh it really just sort of it broke down a wall in that it demystified um you know sort of high class cooking because she's like this is something that you can do in your kitchen and you know Shboan.

22:00 Exactly. Oh Shabboan went nuts for this. Of course. All the men grew pencil thin mustaches and wore berets. The women all wore pencil um pencil pants.

22:11 Pencil pants. Yeah. Pencil skirts. No. What are the little short almost clam diggers, but they were much more svelt. I thought they were pencil something.

22:19 Oh, I don't know. Maybe. I know what you're talking about though. Koolots. No. No.

22:24 I don't think those are French. I think those those don't no country will claim those.

22:29 Oh, the coach of the Falcons wears those, which is probably why I suck so bad. That

22:33 is crazy. So on the book um you know where she's uh demystifying the process and talking about quality ingredients and quality fresh herbs and high quality butters and good meats. You would think that'd be like a slam dunk cuz they would say no one's ever done anything like this before. Uh but it got rejected, you know, like most success stories in the book world. Um there's usually like, yeah, I got rejected by like eight publishers. and she got rejected quite a bit before she finally uh landed with a editor named Judith Jones at uh Alfred Knublishing.

23:07 Uh yeah, so Judith Jones was already a legend by this time because just a few years before she'd kind of discovered this obscure French book um and recognized how important it was and had it translated in English and published it as the diary of Anne Frank. So she was the editor who got the diary of Anne Frank out to the English-speaking world. So she already had a pretty great uh nose for this kind of thing and she recognized that in mastering the art of French cooking. Not that it would be as important necessarily as the diary of Anne Frank, but that not necessarily that it would be that far behind as far as changing the the world goes or at least the United States.

23:47 Yeah. Man, we should do a short stuff on Judith Jones. Okay. Could can you imagine like walking into any publishing event? She's like, "By the way, Diary Van Frank and uh the art what it m the mastery of French cooking." What is it?

24:02 Mastering the art of French cooking. Yeah. Yeah. She would say it better than that. She'd say both those those are mine.

24:06 Those are mine. Uh we should also do an episode on Anne Frank sometime. Yeah. I'm surprised we haven't actually.

24:12 I am a little bit too. Yeah. Let's let's do that. So, one of the other things that um made the cookbook finally successful when it when it did get published, and boy was it successful. I saw in one place that it spent five years on the bestseller list, but I couldn't find any other place to verify it. Still worth mentioning,

24:29 but we were on there for two weeks. We sure were, buddy. I think more than that actually.

24:34 I think it was two. Okay. Well, let's say two and a half. We'll split the difference.

24:38 But Frenchiness was very chic at the time. Yeah. Uh there was a French chef uh in the White House kitchen. Uh of course you had you mentioned Audrey Hepburn and uh wearing those French clothes, French designers. Jackie Kennedy was as well.

24:52 Pencil pants. Pencil pants that um French wine was starting to be a thing at a time when you know again now wine is so popular but it wasn't that hugely popular in the United States at the time. So um French wine kind of became a thing.

25:06 Yeah. Um, and the first volume was so successful, a few years later, I think nine years later in 1970, they released volume two, which had another 257 recipes. And apparently, you can spend up to 10K. Actually, I saw more than that to uh buy assigned volumes one and two together. Oh, wow. Of the first edition.

25:28 That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, they became Bibles for cooks in America. And again, this it wasn't like people were already primed for this. This is what made people primed to consider cookbooks Bibles in their kitchen in the United States.

25:42 Yeah. And you know, Judith Jones, also the Bible. That's right. She she helped write it.

25:49 Uh so, everyone's probably saying like, "Yeah, this book's great, but what about television?" Because that's where I remember her from my childhood.

25:58 Uh here's where we get to TV because she moved around Europe uh during the 1950s with her husband Paul, came back to the States in the 60s. Uh I believe they had come back before on some uh I don't know if you want to say visits maybe some forced visits

26:12 uh when her husband Paul was called uh for the blacklisting uh blacklisted McCarthy hearings.

26:19 So that was a thing. Um I don't think he got in trouble though, right? No, they were friends with a woman who was a suspected communist in the government and they wanted to know about her.

26:29 Right. So they brought him in. Uh but they ultimately um landed for good in Cambridge, Mass. And uh when she was, you know, uh promoting her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I finally got it.

26:42 She went on PBS uh at WGBH there in Boston for a book review show called I've Been Reading Ellipsies. And she was just doing a little demonstration on how to make an omelette. She brought everything with her, you know, they her little hot plate and sauté pan, her tools, and her eggs.

26:57 And everyone loved it. Everyone was like writing into the station saying like this woman that you had on cooking that omelette was funny and gregarious and we just loved her and we also learned something and so they said hey we should give you your own TV show.

27:12 Yeah. Within a year the French chef her first cooking show was on the air on WGBH. And this is at a time where cooking shows were not a thing. A lot of people say the fact that cooking shows are so widespread today. You can essentially thank Julia Child for that too. That's right. and thank the French chef. Um, it had a 10-year run and because it was a PBS joint, other PBS stations around the United States picked that up. It made its way to Europe and the UK via the BBC. Uh, it became a really big show very quickly and Julia Child became the most widely recognized chef in the entire world at the very least in the United States during this period, the early 60s to the early 70s. Yeah, we had a TV show for a year.

27:57 We did. And we became the most widely known cooks in the world, if not at least the United States.

28:04 One thing I'm learning is that to compare our career to Julia Child's humbling experience.

28:11 You were a spy for that little while or you pretended you were at parties. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Uh she won an Emmy uh and a Peabody award for that show. Uh and this is just a little feather in her cap. I think it was the first TV show in the United States to feature uh closed captioning for the deaf and heart of hearing community.

28:29 Yeah, open captioning I saw where it was for everybody. Everyone read it, but yeah.

28:35 Oh, is that what closed captioning means? Yeah, where you have to select it to see it. Yeah, I didn't know that either. So, I guess it was open captioning, but yes, that didn't exist on TV until then.

28:44 Man, I'm just learning so much because of you, my friend. Hey, right back at you, buddy. Uh so you know the TV show was a big hit. She because she was just so lovable and she wasn't patronizing and she uh you know had her closing phrase bonapetit and she would just uh she would get in there and get dirty and make mistakes and like she would want people to leave the you know the editors to leave the mistakes in there. She's like that's part of cooking.

29:12 Yeah. That's a big deal because it also not only made her approachable, it made the people watching uh who were trying these recipes too realize that she wasn't infallible and therefore they didn't need to worry about not being infallible too. Like mistakes are part of it. You just learn from them.

29:30 Yeah. But like that was it. She made it way more approachable to people by doing that.

29:36 Yeah. Yeah. And I also read that um this is from uh I believe the women who made the documentary about her, Julia, which is really really good.

29:43 Okay. Uh that another reason that she left the mistakes in was especially uh for women because she felt like uh women felt like they they needed to always feel bad when they messed something up um in life period. Uh but especially in the kitchen. And she was like, "No, it's okay to mess up." And and while you're in that kitchen like um you know it was it was kind of an an opposition in a way to like the feminist movement of the time which is like get out of the kitchen. Julia Child was saying like no like get in that kitchen and own it and cook for you and learn to make stuff that you want to make and not just like maybe what your husband and kids are yelling at you to make like

30:24 like take over the kitchen as something that you love doing and that's for yourself,

30:30 right? I saw Bustle magazine describe her as a bump, which I'm not familiar with, but they based on context, it seemed like it was a a good thing.

30:40 What does that stand for? All right. Well, Josh just told me off air what it stood for, and I agree.

30:49 My joke. So, you mentioned mistakes. There's actually some famous mistakes that she made. One was she was pulling a cake from the oven. Um, and apparently it fell flat on camera. She said something like, "Well, that didn't work out."

31:03 Can you Can you say it? Well, that didn't work out. Very nice. And then everybody knows that she once dropped an entire raw turkey on the floor on camera, left this in, picked the turkey up off the floor, kind of brushed it off, and put it in the oven and baked it like nothing ever happened. Um, apparently

31:24 I would do that. Well, yeah. Yeah, we did a whole episode on the 5-second rule.

31:28 Yeah, but I mean for a raw thing like that, I know it sounds gross, but I you can wash that thing off and bake it and it's fine.

31:34 Yes. That you don't have a cooking show. No. Exactly. So, yes, the fact that she did this. Well, I should say not the fact because that's actually a urban legend, a rumor. It's something did happen, but it morphed into like the most spectacular version of itself.

31:52 Oh, so wasn't a turkey? No, it wasn't. Snopes dated it back to at least 1989, but she once the closest they could find was that she was flipping a potato pancake and flipped it out of the pan onto the countertop and it crumbled.

32:09 Yeah. And um she said like uh I think she said when you're in the kitchen, nobody can see you. And she pushed it back together and put it back in the pan and cooked it.

32:18 Yeah. That I love that because that's how it goes when you're cooking in your house, you know.

32:23 Yeah. you you I've never not flipped a potato pancake onto the countertop. Uh she had, you know, a string of successful cooking shows um after that first one all the way from the 70s through the 80s into the '9s. Uh I believe um she had 12 Emmy nominations total and seven wins.

32:43 Mhm. Uh and by the time uh she got into the 1990s, uh they were shooting that show in her home kitchen in Cambridge. uh her husband Paul designed this kitchen that was like part kitchen, part TV studio and uh you know just so they could spend time at home and he was heavily involved apparently at times he was on the floor with Qards uh and he helped design the original patch uh for the uh the three gourmans that uh when she worked with the other two chefs

33:12 and so they were really a a um sort of a power couple working together to enrich her career.

33:18 Yeah. Um, Chuck, I say we take our second break and come back and talk about why Julia Child is so beloved.

33:25 All right, we'll be right back. Learning with Joshua and Charles you should know. Uh, all right. Why was Julia a child so beloved? I feel like we've already made a case, but let's talk about it some more.

34:10 All right. I mean, we've covered some of it, but but not all. Um, a big one is that she introduced fresh ingredients to America. This is really kind of we hit on this, but it's worth saying. This is a time when people were using canned soup as an ingredient, not just the canned soup, right? So, everything was very processed. and she insisted on fresh ingredients. Like there was there was no way around it. You had to use these or else these things weren't going to turn out very well.

34:37 But at the same time, she also said like you need to let the food stand on its own. Like yes, you want herbs, but you want the herbs to complement it. You don't want the herbs to cover up. You don't want to use a bunch of A1 on your soul munier. Um like you you let the thing stand on its own. You let the fish taste like fish. like that was kind of like a like a subt text I guess of introducing fresh ingredients teaching people to enjoy the thing that they were cooking rather than the thing that they were cooking plus again A1 sauce.

35:10 Yeah. Exactly. And and that technique, you know, if you if you cook a piece of fish perfectly, you don't need anything more than a little salt and pepper and butter.

35:18 No. Uh and maybe a squirt of lemon, even tilapia. Yeah. Uh but despite all this, she was not a food snob. She was very approachable. Uh she loved In-N-Out Burger.

35:28 Mhm. Um she used Helman's mayo in her tuna salad. Uh apparently she liked Costco hot dogs even.

35:35 I I don't blame her. I've never had one. What's Oh, they're great. They're like a

35:40 What's different though? Isn't it just a hot dog? Um yes, it's just a hot dog. But do you know how every once in a while your school lunch would give you something that you're like, "This is amazing."

35:51 Yeah. That's like their hot dogs. They have their own taste and it's an amazing taste, but they are on par with like a school lunch type hot dog

36:00 in the best way. I got you. Yeah, it's worth people go to Costco just to eat the hot dogs and the pizza's not bad, too, but it's worth going to just for the hot dogs, which technically in a weird way gives it one Michelin star.

36:14 Well, you know, buddy, our friend uh Joe Garden, a friend of the show, former writer of The Onion. Uh Joe lives there in Woodstock and he posts pictures on his Instagram eating those Costco hot dogs.

36:26 See, he knows what's going on. Joe always knows what's up. He's got his finger on the pulse of Julia Child.

36:33 That's right. So, uh she also reintroduced America to wine. Um Yeah. At the time, America Americans were drinking the stuff that's now on the bottom shelf of grocery stores.

36:44 Yeah. The jug wine. Yeah. So, not only did she reintroduce America to wine, she she normalized She normalized it by doing the same thing she did with mistakes. She drank wine on camera as part of her show. Um on some episodes apparently she would start to get a little tipsy. Um she never got drunk or sloppy or anything like that. But the fact that she was drinking this wine and by the way pretty good wine um made Americans realize what they were drinking was just bottom of the barrel stuff. And let's see what else we've got. And as a result, California wine became super dominant. Um, essentially in part from her normalizing it.

37:24 Yeah, I think that happened in the 70s when California started making good wine on par with the French. Uh, it, you know, according to everyone but the French.

37:32 Um, she also liked beer. And this sounds very gross to me, but she she enjoyed something called an upside down martini, which is uh you swap the vermouth parts in the gin. So, it's much more vermouth than gin.

37:44 Yeah. It's also lower ABV, so you don't get quite as trashed as quickly. Yeah. But man, that's kind of one of the good parts about a martini, right?

37:53 For sure. Um, she also had a really great sense of humor. Apparently, another long-standing rumor that sometimes fans would confront her with, they were like, "I remember that time you drank um wine directly out of the bottle on one of your episodes." And that apparently never happened either. Again, it was just the extreme version of what she was actually doing, which is drinking wine out of a glass. But she said, "I would never do that on television."

38:18 Right. Yeah. And you know, I I opened with the uh Dan Akroyd bit. Uh if you didn't know what I was doing, it was a very famous SNL skit from back in the day in 78 where Dan Akroyd portrayed Julia Child.

38:30 Uh where he cut the dickens out of his finger and um you know, blood's just going everywhere. Of course, they had the blood pack just squirting blood all over everything. And uh he was a big fan apparently. And there was a real incident um I think about a month before that sketch where she was working with Jacqu Pepan on Tom Snider's tomorrow show where she had cut herself pretty bad and I guess that was the inspiration for that.

38:55 She also apparently was very proud of that sketch and thought it was hilarious. So um she kept a videotape of and would show people sometimes and then at a really particularly fun enthusiastic dinner party she might act it out like word for word by heart.

39:09 Can you imagine? Oh, I would have loved to have seen that. Yeah. Incredible. She was also super charming and funny on um TV appearances, but particularly Letterman. You you can watch compilations of her on Letterman. She could hold her own against Letterman, no problem.

39:24 Yeah, you sent me that one clip. I actually think I remember seeing that in high school, but uh Letterman was, you know, I love Letterman. He was I felt like he was not being too kind about the the food.

39:36 Sometimes he's cranky. Yeah. So, I felt a little bad for her uh in that she was serving him um kind of a version in this one of a uh

39:44 tartar. What do you call? Yeah. Of a of a steak tartar, but it was with ground beef and melted cheese. And he just sort of kept making fun of it and then he spit it out and at the end I think she said something that kind of made me feel bad. She was like, "Well, maybe next time I can serve something you'll like or something like that."

39:58 Well, she used an acetylene torch to to melt the cheese, which is pretty hilarious. I had the impression that they didn't have the equipment she needed to make a burger. So, she made the most out of it.

40:09 Oh, interesting. Uh, well, using a torch is very common place in kitchens now, but Dave made it. I guess back then it was unusual because Dave was like thought it was the weirdest thing you'd ever seen.

40:18 For sure. Yeah. Um, one other thing we mentioned too that that we have to touch on is she was known for her love of butter.

40:25 Um, she taught America to cook all through the decades where America started to become health conscious and fat-free and all that stuff. And so, she would become criticized for pushing things like real butter on people. and she would say things like, "Well, if you're afraid of butter, use cream instead." Um, which is at least as bad as butter. Um, and her whole thing was like, yeah, you shouldn't just be gorging yourself on butter all the time. But if you're going to make a meal, use the real butter

40:53 and enjoy every bite of it. Like that's the point is enjoying every single bite of this stuff, not enjoying every single bite until you start eating mindlessly because you eat this 10 times a day, right?

41:05 Yeah. And she had she quote uh she quoted Oscar Wild which I thought was great. But um she said uh everything in moderation including moderation.

41:15 That's a great quote. I think so. I got a little kitchen tip. If you're uh health conscious and you're thinking like I don't want to use a lot of butter. Um I use olive oil or whatever. Uh use that olive oil. But you can also throw in like one pad of butter in with that olive oil. Mhm.

41:30 You can mix those two things and it's great and it adds just a little anxiousness that olive oil won't give you.

41:35 I love that. Yeah. And don't forget the A1. My friend Clay still loves that stuff.

41:42 So, uh Well, it's it's classy. Yeah. I I mean, it's very specific taste. I I love that tart tangy A1. I just don't use it.

41:50 Um so, Chuck, we talked about volumes one and two of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. We should say in addition to the string of successful TV shows, she had a bunch of cookbooks, but these were her two classics and put together 781 recipes between the two of them. But if you go on to food sites and you look up something like Julia Child's best recipes, some of them kind of um uh percolate to the top where you're like you see them on just about every list. And I think that we should go over a few of those starting now.

42:23 Yeah, for sure. Uh if you've ever seen the movie uh Julia and Julia, did you see that?

42:28 I haven't. I heard it was great. It's really good. Um that is the story of uh a woman named Julie Powell who uh I think was sort of felt lost in life and and wanted to dive into this project of cooking every recipe.

42:42 Uh I think she had a blog or something maybe. Um it was a really good movie though. Amy Adams uh played Julie Powell who very sadly passed away a few years ago at the young age of 49.

42:52 Oh wow. Uh, and Meyer Stre, I don't know if she won the Academy Award. I know she was nominated for playing Julia Child. So, it sort of tells those two stories um together. And it's a wonderful movie from Norah Efron. But in that movie um she's cooking all the recipes and one the big big one from the book that she was most well known for that she really wanted to master out of the gate was the buff bogan.

43:16 Which is essentially a beef stew with red wine. But again, you take some deceptively simple ingredients and put them together in the right way, it's going to produce a a smash hit dish. And that's what beepan is.

43:30 What else? Uh kish lorraine, which everybody knows. You can get kish lorraine at the grocery store by the slice.

43:36 Yeah. Because Julia Child introduced it to the United States with her cookbook.

43:42 That's right. Very, again, very simple uh clean recipe. Bacon, onions, egg, cream, a few cheeses, some spices. Of course eggs.

43:51 Well, I just real quick about bacon. Remember I said that um she didn't want to cover up the taste. She wanted to let things to stand on their own.

43:57 Yeah. One of the things she talks about mastering the art of French cooking was that with American bacon, you have to blanch it first to remove the smoky flavor. So, you actually lightly boil it for a little bit until you get the smoky flavor off and then you start to use bacon, which I think is actually a huge tip for a lot of people out there, believe me. if they don't like smoky flavors, I guess.

44:20 Or but the problem is is the bacon smokeokiness is going to take over. Like that's all you're going to taste. Whereas you're not if you can get rid of that smoky flavor, then you're in you're in hog heaven as she always said.

44:33 I don't mind. I like that apple with and also cook it in the oven. I think that is the best way to cook bacon.

44:38 Agreed. And a uh on a baking sheet with the little elf laying on it to keep it flat.

44:45 Uh what about a cule? That's a very classic French dish. Yeah, it's pork and beans, poultry, sausage. There's a dark brown crust on the top of the whole thing. She had a great quote about that.

44:57 Uh yeah, cassule that best of bean feast is everyday fair for a peasant, but ambrosia for a gastronome. Uh though its ideal consumer is a 300 pound blocking back who's been splitting firewood non-stop for the last 12 hours on a subzero day in Manitoba. Mhm. And like if you look at pictures of the castlet, it's like I want one so bad.

45:20 Uh yeah, it looks really good. And what about chocolate mousse? Yeah, that's another one that apparently she made a mistake on air. Uh it didn't set correctly. And you know that mousse has to set. But good chocolate mousse is out of this world.

45:35 Yeah, I couldn't find the episode, but apparently a 1992 WPO article mentioned it. Um, but supposedly it is surprisingly easy to make and the the outcome is just amazing. I saw light, airy, silky, smooth, says the endless meal.

45:52 Um, and it's just a few ingredients including rum, chocolate, coffee, and she teaches you these techniques of how to make it, how to fold it, how to whip the egg whites, and just get it just right.

46:03 And yum. Yeah. Every time I hear chocolate mousse, I think of chocolate mousse from Top Secret. Oh yeah,

46:11 he was great. Uh, this is a good movie. RIP, uh, Val Kilmer. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

46:16 Uh, and then of course, French Onion Soup. I know that you and I both talked on the air about our love for French onion soup.

46:22 Yeah. Uh, if it's on a menu, there's two there's two things in my life. If it's on a menu, I will get it. One is French onion soup and the other is a French dip sandwich.

46:31 You love the French. Two of my favorite things. Uh, and it's not on, you know, the most menu. So, when I see it, I order it. And that French onion soup, crusty on top, and that delicious oniony broth and the bread. It's just one of life's treats.

46:45 Have you ever made it? I've never made it myself. I should try that. It's really good. All it takes is patience. It's not hard, but it takes a while for everything to come together. It takes a while to like genuinely caramelize the onions, but man, it is so worth it. It's really good.

47:02 Don't you just get one of those Liptin packets? Yeah. And out of the can. That's how I do it.

47:08 Well, you take one of those Linton packets and you put it in a turkey burger. That's what you do.

47:12 Uh yeah, that's supposed to be pretty good. I've not had that. I found a recipe for a roast that has a packet of ou, you know, the the dry ouet, a packet of ranch, dried ranch mix,

47:26 um pepperini, and like maybe one other thing in a roast and you put it in a slow cooker and it it's supposed to be a knockout dish and I can't wait to try it. Oh man, we got You got to watch Julia and Julie and Julia

47:41 and then start cooking that stuff and let me know how it goes. Okay. Yeah, I definitely plan to make some stuff. So, I'll let you know for sure.

47:47 All right. Uh, sadly, we're at the end of this episode. Uh, and Julia Child met the end of her life at the almost age of 92. I think she was just a couple of days short of her 92nd birthday when she passed away at her home at the time in Monaceto, California in August 2004 of liver failure.

48:06 Yeah. Uh Elaine Ducas, who I think is the only three-star Michelin chef in the world said, "Today the entire community of cooks is sad and feels like orphans."

48:18 Oh man. I know. Isn't that sad? That's brutal. Yeah. So, she's actually buried in one of the more interesting places I've ever heard of. Had you heard of the Neptune memorial reef before?

48:28 No. That sounds kind of cool though. Yeah. So, they took her cremated remains, mixed it together with some concrete, and formed a headstone out of it, put it underwater. I can't remember how deep it is, but this is an acre long underwater cemetery uh off a key key biscane in Florida. And um on the headstone, again, made from her cremated remains, there's a plaque

48:50 with a knife and a fork inscribed on it and a quote from her. Fat gives things flavor.

48:56 I love it. Yep. That's pretty fun for a scuba diver to see, I bet. For sure. So, RIP Julia Child and thanks for everything.

49:05 That's right. Our berets are off to you. Uh, let's see. We talked about Julia Child. You took off your beret. Yeah, that means it's time for listener mail.

49:17 All right. So, this is from uh Nathan uh Winger in Carmel, Indiana. And Nathan went through the trouble of calculating how many Olympic pools deep and how many Big Macs we are.

49:30 Okay. As a show, uh, he loves, he says, "I love nerd math, so I did some calculations. Using my trusty search engine, uh, I found out there are over 2600 episodes of Stuff You Should Know. Um, we're just going to use 2600 to make it simple," he says.

49:44 Okay. Um, all told, the average length is 45 minutes, which that makes me feel good because that's what we're shooting for.

49:51 Yeah. Um, he said, "I'm going to He said, "That seems low, though. So, I'm going to adjust it up to 55." I think these days it's 45. They used to be longer, so that's probably what he's witnessing.

50:00 Okay. Uh, at average conversational speed, humans speak about 130 words a minute. So, you guys do a great podcast and as pros have honed your conversational skills to not be fast nor slow. So, I'm going to stick with that uh median figure.

50:11 Thanks. Uh, the average number of letters per English word is five. But since you often talk about subjects that require words like spooktacular and hint or ky effect, I'm going to up your average to six. And finally, we're going to convert your speech into inches based on the size of a standard size 12 font, which is.167 in. Man, I love this stuff.

50:31 Yeah. So based on all that, we can get inches per word, 1, inches per minute of speech, 130, inches per episode, 7150. Total episode in 18,590,000. in total episode feet which is 1 549167 ft. Uh that equates so one episode of stuff you should know equates to the depth of 238,333 Olympic swimming pools.

50:59 Wow. A bit short of Josh's estimate of 10 to 15 million. And for the sake of uh transparency uh and Chuck's liking uh that is 7.745 and change million Big Macs at an average of 2.5 interest per burger. Woo man. Who is this?

51:20 This is Nathan Winger or Winger. Okay. I'd say Winger. I think it's Winger in the tradition of Kip Winger.

51:28 Well, it's we though. So that's Nathan. He's in Carmel, Indiana. That's a lot of work to go through, Nathan.

51:33 Yeah, Nathan, I could tell you're a true fan with that little um trusty search engine aside. I caught that.

51:38 I love it. Uh thank you for doing that. I always wanted to know how many Big Macs we are and Olympic pools. So, thanks a lot, Nathan. And happy Thanksgiving to you. Um and happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there, uh including our Canada friends. And if you want to send us an email like Nathan did, send it off to stuffodcast.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

Josh Clark (Host), Chuck Bryant (Host), Jerry Rowland (Guest), Nathan Winger (Guest).

What is "Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW" about?

The content highlights a Thanksgiving-themed discussion, emphasizing the ongoing partnership with the Cooperative for Education, which aims to combat poverty through education in Guatemala. The hosts encourage listeners to contribute to the cause by sponsoring students and participating in a virtual event, underscoring the importance of educational access for underprivileged youth.

What is mentioned in this Stuff You Should Know episode?

136 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, France / French cuisine, Paul Child, WGBH, Cooperative for Education. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

The episode runs 52 min; the transcript is about 10,034 words in 220 timestamped sections.

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