1 00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:03,560 I'd hazard a guess that if you're listening to the show, then at some 2 00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:06,839 point in your life, you may have heard of the acclaimed queen of French 3 00:00:06,879 --> 00:00:11,039 cuisine, Julia Child. Like many of you, I too have seen the 4 00:00:11,039 --> 00:00:15,800 movie Julie and Julia, where Julia Child was portrayed by the magnificent Meryl Streep. 5 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:19,480 Like a fair amount feur of you, I too have tried cooking a 6 00:00:19,519 --> 00:00:24,559 few of Julia's recipes on a lazy Sunday afternoon before the emergence of little toddler 7 00:00:24,559 --> 00:00:29,239 fingers made having raw meat and sharp knives around less of an option. But 8 00:00:29,359 --> 00:00:33,280 even with all of this knowledge and experience of Julia Child, I too was 9 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:38,560 amazed to find out via my friend Melissa over at Bewilderbeast's podcast, that Julia, 10 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:42,840 before her foray into the culinary world, worked as a World War two 11 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:47,880 spy, and she came up with a recipe for shark repellent. It seems 12 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:52,240 that even the most famous and lorded among us still have a few tasty secrets 13 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:56,240 up their sleeves. And today we're going to dive into this fascinating side of 14 00:00:56,240 --> 00:01:06,480 one of modern cooking's most famous gourmands. Welcome to the fantastic History of food. 15 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:11,879 Strange but true stories from history that in some way involved food. I'm 16 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:26,079 your host, Nick Charlie Key. Julia Child was born Julia Caroline McWilliams on 17 00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:30,439 the fifteenth of August nineteen twelve in Pasadena, California. Her family was incredibly 18 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:34,920 wealthy, as her father was a successful banker and her mother was the heiress 19 00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:40,840 to the Western Paper Company of Massachusetts. It's safe to say they didn't struggle 20 00:01:40,879 --> 00:01:45,319 financially, as happens with the children of the elite and wealthy. She received 21 00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:49,400 the very best education money could buy and attended the Catherine Branson's School for Girls. 22 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:53,480 As you may or may not already know about her, Julia was an 23 00:01:53,519 --> 00:01:59,280 incredibly tall woman, standing at six ft two inches tall or just under a 24 00:01:59,319 --> 00:02:04,599 one hundred ninety centimeters. This meant she excelled in her time as the captain 25 00:02:04,599 --> 00:02:07,120 of the woman's basketball team, and gave her a sturdy frame with which to 26 00:02:07,159 --> 00:02:12,159 also become the president of the school's hiking club. She would go on to 27 00:02:12,199 --> 00:02:15,840 attend the all female Smith College, where her most notable contribution was policing the 28 00:02:15,879 --> 00:02:22,759 college's well manicured lawns, making sure that no unruly student stepped foot on them. 29 00:02:22,879 --> 00:02:25,840 She herself felt that she was wasting her life somewhat, and once wrote 30 00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:30,280 in her diary, I am sadly an ordinary person with talents I do not 31 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:35,639 use. She had no real ambition to make much of herself, as she 32 00:02:35,719 --> 00:02:38,120 had no need for money or influence, both of which had been bestowed upon 33 00:02:38,159 --> 00:02:43,520 her at birth. She went on to take a secretarial course, but left 34 00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:46,560 after just a month when she was offered the job of secretary at W. 35 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:51,400 J. Sloan, a furniture company in New York City. Four years later, 36 00:02:51,479 --> 00:02:54,560 she was fired after a catastrophic mix up with some important company documents. 37 00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:59,039 But in a strange twist of fate, it would be the emergence of the 38 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:02,840 United States a patient in World War Two that would forever change her life. 39 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,719 It was September nineteen forty one, just three months before the US would officially 40 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:12,159 enter the war, and Julia wanted to make herself useful to the cause. 41 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:16,120 She began volunteering at the Pasadena chapter of the American Red Cross, where she 42 00:03:16,159 --> 00:03:21,800 put her secretarial skills to good use, heading up the Department of Stenographic Services. 43 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:25,439 Stenography is still mostly used in courtrooms today, but was the method of 44 00:03:25,439 --> 00:03:30,759 taking down notes and meeting minutes as people spoke in a shorthand writing style, 45 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:34,960 often using symbols to represent words or phrases in order to keep up with the 46 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,680 pace of the speakers. When the United States joined the war proper, Julia 47 00:03:38,919 --> 00:03:45,879 was unfortunately rejected for military combat roles because of her unusual height. But this 48 00:03:45,879 --> 00:03:49,360 wouldn't stop her, as for the first time in her life she had begun 49 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:53,439 to feel a sense of purpose in her work. So in nineteen forty two 50 00:03:53,759 --> 00:03:57,759 she would move divisions and become a senior typist with the research unit of the 51 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:01,439 Office of War Information in Washington, and then by the end of that same 52 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:05,639 year, she would join the Secret Intelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services, 53 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:11,800 otherwise known simply as the OSS. This was the agency that would later 54 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:25,160 become would we know today as the CIA. In another sideways move across departments, 55 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:28,839 Julia would end up working for the Emergency cea rescue equipment section of the 56 00:04:28,959 --> 00:04:32,560 Navy. It was by now nineteen forty three and sharks had become a major 57 00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:36,959 concern for naval operations, not least because of the media's sudden interest in it. 58 00:04:38,439 --> 00:04:41,319 In reality, for the first three years of the war, they had 59 00:04:41,319 --> 00:04:45,560 only been around twenty incidents of shark attacks on sailors and downed pilots who had 60 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,959 found themselves caught in shark infested waters. But for the media, this was 61 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:54,439 the perfect story to latch onto for its gruesome details and the almost supernatural fear 62 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:59,839 that sharks could inspire in people. Families back home began to fear sharks or 63 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,720 as much as they feared the Nazis. The Navy knew it had to do 64 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:06,399 something, and so it turned to the OSS for help in finding a solution 65 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:12,240 to their shark problem. Scientists had already by this point been working for years 66 00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:15,319 to find a solution to scare off the toothy predators, but nothing they tried 67 00:05:15,439 --> 00:05:19,519 seemed to work. A new task team was set up, which included a 68 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:26,000 scientist from Harvard named Coolidge and a Natural History Museum researcher named Henry Field. 69 00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:30,199 Coolidge would ask Julia to join them in concocting something that would finally work. 70 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:35,199 Julia Child and her team would end up testing more than one hundred substances, 71 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:42,319 including common poisons, decaying shark meat, acid, and various other chemical combinations, 72 00:05:42,879 --> 00:05:45,759 but it would be a full year before they would hit upon something that 73 00:05:45,959 --> 00:05:49,439 finally began to show some promise. In true Julia style, they were small 74 00:05:49,519 --> 00:05:54,519 cakes, but these cakes were made of copper acetate mixed with black dye. 75 00:05:55,079 --> 00:05:58,959 Research showed that it was the closest thing they could reproduce to how dead sharks 76 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:01,199 smelled to other sharks, and was a lot more effective for some reason, 77 00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:05,560 than when they had actually just used dead sharks in their earlier tests. The 78 00:06:05,639 --> 00:06:10,519 military wasn't one hundred percent sold on the idea, but the recipe was put 79 00:06:10,519 --> 00:06:13,720 into action and slowly released to soldiers in the midst of World War Two. 80 00:06:14,439 --> 00:06:18,000 These copper acetate cakes were attached to sailor's life vests and were also given to 81 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:23,199 airmen to rubble themselves should they crash land in the water. There was a 82 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,639 feeling among the higher ups that even if it wasn't as effective as it claimed 83 00:06:26,639 --> 00:06:30,360 to be, the placebo effect of it at least calmed the men down and 84 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,120 gave them more hope of survival than they may otherwise have had. As the 85 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:39,040 war dragged on, they began to use these shark repellent cakes for more than 86 00:06:39,079 --> 00:06:44,319 just personnel uses. Hungry sharks had a nasty habit of nibbling on sea mines 87 00:06:44,439 --> 00:06:48,680 intended for German and Japanese submarines as well as other naval vessels. This would, 88 00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:53,319 of course result in the swift and blinding demise of the unfortunate shark, 89 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:58,360 but also meant the navy was losing mines unnecessarily at a rapid rate, so 90 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:01,600 they began coating these underwater minds in the same substance with which the cakes were 91 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:06,000 made, in order to prevent the untimely death of some hungry and inquisitive sharks. 92 00:07:12,879 --> 00:07:15,839 One of today's sponsors is Athletic Greens. So what is Athletic Greens. 93 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:20,600 Well, with one delicious scoop of Athletic Greens, you're absorbing seventy five high 94 00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:27,800 quality vitamins, minerals, whole food sourced superfoods, probiotics and adaptogens to help 95 00:07:27,839 --> 00:07:31,639 you start your day right. 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It's just one scoop in a cup of 105 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:18,759 water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pearls and 106 00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:22,680 supplements to look out for your health. To make it easy, Athletic Greens 107 00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:26,279 is going to give you a free one year supply of immune supporting Vitamin D 108 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:31,399 and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do 109 00:08:31,679 --> 00:08:39,000 is visit Athletic Greens dot com slash Emerging Again that's Athletic Greens dot com slash 110 00:08:39,039 --> 00:08:43,120 em E R G I n G to take ownership over your health and pick 111 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:54,879 up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Junior Child's time spent in the OSS helped 112 00:08:54,879 --> 00:08:58,279 her flourish into the woman with a forceful personality that we have all come to 113 00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:01,080 know. It was here in Hington, d c. That she left behind 114 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:07,960 her feelings of inadequacy and normalcy and built creativity and confidence in abundance. She 115 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:11,039 was awarded the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service for her efforts during the war, 116 00:09:11,279 --> 00:09:16,440 and was recognized for her resourcefulness, industry, and good judgment. After the 117 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:22,120 war, the OSS would place her at multiple stations overseas, spending time in 118 00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:26,279 China, India, and Sri Lanka, the latter of which being where she 119 00:09:26,279 --> 00:09:30,360 would meet and then ultimately fall in love with her future husband, Paul Child, 120 00:09:30,639 --> 00:09:35,360 a fellow OSS officer. They were soon married and packed their bags to 121 00:09:35,399 --> 00:09:39,399 begin a new life together in Paris. Paul was reassigned to work for the 122 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:43,240 US Information Agency in nineteen forty eight, and it was during this time that 123 00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:46,919 Julia was left to run the household. It was at this point that she 124 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:50,799 realized, with a sense of shame and horror, that because of her privileged 125 00:09:50,879 --> 00:09:54,960 upbringing, she had never learned any of the basic skills of homemaking, foremost 126 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:58,919 of which was her lack of any cooking skills. She knew she wanted to 127 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:03,240 change this, and before fell head over heels in love with French cuisine. 128 00:10:05,279 --> 00:10:07,879 She often recalled where it all began. Her husband, Paul, had traveled 129 00:10:07,879 --> 00:10:13,159 extensively before they had met, and so had a fine appreciation for a variety 130 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,080 of cuisines. It was because of him that one night, early into their 131 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:20,279 stay in France, he took Julia to a fine dining restaurant in Rouenne called 132 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:26,879 La Couron French for the Crown. She describes that night as a culinary revelation 133 00:10:28,159 --> 00:10:31,679 and the meal of oysters, soul munier and fine wine as an opening up 134 00:10:31,679 --> 00:10:37,120 of the soul and spirit. She was hooked and wanted to not just consume 135 00:10:37,159 --> 00:10:41,039 these dishes, but also to create them. She decided that the only thing 136 00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:45,519 for it was to enroll in one of the most prestigious cooking schools in all 137 00:10:45,559 --> 00:10:48,799 of France and quite possibly the world at the time, named La cordon Bleux. 138 00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:54,200 Julia was quoted as saying that on her first day of school, all 139 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:58,120 she knew how to do was boiled the water to make a cup of tea. 140 00:10:58,279 --> 00:11:00,799 She took to the school like a duck to water, and when she 141 00:11:00,879 --> 00:11:05,279 wasn't in class, she spent hours wandering through the Parisian food markets, purchasing 142 00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:09,120 all manner of local ingredients to experiment with at home. Once she had graduated 143 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:13,519 from La cordon Bleu, she would go on to study under a range of 144 00:11:13,519 --> 00:11:30,320 French master chefs, including Max Bonard. She even joined a woman's cooking club 145 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:33,879 called La Cercle de Gomez, as it was here that fate would intervene in 146 00:11:33,919 --> 00:11:37,440 her life. During one of the club meetings, she met a woman named 147 00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:41,799 Simone Beck, who was in the middle of writing a cookbook aimed at an 148 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:46,759 American audience with her friend Louisette Bertoile. They brought Julia Child on initially as 149 00:11:46,759 --> 00:11:50,679 a consultant for the American audience, but quickly she took to toiling away in 150 00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:54,960 the kitchen, coming up with her own recipes for the first manuscript. Soon 151 00:11:56,039 --> 00:12:00,080 they were offering cooking classes for American women write in their test kitchen, and 152 00:12:00,159 --> 00:12:03,600 called their informal cooking classes the School of the Three Food Lovers. All the 153 00:12:03,639 --> 00:12:09,559 while they were cooking, testing, writing, and updating their seminal masterpiece. 154 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:13,799 It would take ten long years before their hard work would pay off and the 155 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:18,399 book would get picked up by a major publisher. In that decade, Julia 156 00:12:18,519 --> 00:12:22,799 had moved around Europe with her husband's assignments and had settled finally in Cambridge, 157 00:12:22,799 --> 00:12:28,480 Massachusetts. A large part of Julia's role was translating the French recipes accurately and 158 00:12:28,559 --> 00:12:33,399 simply into English, making sure that the recipes were detailed, interesting and practical. 159 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,000 Upon its release, Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a smash hit 160 00:12:39,279 --> 00:12:43,240 and had cemented the three women into the culinary history books Forever. America was 161 00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:48,320 already going through a phase of loving everything French, with a particular focus on 162 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:52,799 its cuisine, so the book landed at the perfect time to rarely explode onto 163 00:12:52,799 --> 00:12:56,440 the scene. The success of the cookbook and Julia's sudden rise to a household 164 00:12:56,519 --> 00:13:01,080 name quickly led to her being offered her own looking show on television. While 165 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:05,000 we are inundated with cooking shows, celebrity chefs and the like nowadays, she 166 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:09,399 was a pioneer in this field, which had not seen anything quite like it 167 00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:13,240 before. She had an easy manner on camera, her trademark singsong voice, 168 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:18,159 and her commanding stature all led to her being instantly recognizable anywhere she went. 169 00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:22,919 In the years between nineteen sixty three and nineteen sixty nine, she would record 170 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:28,600 one hundred and ninety nine episodes of her show The French Chef. She would 171 00:13:28,639 --> 00:13:31,320 go on to write many more cookbooks, would co found institutes such as the 172 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:35,679 American Institute of Wine and Food, as well as the Julia Child Foundation for 173 00:13:35,759 --> 00:13:41,759 Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. She was famous for putting flavor and enjoyment above 174 00:13:41,799 --> 00:13:46,399 any semblance of healthy dieting, which was shown most notably in her generous use 175 00:13:46,399 --> 00:13:50,360 of butter in all of her cooking. The Child would end up building a 176 00:13:50,440 --> 00:13:54,600 home near Provence in the French countryside, high up in the hills above Cans. 177 00:13:56,559 --> 00:14:00,840 They would name their cottage La Pitchun, a local word meaning the little 178 00:14:00,879 --> 00:14:03,919 One. She would go on to write cookbooks and star in many television shows 179 00:14:03,919 --> 00:14:07,240 throughout the rest of her life until the ripe old age of ninety two, 180 00:14:07,519 --> 00:14:11,120 when she passed away in Montecito, California. In two thousand and four. 181 00:14:11,879 --> 00:14:16,519 Her final book, My Life in France, ends with some fantastic words with 182 00:14:16,559 --> 00:14:22,399 which I would like to end this episode, she wrote, Thinking back on 183 00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:26,279 it now, it reminds me that the pleasures of the table and of life 184 00:14:26,559 --> 00:14:45,559 are infinite. To Joe's born empathy. Thank you for listening to this episode 185 00:14:45,559 --> 00:14:48,600 of the Fantastic History of Food. If you'd like to get in touch, 186 00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,200 you can find us on Twitter at food History Pod. If you enjoyed this 187 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:56,960 episode, I'd really appreciate you taking a moment to rate the show on Apple 188 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:01,159 Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on, and if you and leave a review 189 00:15:01,159 --> 00:15:05,360 as well. I also have a Patreon account where you can support the show 190 00:15:05,399 --> 00:15:09,000 and get access to exclusive content, bonus episodes, and even the chance to 191 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:13,200 choose the topic for an upcoming episode. But all of this is only for 192 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:18,639 our Patreon subscribers. Everyone who donates or subscribes will also get a personal shout 193 00:15:18,639 --> 00:15:22,919 out from me on an upcoming episode. Check out our website where you can 194 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:28,600 find transcripts, show notes, and references for each and every episode at food 195 00:15:28,679 --> 00:15:39,440 History podcast dot com.