Julie, Julia, Jaques and Pollan

Michael Pollan, our national food conscience, has an article in the New York Times Magazine today examining America's relationship with food through its obsession with prime time cooking competitions. It's worth a read, despite it's length, because it completes the argument that Omnivore's Dilemma starts; that America has lost it's victual soul to the mass production of food and that we can only regain it if we, as a nation, begin to cook again. He makes this argument by looking at the evolution of the cooking show from The French Chef, Julia Child's PBS cooking class to Iron Chef, the Food Network's turbo charged cooking competition. It's no surprise that the article starts with Julia Child, because she has been brought back into the popular consciousness by the movie Julie and Julia, which opens this week with Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie, a woman who decided to blog about a year spent cooking all of the recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. ( I cannot wait to see it! )

In general Pollan makes his argument well, as he usually does, but he also makes some half hearted statements about gender politics as they relate to home cooking (i.e. women no longer in the home) which he doesn't develop. They are too simplistic, seemingly cowardly throw-ins which he injects but won't defend. I'm sure the feminist blogosphere will have a field day with them. Of course Michael Pollan does not want to see women back in the kitchen, but he never argues for who should be doing the home cooking, once the domain of the housewife, which he needs to do if he is going to make statements such as "[the fulfillment of cooking was] a bit of wisdom that some American feminists thoughtlessly trampled in their rush to get women out of the kitchen." Come on Michael, you are a better journalist than that.

Feminist digressions aside, I brought up the Pollan article to share my own experiences with cooking shows, since they were a staple of my childhood, or at least they play a prominent part in my memories. I used to sit with my dad on the weekend afternoons and watch the Frugal Gourmet, Yan Can Cook, and Jaques Pépin on PBS, entranced by the whirling knives and steaming concoctions. I was a kid who didn't like food, yet these shows still gripped me because the chefs were charismatic, each in his own way, and every episode was about creation. They were roadmaps for turning the simple into delicious, and it didn't matter that I wouldn't eat what they had prepared even if the alternative was to sit at the kitchen table for the rest of my life, it was the process that was fascinating. A couple of weeks ago I had 20 minutes to kill before heading out to a wedding for a classmate so I turned on the TV and saw Jaques Pépin, still at it. I had not seen the show in ten years or so. His hair is greyer and his movements are perhaps a bit slower, but he still captured my attention and taught me a couple useful techniques. The Food Network shows have never appealed to me. They seem to be about spectacle and flair, whereas the shows of my childhood were about the food, the process, and a wise and engaging teacher to show you the way.



I think I also loved watching him because of the accent!
Update: Jasmin also has a take on this subject