Child's play

It was an ordinary day in 1968. I turned on the little black-and-white television set to watch my favorite show. The program's host, in her unmistakable voice ("a voice that could make an aspic shimmy," it's been called), was showing how to make a French chocolate, rum, and almond cake called Queen of Sheba.

For 28 minutes and 52 seconds this woman, who has been likened to a dowager doing a burlesque routine, demonstrated with characteristic aplomb everything you needed to know to create the dish. As soon as the show was over I headed straight for the grocery store to buy the ingredients to make the cake that very evening.

That was not the only time this program would have such an effect on me, nor was I the only one. For example, after the show on broccoli, every store within 200 miles of the Boston television studio where it originated sold out of the vegetable. Following the program on omelets, there was a run on omelet pans at every specialty store in the area. Clearly, millions of others like me were similarly inspired by this show, "The French Chef," and its host, Julia Child.

Julia Child turns 90 Thursday, and the eve of her birthday is a propitious time to reflect on how she changed the way we relate to food, for, as Kathryn Kellinger observes, it is impossible to exaggerate her influence. Karen Lehrman equates her impact to that of Alfred Kinsey and Elvis Presley. No wonder Ladies Home Journal listed her among the most important women of the 20th century -- along with Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Helen Keller.

"Julia Child invented modern life," proclaimed U.S. News & World Report a few years ago. Before she came on the scene, as Newsweek put it, "America was tuna-casserole land." Women did all of the cooking and for many of them preparing meals was not a joy but a chore. They relied on recipes in so-called ladies' magazines, which touted quick preparations using canned soups and frozen vegetables, or they resorted to TV dinners. A best seller of the day was Peg Bracken's "I Hate to Cook Book." Julia Child changed all of that. As Pia Nordlinger observes, "She replaced the perception of eating as nourishment and cooking as punishment with the idea that food exists mainly for enjoyment." Jane and Michael Stern credit her with transforming cooking into entertainment. Lehrman declares that she raised home cooking to the level of art. Frances Dowell rightly concludes, "Julia Child changed the face -- and flavor -- of American cooking."

Ironically, when Julia McWilliams was born 90y ears ago, few would have predicted that she would become, in Kellinger's words, "the most important culinary figure this country has produced." Indeed, as Nordlinger notes, she spent her first 36 years as a food philistine. Born to privilege and wealth, she did not need to venture into the kitchen to prepare her meals. There was a hired cook for that.

However, during World War II she joined the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA (the intelligence agency, not the Culinary Institute of America), where she met her future husband, Paul Child. The worldly Paul introduced her to fine food and wine and they began what may well be the greatest culinary love affair of all time.

After marriage they moved to France and it was there, over lunch at La Couronne restaurant in Rouen on November 3, 1948, that Julia, dining on oysters portugaises, sole meuniere, and a green salad, experienced an Epicurean epiphany. Enthralled with French food, she enrolled at the Cordon Bleu (the lone woman in her class) and joined Le Cercle des Gourmettes, a women's cooking club. There she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle with whom, after nearly a decade of research, she co-authored the classic "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." It was the promotion of this 700-page tome that brought Julia Child to the attention of an America ripe for a culinary revolution. Appearing on what was then called educational television to talk about the book, she brought along a copper bowl, a whisk, and some eggs and whipped up an omelet. The response was so overwhelming that she was given her own program, and the rest, as they say, is history. Though initially some viewers thought the show a parody, it ultimately became public television's greatest success and in the process changed the way we cook and the way we eat.

Nearly 40 years later, Julia Child is still the nation's premiere celebrity chef, an entity which she herself invented. Totally lacking pretension, she describes herself simply as a good home cook. But really she is a teacher. Whether unabashedly mending a dish that didn't quite come out right ("If you are alone in the kitchen," she asked, "whooooooo is going to see?") or triumphantly bringing a perfectly executed one to the dining room, she taught us to be passionate about food.

Happy Birthday Julia and Bon Appetit!

Queen of Sheba

This is the French cake I couldn't wait to make the first time I watched Julia Child demonstrate the procedure on television more than 30 years ago. Making it, and eating it, is still just as satisfying today as it was back then. The recipe is adapted from "The French Chef Cookbook."

Ingredients:

7 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, divided

3 and 1/2 tablespoons strong coffee, divided

14 tablespoons butter, divided

13 tablespoons sugar, divided

3 eggs, separated

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

pinch of salt

1/3 cup pulverized blanched almonds

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

3/4 cup cake flour

Directions:

Melt 2/3 cup of the chocolate chips with 2 tablespoons of the coffee. Cream 8 tablespoons butter and 11 tablespoons sugar until soft and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks. Stir in chocolate mixture, almonds, extract, and flour. Whip the egg whites with cream of tartar and salt until they form soft peaks, then beat in remaining 2 tablespoons sugar until they become firm but not dry. Stir one-fourth of whites into batter to lighten, then quickly fold in remainder. Pour batter into a greased and floured 8-inch round pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted three inches from the edge tests clean. Cake will puff slightly on top and center will not be completely set. Cool cake 10 minutes, unmold and let cool completely. Melt remaining 1/2 cup chocolate chips in remaining 1 and 1/2 tablespoons coffee and beat in remaining 6 tablespoons butter one tablespoon at a time until icing is of spreading consistency. Ice cake and decorate with blanched almonds if desired.

Listen to A Harte Appetite at 8:49 a.m. Fridays and at 11:59 a.m. Saturdays on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.