These intimates found themselves living together as neighbors in Provence in the late fall and winter of 1970, "a place that epitomized the food centered culture and philosophy the group stood for, a place where life and cooking and style all intertwined." Yet, during this time, Barr suggests, the old order of grand culinary tradition was being nudged by something new within the group and in the larger culture of the United States. Olney, for example, cooked food fit for the gods but rejected white tablecloth formality and had as his signature "a kind of high-low montage" in which he might combine, on a night's menu, refined, elaborate, classic dishes alongside rustic stews. Rare and expensive ingredients were, to Olney, far less important than the nuances of flavor.
Fisher, too, saw problems with food snobbery and the preciousness of it all. And Julia Child, while writing the second volume of Mastering with her co-author Simone 'Simca' Beck, was frustrated by Beck's insistently rigid approach with respect to the most orthodox and tradition-bound aspects of French cooking. Child and Fisher eschewed the sentimental (this-is-how-it's-done-in-France), favoring instead practicality and modern methods.
Beard, also, brought the weight of his respected gastronomic expertise to the discussion. He appreciated the knowledge of French cuisine passed on to Americans by Child, Fisher, and Olney but urged that "we should also look into the annals of our own cuisine" so not to forget what distinguished food Americans have produced. And Child, even as Mastering II hit the bookstores and she resumed appearing on television, not only agreed with Beard but also embraced the ethnic food traditions, new and old, making their way into American kitchens and restaurants. Sitting in Provence in 1970, Child planned a pizza-making episode for her show!
Fisher, the sensualist with a libertine philosophy, who argued that food, security, and love were completely entwined, used her observations of Vietnam-era America to reshape her thinking. In the 1930s and 1940s a sensualist might be thought "continental" but by the 1960s liberal philosophies of life had "begun to resonate with the politics of revolution and rebellion in the United States." The anti-establishment mood was filtering into nonpolitical areas bringing new ideas and energy everywhere including the world of food and cooking. Fisher understood what was happening and did not disapprove.
Thus, in different ways and for different reasons Child and Fisher moved away from their fixation with France while Beard, in his 1972 book, American Cookery, underscored his belief in just that, American cuisine. They were all, according to Barr, contending with a philosophical problem: how were taste, style, and authenticity to be expressed in food and cooking? And how were people to be taught to experiment and have fun with cooking? How could people live in the moment and not be frozen in a cultural past? How do you avoid food snobbery? Olney, too, confronted these questions and outlined a book expressing a new view of French cooking, one that would honor lifestyle instead of classical culinary training and methods: available market foods would determine simple, rustic menus, cooks would improvise.
Barr's Provence, 1970 provides a romp through a particular moment of food culture history. His story is engaging without being didactic. And yet, just below the surface of its telling lurk fundamental social and moral issues well worth contemplating when the last page is read. Who gets to eat? What is the relationship between food and economic status? Why did middle class Americans fall so hard for classic French food in the 1960s? And what makes a cuisine "ethnic?" Child’s French cooking was never ethnic, but fried rice and curry were.
This, then, is one story of the "reinvention of American taste." Beard, of course, knew that Americans had never lost their love of chowders and cornbread. Barr places Fisher and Child in the tide of reinvention. He is correct that they did not resist it but genius chefs like Alice Waters had figured out the reinvention even earlier. By 1971 she had opened Chez Panisse (named for a character in the Marcel Pagnol triology), espousing the importance of local, organic ingredients and pioneering California cuisine. The irony, of course, lies in her choice of a French moniker for the restaurant.
©2015 Jill Norgren for SeniorWomen.com
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