Julia Carolyn Child was born on August 15, 1912, and went on to become one of America’s most well-known chefs, television personalities, and cookbook authors.
She had an incredible life full of adventure, accomplishment, and food.
During World War II, Child worked as a government spy and invented a shark repellant for the Navy. She went on to become a breast cancer survivor later in life.
Julia Child is most renowned for her cookbooks, which made French cookery more accessible to the general public.
Julia’s first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was published in 1961, and it was such a hit that she was granted her own television show. The French Chef was one of the first cooking series on American television, and fans learned about Julia, her cooking, and her incredible personality through it.
One of Julia Child’s most inspiring qualities is that she was a lousy cook well into her forties. She had no natural ability for cooking and freely confessed that she was a catastrophe in the kitchen until she began taking training at the Paris-based Le Cordon Bleu.
Julia ate premade dinners before marrying Paul since her culinary attempts resulted in oven fires and exploding ducks.
Despite a rough start, she established herself as one of the most important chefs of all time, as well as an influence to future chefs such as Emeril Lagasse and Alex Guarnechelli. She is living proof that you can start a new career out of a love at any age!
So here are some of Julia Child’s most famous quotations about cuisine, life, and finding your passion.
People who love to eat are always the best people.
The only time to eat diet food is when you’re waiting for a steak to cook.
The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.
I enjoy cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Always remember: if you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?
No-one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.
You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,’ [Chef Bugnard] said. ‘Even after you eat it, it stays with you – always.
Just like becoming an expert in wine–you learn by drinking it, the best you can afford–you learn about great food by finding the best there is, whether simply or luxurious.
But I was a pure romantic, and only operating with half my burners turned on.
One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.
We had a happy marriage because we were together all the time. We were friends as well as husband and wife. We just had a good time.
Fat gives things flavor.
Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.
Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, ‘scientific’ though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.
It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate – you know someone’s fingers have been all over it.
I was 32 when I started cooking. Up until then, I just ate.
If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.
Of course, an old wine is like an old lady, and traveling can disturb her.
Everything can have drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.
The service was deft and understated, and the food was spectacular. It was expensive, but, as Paul said, ‘you are so hypnotized by everything there that you feel grateful as you pay the bill.’
Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed. Eh bien, tant pis. Usually one’s cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile, and learn from her mistakes.
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.
Cooking well doesn’t mean cooking fancy.
If you’re in a good profession, it’s hard to get bored, because you’re never finished — there will always be work you haven’t yet done.
The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It’s doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile.
How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?
Well, all I know is this—nothing you ever learn is really wasted, and will sometime be used.
You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.
To be a good cook you have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating.
Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again.
There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.
This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook — try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun!
Remember, ‘No one’s more important than people!’ In other words, friendship is the most important thing—not career or housework, or one’s fatigue—and it needs to be tended and nurtured.
See, when I flipped it, I didn’t have the courage to do it the way I should’ve. But you can always pick it up, and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who is going to see? But the only way you learn how to flip things is just to flip them.
You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.
The more you know, the more you can create. There’s no end to imagination in the kitchen.
I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu.
Nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should. Good results require that one take time and care.
A party without a cake is just a meeting.
Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper.
If you don’t pick your audience, you’re lost because you’re not really talking to anybody.
You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.
I’m not a chef. I think in this country, we use the term very loosely. I’m a cook and a teacher.
I had come to the conclusion that I must really be French, only no one had ever informed me of this fact. I loved the people, the food, the lay of the land, the civilized atmosphere, and the generous pace of life.
Life itself is the proper binge.
Tears mess up your makeup.
I think every woman should have a blowtorch.
Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you’ll have a marvelous time!
If everything doesn’t happen quite the way you’d like, it doesn’t make too much difference, because you can fix it.
Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.
You learn to cook so that you don’t have to be a slave to recipes. You get what’s in season and you know what to do with it.
With enough butter, anything is good.
But my favorite remained the basic roast chicken. What a deceptively simple dish. I had come to believe that one can judge the quality of a cook by his or her roast chicken. Above all, it should taste like chicken: it should be so good that even a perfectly simple, buttery roast should be a delight.
It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.
Good french cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook.
I believe in red meat. I’ve often said: red meat and gin.