The Future Leader

13The Chef

One person is largely responsible for bringing French cuisine to the American public: Julia Child. Not only did she bring gourmet cooking to America, but she removed the mystique and the perception of French cooking as inaccessible, strange, and even too exotic. She wanted everyone to appreciate the great food and chefs that came from France. Julia was born in 1912 in Pasadena, California, not too far away from where I grew up in Granada Hills. She attended Smith College, where she graduated in 1934 with a degree in history. While at Smith she got her first culinary experience as the chair of the refreshment committee for the senior prom and fall dance.

Julia had a short stint writing advertising copy for a furniture store in New York City but World War II soon began and she wanted to serve. Julia tried to join the Women's Army Corps but at 6'2" she was told that she was too tall, so she joined the Office of Strategic Services instead. This took her to places like Sri Lanka and Kunming, China. Her first foray into cooking came when she was asked to come up with a way to keep sharks from setting off underwater explosives, which were being used to blow up German U-boats. She experimented with different ideas and eventually came up with a repellent that, when sprinkled into the water, would ward off sharks. While in China Julia met Paul; they married and eventually ...