I Love Meryl Streep But…
Print This Post
The new Nora Ephron film, Julie & Julia, was heralded by a marketing blitz like those for the latest blockbuster adventure film. It looks like a good film on several levels. But I just can’t make myself see it.
I’m 63 years old and I grew up with Julia Child. No, I never met her in person. But I saw her shows and I begged for her cookbooks as a young teen. I loved to cook and her first French cooking book was a revelation, so beautiful it was a special treasure. I loved the illustrations, the hand-drawings that amplified the words, and that cookbook gave me the courage to try to make what seemed like impossible dishes.
Child’s mission at that time, and since, was to give everyone an opportunity to become a French chef, to master the art, by describing each step so painstakingly that you only had to pay attention. She brought a joy and a certain kind of guts to the kitchen, assuring us that yes, you do have to work at it but yes, you can do it.
Certainly, French cooking is not for sissies. Once, a co-worker whose mother was a home economics teacher, told me that his mother said anyone can cook; just put together the ingredients and that’s that. That woman had no clue. I can bet she never delved into Julia’s kitchen.
Years after I had cooked my way through many recipes in both French Cooking books I became a vegetarian. And one day I learned about Julia and veal. It is probably an old story to some but I’ll repeat it anyway: Julia was told by some vegetarians that she should think twice about cooking and eating veal because of the horrific conditions under which it is raised. Child scoffed and said she would visit a veal farm and see for herself. She did and she thought it was “great”. The calves had to be kept still for their whole short lives or they would not become the tender veal required. She didn’t give a damn about the treatment of this or any other animal.
In this interesting account we read that Child saw vegetarians as wanting to “control others” and that’s why we wanted the cruelty to stop. This is really not an argument I hear all that often.
I gave away my two Julia Child cookbooks.
What Child represents, in part, is what we see all the time on the Food Network and other “chef” shows on Bravo and elsewhere. The treatment of the animals is secondary to the taste. If it tastes good that is all that matters. Health, the environment, the humane treatment of animals are all irrelevant to the strangely old-school chefs we see on television, chefs who think what they do is “cutting edge”. It’s about as cutting-edge as the swords used in medieval times.
Oh, and speaking of Meryl Streep, she too had her reservations. She speaks of them in this interview.
The more I read about Julia Child the less I like her, not that I was ever a fan, even in my pre-vegan days. She was flat-out hostile to vegetarianism, and her remark about the veal farm being “great” is beyond callous. I guess decades of chopping up animal flesh desensitized her irrevocably.
Thanks for the link to the Meryl Streep interview. Very interesting.
I love that you wrote:
PERFECT! That's exactly it.
I am a Meryl Streep fan who saw Julie and Julia and saw the interview with Meryl.
I think we should take Julia’s age into consideration. She was from and old school, from a pre-aware time in the world and Meryl did say that she thought she eventually came around.
My grandfather is ten years younger than Child was when she died, and I can barely get him to give up so much sugar. Drink his tea and be prepared to get a headache, the amount of sugar he tries to sneak into his cup when I am not looking, even though he would always assure me that all he takes is one spoon of sugar,all the time, he insists.
They really are stobborn, but not in a bad way, just very spoilt and sort of “Once-a-man, twice-a child” way, that’s all.
I have not seen the movie and really don’t know much about Julia Child…
However, I do wonder if “pre-aware” time is the right word to use for her or if “age” is necessarily a valid reason for one’s behavior towards non-human animals or even human beings. I’m just throwing the thought out there because it reminds me of when a “older” person (old enough to be my grandmother or grandpa) I encounter is racist, then someone will say, “Well, they grew up during this and that time…” But I know plenty of people who grew up during “that time” and were also NOT racist, or sexist, or classist, etc. I’m just throwing that thought out there, as it doesn’t help the recipient of oppression to hear, “Well, that was just the time they grew up” or, “That was a pre-aware time”.
Am trying not to offend, am just thinking of these things.
Hi Breeze, I think I understand your comment, as I was thinking along those same lines. It is easy to assume that all people in a certain time thought a certain way (it’s one gripe I have about so-called historical novels) when history tells us they did not.
I really think Julia Child was representing herself. The way she disparaged vegetarians, for example, was not necessarily a reflection of the times so much as it was a defense of what she perceived as a threat to what she stood for herself.
To be fair, of course, certainly her attitudes were more acceptable to the crowd she ran with and to the times she lived in. So it was easy for her to attack vegetarians by saying they wanted to take over the world, control everything. Nobody was likely to take the other side. Even today we vegans are considered “fringe” and fair fodder for such attacks. So it is true that some of what Julia believed was allowed and supported by the times.
“Lisa Landsverk, the new owner of Julia Childs’ Cambridge home, is not only vegetarian but an animal rights activist too.”
source: http://supervegan.com/blog/entry.php?id=1317
WOW!
Woo hoo, Eccentric Elaine! Loving that info.
WOW! for real! Gosh, if I believed in the super-natural I’d have to think that Child is rolling over in her casket at this news! HAHA!