Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande

Summary

Stuff You Should Know

Episode: "Julia Child, la Grandes Gourmande"

Hosts: Josh Clark, Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant
Date: November 27, 2025
Podcast Network: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this engaging Thanksgiving episode, Josh and Chuck celebrate the life, legacy, and impact of Julia Child—the iconic chef who revolutionized American home cooking by introducing French cuisine to a generation raised on convenience foods. Through humor, admiration, and historical anecdotes, the hosts explore Child’s remarkable journey from a privileged but non-culinary upbringing through her adventures in World War II espionage, to her outsized influence as the first true TV cooking superstar. The episode provides a deep dive into how Julia Child helped transform America's food culture, making sophisticated techniques and ingredients accessible, and irreversibly changing the way Americans cooked, ate, and thought about food.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Julia Child’s Unique Persona and Influence

• First Impressions: Julia's eccentric and gregarious personality—a tall, booming presence with a distinctive accent—captivated viewers from the 1970s through the 1990s.
  • “Who is this giant tall woman that talks funny cooking in front of my face?” —Chuck (04:47)
• Not Intimidating, Always Approachable:
  • “She was always just so friendly and gregarious. I had an instant liking, yes.” —Chuck (05:18)
• The Debt Owed to Julia Child:
  • “Even if you’re not familiar with Julia Child and you live in the United States and you like decent food that’s not processed, you owe an enormous debt to Julia Child...” —Josh (05:24)

2. Cultural Context and Culinary Revolution

• Pre-Julia: American Cooking in Shambles:
  • “This was the time... when people were making Jell-O molds with ground beef in them. That was showing off for a dinner party.” —Josh (06:10)
• French Cuisine as a Revelation:
  • Child’s introduction to French cuisine at La Couronne (Normandy) was life-changing. French food is explained as simple, humble, but executed with precision and fresh, quality ingredients.
  • “She said that it was an opening up of the soul and spirit for me.” —Josh (16:43)

3. Her Life Before Cooking: World War II and Espionage

• OSS Service: Despite popular belief, cooking was not her first professional calling.
  • Julia worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor to the CIA, and rose to chief of the OSS Registry, earning high-level security clearance. (09:19 - 12:42)
• First ‘Recipe’: Shark Repellent:
  • Participated in developing shark repellent for use by the military.
  • “She very facetiously, but also charmingly, referred to that shark repellent as her first big recipe.” —Josh (11:48)
• Romance with Paul Child:
  • Met her life partner in the OSS; their relationship was enviable and deeply supportive.
  • “They stayed together. They were married for almost 50 years...” —Josh (13:45)

4. A Late-Blooming Cooking Star

• Starting in Her Mid-30s:
  • “She was apparently a disaster in the kitchen and really didn’t start cooking until... she was in her 40s, maybe late 30s.” —Josh (07:28)
• Cordon Bleu and Beyond:
  • Attended Le Cordon Bleu and soon formed a cooking school with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertolt: L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes.
  • “Within 10 years... she had sold her bestselling cookbook...” —Chuck (20:00)
• Groundbreaking Cookbook:
  • “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”—meticulously detailed to accommodate beginners, became a kitchen bible in the U.S.
  • “They laid out everything... training anyone who bought this cookbook on French cuisine.” —Josh (24:55)

5. Impact on American Food and Media

• Demystifying High Cooking:
  • Broke down difficult recipes for regular home cooks, popularizing classic French dishes.
  • “It demystified, you know, sort of high class cooking, ‘cause she’s like, this is something that you can do in your kitchen.”—Chuck (25:12)
• TV Stardom – “The French Chef”:
  • Her book promotion appearance led to her own television show, “The French Chef,” making Julia the U.S.’s first superstar chef.
  • “...cooking shows are so widespread today, you can essentially thank Julia Child for that, too.” —Josh (30:44)
  • First U.S. television show to feature open captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing. (32:01)
• On-Air Mistakes—Approachable Cooking:
  • Julia insisted editors leave in her on-camera flubs (cake flopping, pancake flipping), making the kitchen less intimidating for viewers and especially empowering women.
  • “She would want... the editors to leave the mistakes in there. She’s like, that’s part of cooking.”—Chuck (32:44)
  • “Another reason that she left the mistakes in was especially for women... She was like, no, it’s okay to mess up.” —Chuck (33:16)

6. Cultural Legacies and Notable Traits

• Normalizing Wine and French Ingredients:
  • She normalized wine on the American dinner table and elevated the quality of both ingredients and technique. (40:50-43:03)
• Not a Food Snob:
  • Julia enjoyed everyday foods, including In-N-Out Burger, Hellman's mayo, and Costco hot dogs.
  • “She loved In-N-Out Burger... apparently she liked Costco hot dogs even.” —Chuck (41:14)
• Sense of Humor:
  • Loved Dan Aykroyd’s SNL parody and even performed it at parties.
  • “She kept a videotape of [the SNL sketch] and would show people sometimes... might act it out, like, word for word by heart.” —Josh (44:34)
• Advocacy for Butter and “Everything in Moderation”:
  • “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream instead…” —Josh paraphrasing Julia Child (46:44)
  • “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” —Julia Child quoting Oscar Wilde (46:54)

7. Signature Recipes and Enduring Influence

• Most Famous Dishes:
  • Boeuf Bourguignon (beef stew with red wine), Quiche Lorraine, Cassoulet, Chocolate Mousse, French Onion Soup.
  • “If you’ve ever seen the movie Julia and Julia... the big one from the book... was the Boeuf Bourguignon...” —Chuck (48:07)
• Tips and Techniques:
  • Julia’s advice even extended to how to blanch American bacon to reduce the overpowering smoked flavor. (49:37)
• Encouragement to Today’s Cooks:
  • "She taught America to cook all through the decades where America started to become health conscious... her whole thing was... use the real butter and enjoy every bite." —Josh (46:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Julia’s transformative meal:
  • “It was an opening up of the soul and spirit for me... the most exciting meal of my life.” —Julia Child, as quoted by Josh and Chuck (16:43-17:05)
• On her approach to cooking mistakes:
  • “Well, that didn’t work out.” —Julia, imitated by Chuck (34:38)
  • “Mistakes are part of it. You just learn from them.” —Josh (33:02)
• On her cultural contributions:
  • “She made it way more approachable to people by doing that.” —Josh (33:08)
• On butter and eating well:
  • “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” —Julia Child (46:54)
• On being approachable:
  • “But despite all this, she was not a food snob. She was very approachable.”—Chuck (41:14)
• On her death and legacy:
  • “Today, the entire community of cooks is sad and feels like orphans.” —Alain Ducasse, as quoted by Josh (53:46)
  • “RIP Julia Child and thanks for everything.” —Josh (54:39)
  • “Our berets are off to you.” —Chuck (54:44)

Fun Moments

• Josh and Chuck poking fun at “pencil pants” and “culottes” (25:32)
• Julia’s humorous take on her first recipe (shark repellent) (11:48)
• Discussion of the SNL sketch and Julia’s delighted response (44:34)
• Playful bickering over food preferences (peas, broccoli, ketchup, sushi) (17:34–18:28)
• “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream instead.” (46:44)
• Details on her hilarious appearances on Letterman and the myth of drinking wine from the bottle (43:29)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• Julia’s TV Debut and PBS Impact: 29:54 - 33:15
• On-Air Mistakes and Feminism: 32:16 - 34:13
• Cookbook Development: 24:55 - 28:02
• Key Dishes and Culinary Tips: 48:02 - 51:42
• Julia’s Death and Underwater Memorial: 53:46 - 54:39

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Conclusion

Josh and Chuck conclude with touching words on Julia Child’s profound legacy, noting her humor, humanity, and the enduring effect she had on American kitchens. They highlight her role as a teacher, a feminist icon, a barrier-breaker—even in death, Julia Child left a unique mark with her underwater memorial and her indelible wit. Listeners are reminded: if you love real food, gratitude is due to Julia Child.

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For Further Listening/Reading

• Watch: “Julia & Julia” (film) for a dramatization of how Mastering the Art of French Cooking inspired generations.
• Read: Judith Jones’ editorial legacy, including her work bringing Julia Child and “The Diary of Anne Frank” to the public.

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For fans of food, history, or fearless living, this episode serves up a feast of insights, anecdotes, and laughs—a loving tribute to the grande dame of the modern American kitchen.

Transcript

[Charles W. Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human living with an autoimmune condition isn't easy and every journey is different. That's why Season five of Untold Life with the Severe Autoimmune Condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics shares powerful firsthand stories from people with conditions like MG and cidp. Hosted by Martine Hackett, these conversations dive into what resilience really looks like through setbacks, breakthroughs, and finding strength in community. Listen on the iHeartRadio app for Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Seecapitalone.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC the universe is full of mysteries. Black holes, quantum physics, galaxies. On TikTok, millions of people are learning more about the universe around them every day. Scientists break down complex theories, demonstrate experiments, and connect dots between the cosmos and our daily lives. One scroll might reveal the concepts on the fabric of spacetime, the next an optical illusion, its discovery on a massive scale where millions learn something new every day.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And we're stuffed on turkey, wearing aprons, got a little gravy on the sides of our mouths. And it's stuff you should know.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. Happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate Thanksgiving.

[Josh Clark]

Here in the US and happy belated Thanksgiving to our Canadian listeners who celebrate it early.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. And since we're talking about Thanksgiving, we wanted to mention we have been working with Co ed, the Cooperative for Education, for many, many years since they took us down to Guatemala. And they're, you know, if you haven't heard us talk about them, I'd be surprised. But their mission is to help eradicate poverty through education and largely through the children of Guatemala. It's a great organization NGO that we've been working with for a long, long time and we're working with them again this year.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they see to it that kids who would almost certainly otherwise not have gotten any real education at all get a really great education for fairly cheap too. They're a really, really great effective charity, which is why? We've been working with them for so long, and one of the ways we work with them every year is to raffle off a chance to hang out with us online.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, virtually. That's how we do things. But we've done this for a few years in a row now, like a zoom, a co ed Zoom hangout. And it's always super fun. We look forward to it. And this is how you can do that. You can join the Cooperative for education for 20 bucks a month, and you can collectively sponsor students in the Rise Youth Development Program. In 2026, more than 1200 students are going to start school in rural Guatemala through this program. And that's their biggest class ever. And they really count on us and you guys to help make that happen.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You can also give any donation that you like. They're happy with that. But do this by December 19th and you will be entered into a chance to hang out with us, I think in January at some point. And also just a little FYI, giving Tuesday is December 2nd, so that could be a good day to do it too. And whenever you're ready, go to Cooperative for Education and you can make your donations there.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. 20 bucks a month can really go a long way. And just to brag a little bit about the Stuff you Should Know army, since we've been working with CO ED, over $1.4 million in charitable contributions have come from the Stuff youf Should Know army, sponsoring a total of 172 Rise students over that time.

[Josh Clark]

That's so cool. Thanks, you guys for supporting Coed so well.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Well, Chuck, I say we get cracking with our episode today because I'm excited about this one. We're talking about Julia Child, arguably one of the most well known cooks chefs of all time.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. But I have to step out real quick because I've cut the dickens out of my finger.

[Josh Clark]

That was pretty good, actually. I wasn't even going to try it, but that was a dead on Julia Child.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Well, that was a dead on Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child.

[Josh Clark]

I think you topped him, to tell you the truth. Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

You know, if you grew up in the 70s, in the 80s and even into the 90s, and you ever surfed around your cable TV and crossed PBS, there was a good chance that the wonderful Julia Child came into your life in some way. I remember watching her a little bit when I was a kid even, and just thinking, like, who is this giant tall woman that talks funny cooking in front of my face?

[Josh Clark]

But you Were never intimidated by her, were you?

[Charles W. Bryant]

No. I mean, she was always just so friendly and gregarious. I had an instant liking, yes.

[Josh Clark]

She was a very, very likable person. But even if you're not familiar with Julia Child and you live in the United States and you like decent food that's not processed, you owe an enormous debt to Julia Child because you can argue that she almost single handedly introduced America to real food through French cuisine.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, these days it's taken for granted that, you know, farm to table and ingredients that matter and food preparation and sort of taking pride in cooking at home like that is just so commonplace. But that was not the case when Julia Child was coming into things. She really revolutionized and sort of rocked America's culinary world.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like this was the time when she came around when people were making Jell O molds with like ground beef in them. Like that was nice. That was like showing off for a dinner party kind of stuff.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

So we'll talk about all the impact she had and why she was so beloved. But to start, we'll go a little further back toward the beginning. And if you've ever heard her speak, you really did do a pretty good impression. A lot of people think that she was British and she was not British, she was American. She was born in Pasadena. Apparently her accent was one of those mid Atlantic accents that she was taught growing up in private schools and private college. Smith College in Massachusetts.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, she was Julia McWilliams. That's how she was born. And didn't have British parents either. They had some money though. Her parents were pretty well to do. Her dad was a financier and her mom was an heiress of a paper company. So she grew up with a cook in the house. But it wasn't that that did it. As you'll see, she had quite a circuitous route to becoming the most famous cook in the world and had a pretty interesting life up into that point.

[Josh Clark]

She really did like a surprisingly interesting one. She was apparently a disaster in the kitchen and really didn't start cooking until I think she was in her 40s, maybe late 30s. I saw that the closest brush she had with being a gourmand and a host was when she was the chair of the refreshment committee for the senior prom and the fall dance one year at Smith College. And that's not really much of an exaggeration. That really probably is the closest she came to being a foodie before she got into cooking later on in life.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, she was a history student. She was going to be a writer. And like I said, she was tall. She was 6 foot 2, and she was athletic. She played basketball, she played tennis, she played golf. She graduated in 1934 and moved to New York and was, you know, said she wanted to be a writer. She was an advertising copywriter for Sloan's, which was a furniture company. So that was her first gig. But she was always a well liked person. She was very, like I said, gregarious. That wasn't just a TV Persona. Very, very sociable. People really seemed to like her her whole life. She was the life of the party. But she wasn't like just, you know, even though she loved her wine, she wasn't just some. Some souse at the party. She was apparently a pretty responsible human.

[Josh Clark]

Even early on, like, if she put a lampshade on her head, she remembered doing it the next day. It was on purpose.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

She also had a really great work ethic, which served her well throughout the rest of her career, but really from the outset helped her, because When World War II broke out, she's like, I want to become a spy. So she joined the oss, the Office of Strategic Services, the direct predecessor of the CIA, and worked directly under no less than Wild Bill Donovan, the guy who founded the oss.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, he was a general, and apparently she didn't, you know, have a whole lot of, like, direct interaction with him, but it was a very big gig for her. It was pretty menial work. Even though it was a job of, you know, responsibility that she was put in. It was kind of pre computer work. Like they needed human beings to do stuff that computers would do. So she would type up profiles on note cards of OSS officers just to keep sort of in the file cabinet before they had, you know, computers to do that kind of thing, along with several other women that she worked with. And like I said, she was charming. You said she had a great work ethic. And she got promoted, like, several times through that job.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and she actually was promoted to become a member of the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Center Section, which was tasked with coming up with a shark repellent because sharks were a problem for downed pilots, shipwrecked sailors. I think at least 20 sailors had been attacked by sharks since the beginning of the war. And this is only a couple years in. So they needed some sort of shark repellent that would keep sharks away, but that was also highly portable. Apparently, shark repellent did not exist to this point. And the shark repellent they came up with was so effective. It's still the shark repellent that's used today.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. They would also, you know, bump into sea mines that were supposed to hit German U boats and detonate those, which is no good for the cause or for the shark, obviously.

[Josh Clark]

Smile, you son of a.

[Charles W. Bryant]

So. Oh, man, what a line. So she was in the test kitchen essentially trying to come up with a shark repellent. Obviously had a lot of different tries on this. I think there were over 100 different attempts at this recipe. And what they came up with ultimately was a mix of decayed shark meat, organic acids, and what was the copper acetate was sort of the main ingredient. That capped it all off.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Copper acetate, they figured out, mixed with black dye, mimics the scent of a dead shark. And I guess sharks don't like to go near other dead sharks.

[Charles W. Bryant]

No. Who would?

[Josh Clark]

And they figured out how to basically make this into a little cake, you know, cake meaning like a little puck. Not a cake, like a birthday cake.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And you could attach it to your life vest and it would apparently keep sharks away for six to seven hours.

[Charles W. Bryant]

It's not bad.

[Josh Clark]

No. And she very facetiously, but also charmingly referred to that shark repellent as her first big recipe.

[Charles W. Bryant]

You say it like her.

[Josh Clark]

I. Okay. My first big recipe.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, that's perfect. That also sounds like half of your Halloween characters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it really was pretty bad. Wait, hold on. Let me do it nasally. My first big recipe.

[Charles W. Bryant]

We had one person that wrote in, said they couldn't get through it.

[Josh Clark]

I know. I felt kind of bad for him.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, that's right. From 44 to 45. I think these were her last two years in the OSS. She served as chief of the OSS registry and was sent to some pretty far away places. She went to China and Ceylon, which is modern day Sri Lanka, and had some really top notch security clearance. It was, you know, she really worked her way up the ladder in the oss.

[Josh Clark]

I saw that she had top secret, the highest level security clearance for that assignment, which is. It's just nuts. One thing that we'll see later on is that she's basically always considered herself a feminist, and that's a good example of that. Worked her way to the top of the OSS to have the highest possible security clearance during the 40s at a time when women were not really. I know that women worked a lot to support the war effort, but that seems like an unusual position for a woman at the time.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. All that, you know, Due to her hard work. One of the biggest things that happened, though, in the OSS was that she met her future husband, Paul Child. He was an officer. And I say that not, you know, in, like, oh, she met her husband there, so that's what matters. But she met her life partner and love of her life, who helped nurture her career and serve her. And they, by all accounts, they just seem like this really, really wonderful couple. Like the kind that you've always, you know, want to be in yourself, that kind of relationship, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I saw from basically every source that talked about it that they were the envy of their friends. Yeah. So, yeah, they stayed together. They were married for almost 50 years, from 1946 until Paul died in 1994.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. And the takeaway here is they landed in France at one point in 1948 as part of his assignment in the OSS. And when they were in France, and, you know, it's that sliding doors thing. Had they not gotten stationed in France, who knows if we ever would have gotten Julia Child.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Because he was a foodie and she wasn't. And he said, hey, I'm gonna take you out to a real French meal and see what you think. So he took her to this very famous restaurant. How do you pronounce that, Josh?

[Josh Clark]

La Couronne.

[Charles W. Bryant]

La Couronne, which is the crown. This is in the Normandy region along the river there in northern France. And it has been a restaurant since the 1340s, so it is legit. Some people claim it's the oldest inner in all of France.

[Josh Clark]

That's pretty cool. So they know what they're doing with French cuisine, which, by the way, if you don't really understand French cuisine, and I don't really claim to, I appreciate it, but it's not like that's what Yumi and I are making on Tuesday night at home yet, because I got her cookbook recently, and I'm very excited about it. But just to kind of like a little back of the envelope sketch of it. French cuisine. French cooking was the first cuisine in the world to be recognized as a world heritage by UNESCO. That's how distinct and important French cuisine is. And this is the moment when Julia Child was introduced to it. This lunch at La Couron.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. And as I understand it, French cuisine. I've watched a lot of Top Chef over the years.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Bryant]

All of it. In fact, French cuisine is. Is very humble, a very basic ingredients. It's not this fancy thing you think of French food. If you don't know Much about as being like super, super fancy. But it's actually very humble with very basic ingredients, but really quality ingredients. Really perfect technique. Real fats, real butters, real cream. That's French cuisine. Basically. It's like impeccable technique paired with a very simple, humble, but very well sourced ingredients.

[Josh Clark]

Well put.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I hope so.

[Josh Clark]

Made by Frenchies. You forgot that part.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, generally.

[Josh Clark]

So at this lunch in 1948, her first French meal, she had oysters, all right. Poulet fumet wine, which is the official sauvignon blanc. And Sol Meunier meuniere means Miller's wife. So like you were saying, humble, simple dishes. It's soul fish that's floured and made with capers, lemon, butter, parsley, and not much more. And she said that that first true culinary experience. There's a few quotes I think we should trade off with. Okay. She said that it was an opening up of the soul and spirit for me. That first meal, it changed her life, quite literally.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. She also said it was a kind of coming to Jesus. And what else?

[Josh Clark]

She said it was the most exciting meal of my life.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. And then that dish, that Dover sole, that, you know, it's fried fish, you flour some sole, fry it up in some butter, put some. I think the lemon and parsley and capers is part of any. What is it? The Meniere Munier. Munier, I think any Meunier. That's basically what it is. But a very simple dish. And that became one of her, you know, one of her big signature dishes.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you put a little ketchup on there, you're in hog heaven.

[Public.com Announcer]

Oh, man.

[Charles W. Bryant]

You and my daughter.

[Josh Clark]

So. Because she was moved by. She likes ketchup, huh?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, God, it's so annoying.

[Josh Clark]

She's very cool. We had a lot in common.

[Charles W. Bryant]

It gets her to eat some stuff she wouldn't normally eat. So that's good, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Like broccoli?

[Charles W. Bryant]

No, she doesn't put it on broccoli. She doesn't like broccoli. But she eats.

[Josh Clark]

I don't like broccoli either. Does she hate peas, too?

[Charles W. Bryant]

No, she loves peas. In fact, she eats frozen peas as a snack.

[Josh Clark]

Well, really, that's probably like. That distinction erases all of the similarities. Cause I hate peas so much.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I hate them so much, Chuck.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, she loves sushi now, which was a big surprise for us.

[Josh Clark]

That's awesome.

[Charles W. Bryant]

She just kind of started eating it when I got it because I think she likes stealing my food. So it started as a joke, and then now she's Just eating it.

[Josh Clark]

Do you remember what kind she eats? Is it like California rolls or nigir?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, man, like, yeah, nigiri. And just any kind of crazy roll I get, she'll eat.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that's awesome. That's great.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Soy sauce, though.

[Josh Clark]

You're not supposed to eat much soy sauce, if any with it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I don't care. Supposed to or not, I'm telling you what I like.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's fine. I'm just saying, like, she's actually. She could go to Japan right now and they wouldn't bat an eyelash at her for it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Hey, you think I don't remember our sushi episode?

[Josh Clark]

I didn't know we did the Black Hole episode twice.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's a good point. All right, so where are we? Julia Child has eaten this meal. It blew her mind because she was raised on American food, like you said, was not a foodie. And not only American food, but in recent years, post war American food, which is when stuff started to get really sort of mass produced and not very good, like very processed. And this French fruit just blew her mind.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So she wanted to understand how that could happen, right?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So she started taking cooking classes. And again, like, she's a total novice here. And I think she's again in her late 30s. So this is 1948. She's about 36 at this time, and her life has just changed. Like she's just figured out what she wants to do in life. So she starts taking classes, ends up enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu in 1951. That same year, she founds her own cooking school that she runs out of her own kitchen. With her, who would become long, long time collaborators, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertolt. And they founded the school called l' Cole des Trois Gourmand, which means the school of the three Gourmands.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. I didn't get this verified, but I did read somewhere that she was either the only woman in her class at Le Cordon Bleu or one of only two. Maybe it just, you know, back then and, you know, there's still a lot of sexism in chef's kitchens and restaurants. It's come a long way, but for many, many years, it was a profession of white men. I feel like that's something we say a lot on the show, but that's the case. Within 10 years of being at Le Cordon Bleu, she had sold her bestselling cookbook that you just bought, I guess. Did you get the og?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

What's the name of that.

[Josh Clark]

Mastering the Art of French cooking.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right, 700 plus pages. And then about 50 years after she enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu, her actual kitchen that she cooked in would be in the Smithsonian Museum of American History as a permanent exhibit.

[Josh Clark]

Pretty neat.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Pretty amazing.

[Josh Clark]

I say we take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about that cookbook that I got because it was groundbreaking to say the least.

[Charles W. Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles. Stuff you should know.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Support for the show today comes from public.com you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is, you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. It's all there, plus an industry leading 3.6% APY high yield cash account.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing.

[Public.com Announcer]

All investing involves risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Crypto trading provided by ZeroHash. Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. As winter approaches, make sure you set aside some time for self care now through December 2nd. Get great savings on personal care essentials when you shop in store or online. Buy two participating self care items and save $3. Shop for items like Tresemme Shampoo, Dove Shampoo, Dove Men's Care Body Wash, Dove Body Wash and Axe Shower gel and save $3 when you buy two or more items. Offer ends December 2nd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[NordicTrack Announcer]

The only thing between you and your best self is a start button this Black Friday Explore the world with NordicTrack. From the be from the peaks of Peru to the streets of Paris, every workout moves you somewhere new, with IFIT trainers leading the way. The equipment's amazing, smooth, quiet and those screens make it all feel real. Ready to start your next workout adventure with the number one treadmill brand in the U.S. shopnordictrack.com for Black Friday savings. NordicTrack. Train anywhere, explore everywhere.

[Josh Clark]

So, Chuck, you said you mentioned the Mastering the Art of French Cooking, this cookbook that Julia Child made with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertolt. And it was designed specifically for America, for the United States to introduce them to French cooking. And up to this point, cookbooks were basically like, take a little handful of flour and throw it at, you know, the elf that's helping you and put a little oil in there and fold it together and voila. Yeah. Like, they were not very helpful. And they assumed that you already had some sort of training, maybe apprenticeship, something like that. Mastering the Art of French Cooking did the exact opposite. Because having not that long ago been a total novice, Julia Child realized what people who are being exposed to this new way of cooking, new foods, new techniques, new ingredients, would need to know. And that was essentially everything. So they laid out everything that you would need to know to make these recipes in this cookbook. Training anyone who bought this cookbook on French cuisine.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. Like, you know, a recipe might have said, julienne these carrots and then put them in butter. And she would say, well, what if they don't know what that means? Here's how you julienne. And not only that, but here's the kind of knife that's ideal for that kind of thing.

[Josh Clark]

And the butter, too.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, and the butter. Oh, boy. She talked a lot about butter.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, she did.

[Charles W. Bryant]

But, like, here are the tools, here are the techniques, and here's how you do all of these for these 524 recipes. And it really just sort of. It broke down a wall in that it demystified, you know, sort of high class cooking. Cause she's like, this is something that you can do in your kitchen.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

You know, Sheboygan.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Oh, Sheboygan went nuts for this. Of course, all the men grew pencil thin mustaches and wore berets. The women all wore pencil pencil pants. Pencil pants, pencil skirts. Now, what are the little short, almost clam diggers? But they were much more svelte. I thought they were pencil something.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, I don't know. Maybe. I know what you're talking about, though. Culottes.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, I don't think those are French. I think those. Those don't. No country will claim those.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, the coach of the Falcons wears those, which is probably why I suck so bad.

[Josh Clark]

That is crazy.

[Charles W. Bryant]

So on the book where she's demystifying the process and talking about quality ingredients and quality fresh herbs and high quality butters and good meats, you would think that'd be like a slam dunk. Cause they would say, no one's ever done anything like this before. But it got rejected. Like most success stories in the book world, there's usually like, yeah, I got rejected by, like, eight publishers. And she got rejected quite a bit before she finally landed with an editor named Judith Jones at Alfred Knopf Publishing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So Judith Jones was already a legend by this time because just a few years before, she'd kind of discovered this obscure French book and recognized how important it was and had it translated in English and published it as the Diary of Anne Frank. So she was the editor who got the Diary of Anne Frank out to the English speaking world. So she already had a pretty great nose for this kind of thing. And she recognized that in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, not that it would be as important necessarily as the Diary of Anne Frank, but not necessarily that it would be that far behind as far as changing the world goes. Or at least the United States.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, man. We should do a short stuff on Judith Jones.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Can you imagine, like, walking into any publishing event, she's like, by the way, Diary of Anne Frank and the Art. What. The Mastery of French Cooking. What is it?

[Josh Clark]

Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. She would say it better than that. She'd say both. Those. Those were mine.

[Josh Clark]

Those are mine. We should also do an episode on Anne Frank sometime.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. I'm surprised we haven't, actually.

[Josh Clark]

I am a little bit, too.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, let's do that.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the other things that made the cookbook finally successful when it. When it did get published, and, boy, was it successful. I saw in one place that it spent five years on the bestseller list, but I couldn't find any other place to verify it still worth mentioning.

[Charles W. Bryant]

We were on there for two weeks.

[Josh Clark]

We sure were, buddy. I think more than that, actually.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I think it was two.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, let's say two and a half. We'll split the difference. But Frenchiness was very chic at the time.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. There was a French chef in the White House kitchen. Of course you had. You mentioned Audrey Hepburn and wearing those French clothes. French designers. Jackie Kennedy was as well.

[Josh Clark]

Pencil pants.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Pencil pants. That French wine was starting to be a thing at a time when, you know, again, now wine is so popular, but it wasn't that hugely popular in the United States at the time. So French wine kind of became a thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the first volume was so successful. A few years Later, I think nine years later, in 1970, they released volume two, which had another 257 recipes. And apparently you can spend up to 10K. Actually, I saw more than that to buy signed volumes one and two together of the first edition.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, they became Bibles for cooks in America. And again, it wasn't like people were already primed for this. This is what made people primed to consider cookbooks, Bibles in their kitchen in the United States.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. And you know Judith Jones, also the Bible.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. She helped write it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

So everyone's probably saying, like, yeah, this book's great, but what about television? Because that's where I remember her from my childhood. Here's where we get to TV. Because she moved around Europe during the 1950s with her husband Paul, came back to the states in the 60s, I believe they had come back before on some, I don't know if you want to say, visits, maybe some forced visits, when her husband Paul was called for the blacklisted McCarthy hearings. So that was a thing. I don't think he got in trouble, though, Right?

[Josh Clark]

No. They were friends with a woman who was a suspected communist in the government and they wanted to know about her.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Right. So they brought him in. But they ultimately landed for good in Cambridge, Mass. And when she was promoting her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I finally got it. She went on PBS at WGBH there in Boston for a book review show called I've Been Reading Ellipses. And she was just doing a little demonstration on how to make an omelette. She brought everything with her. Her little hot plate and saute pan, her tools and her eggs. And everyone loved it. Everyone was like writing into the station saying, like, this woman that you had on cooking that omelette was funny and gregarious, and we just loved her. And we also learned something. And so they said, hey, we should give you your own TV show.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Within a year, the French Chef, her first cooking show, was on the air on wgbh. And this is at a time where cooking shows were not a thing. A lot of people say the fact that cooking shows are so widespread today, you can essentially thank Julia Child for that, too.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. And.

[Josh Clark]

And thank the French Chef. It had a 10 year run. And because it was a PBS joint, other PBS stations around the United States picked it up. It made its way to Europe and the UK via the BBC. It became a really big show very quickly. And Julia Child became the most widely recognized chef in the entire world, at the very least in the United States during this period, the early 60s to the early 70s, you know, we had.

[Charles W. Bryant]

A TV show for a year.

[Josh Clark]

We did, and we became the most widely known kooks in the world, if not at least the United States.

[Charles W. Bryant]

One thing I'm learning is that to compare our career to Julia Childs, it's humbling experience.

[Josh Clark]

You were a spy for that little while, or you pretended you were at parties.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. She won an Emmy and a Peabody Award for that show. And this is just a little feather in her cap. I think it was the first TV show in the United States to feature closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing community.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Open captioning. I saw where it was for everybody. Everyone read it, but, yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, is that what closed captioning means?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Where you have to select it to see it? Yeah, I didn't know that either, so I guess it was open captioning, but, yes, that didn't exist on TV until then.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Man, I'm just learning so much because of you, my friend.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, right back at you, buddy.

[Charles W. Bryant]

So, you know, the TV show was a big hit because she was just so lovable, and she wasn't patronizing. And she, you know, had her closing phrase, bon appetit. And she would just. She would get in there and get dirty and make mistakes. And, like, she would want people to leave the, you know, the editors to leave the mistakes in there. She's like, that's part of cooking.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's a big deal. Because it also not only made her approachable, it made the people watching who were trying these recipes too realize that she wasn't infallible, and therefore they didn't need to worry about not being infallible, too. Like, mistakes are part of it. You just learn from them.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But, like, that was. She made it way more approachable to people by doing that.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. And I also read that this is from, I believe, the women who made the documentary about her, Julia, which is really, really good.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That another reason that she left the mistakes in was especially for women because she felt like women felt like they needed to always feel bad when they messed something up in life, period. But especially in the kitchen. And she was like, no, it's okay to mess up. And while you're in that kitchen. It was kind of an opposition, in a way, to the feminist movement at the time, which is like, get out of the kitchen. Julia Child was saying, like, no, like, get in that kitchen and own it and cook for you and learn to make stuff that you want to make and not just like, maybe what Your husband and kids are yelling at you to make, like, take over the kitchen as something that you love doing, and that's for yourself.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I saw Bustle magazine describe her as a bamf, which I'm not familiar with, but they. Based on context, it seemed like it was a good thing.

[Charles W. Bryant]

What does that stand for? All right, well, Josh just told me off air what it stood for. I agree.

[Josh Clark]

My joke. So you mentioned mistakes. There's actually some famous mistakes that she made. One was she was pulling a cake from the oven, and apparently it fell flat on camera. She said something like, well, that didn't work out. Can you say it?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Well, that didn't work out.

[Josh Clark]

Very nice. And then everybody knows that she once dropped an entire raw turkey on the floor on camera, left this in, picked the turkey up off the floor, kind of brushed it off, and put it in the oven and baked it like nothing ever happened. Apparently.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I would do that.

[Josh Clark]

Well, yeah. We did a whole episode on the five second rule. Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

But I mean, for a raw thing like that, I know it sounds gross, but you can wash that thing off and bake it and it's fine.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. That you don't have a cooking show.

[Charles W. Bryant]

No, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

So, yes. The fact that she did this. Well, I should say not the fact, because that's actually a urban legend, a rumor. It's. Something did happen, but it morphed into, like, the most spectacular version of itself.

[Charles W. Bryant]

So it wasn't a turkey.

[Josh Clark]

No, it wasn't. Snopes dated it back to at least 1989, but she once. The closest they could find was that she was flipping a potato pancake and flipped it out of the pan onto the countertop and it crumbled. And she said, like, I think she said, when you're in the kitchen, nobody can see you. And she pushed it back together and put it back in the pan and cooked it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, I love that. Because that's how it goes when you're cooking in your house, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You. You. I've never not flipped a potato pancake onto the countertop.

[Charles W. Bryant]

She had, you know, a string of successful cooking shows after that first one, all the way from the 70s through the 80s into the 90s, I believe. She had 12 Emmy nominations total and seven wins. And by the time she got into the 1990s, they were shooting that show in her home kitchen in Cambridge. Her husband Paul designed this kitchen that was like, part kitchen, part TV studio, and just so they could spend time at home. And he was heavily involved, apparently, at times he was on the floor with cue cards. And he helped design the original patch for the three Gourmands when she worked with the other two chefs. And so they were really sort of a power couple working together to enrich her career.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Chuck, I say we take our second break and come back and talk about why Julia Child is so beloved.

[Charles W. Bryant]

All right, we'll be right back.

[Josh Clark]

Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles. Stuff you should know.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Support for the show today comes from public.com you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is, you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. It's all there. Plus an industry leading 3.6% APY high yield cash account.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing.

[Public.com Announcer]

All investing involves risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Crypto trading provided by ZeroHash Complete disclosures [e-mail] Disclosures.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. As winter approaches, make sure you set aside some time for self care. Now through December 2nd. Get great savings on personal care essentials when you shop in store or online. Buy two participating self care items and save $3. Shop for items like Tresemme Shampoo, Dove Shampoo, Dove Men's Care Body Wash, Dove Body Wash and Axe Shower gel. And save $3 when you buy two or more items. Offer ends December 2nd. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[NordicTrack Announcer]

The only thing between you and your best self is a start button this Black Friday Explore the world with NordicTrack. From the peaks of Peru to the streets of Paris, every workout moves you somewhere new with ifit trainers leading the way. The equipment's amazing, smooth, quiet and those screens make it all feel real. Ready to start your next workout adventure with with the number one treadmill brand in the U.S. shop NordicTrack.com for Black Friday savings. NordicTrack train anywhere. Explore everywhere.

[Charles W. Bryant]

All right. Why was Julia Child so beloved? I feel like We've already made a case, but let's talk about it some more.

[Josh Clark]

All right. I mean, we've covered some of it, but not all. A big one is that she introduced fresh ingredients to America. This is really kind of. We hit on this. But it's worth saying this is a time when people were using canned soup as an ingredient, not just the canned soup. Right. So everything was very processed, and she insisted on fresh ingredients. Like, there was no way around it. You had to use these, or else these things weren't going to turn out very well. But at the same time, she also said, like, you need to let the food stand on its own. Like, yes, you want herbs, but you want the herbs to compliment it. You don't want the herbs to cover up. You don't want to use a bunch of a. One on your soul. Munier. Like, you. You let the thing stand on its own. You let the fish taste like fish. Like, that was kind of like a. Like a sub text, I guess, of introducing fresh ingredients, teaching people to enjoy the thing that they were cooking rather than the thing that they were cooking. Plus, again, A1 sauce.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. And that technique, you know, if you cook a piece of fish perfectly, you don't need anything more than a little salt and pepper and butter and maybe a squirt of lemon, even tilapia. Yeah. But despite all this, she was not a food snob. She was very approachable. She loved In N Out burger. Um, she used Hellman's mayo in her tuna salad. Uh, apparently she like Costco hot dogs. Even.

[Josh Clark]

I. I don't blame her.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I've never had one. What's.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, they're great. They're like a.

[Charles W. Bryant]

What's different, though? Isn't it just a hot dog?

[Josh Clark]

Um, yes, it's just a hot dog. Okay. But do you know how every once in a while, your school lunch would give you something that you're like, this is amazing.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's like, their hot dogs, they have their own taste, and it's an amazing taste, but they are on par with, like, a school lunch type hot dog.

[Charles W. Bryant]

In the best way. I got you.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. People go to Costco just to eat the hot dogs. And the pizza's not bad, too, but it's worth going to just for the hot dogs, which technically, in a weird way, gives it one Michelin star.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Well, you know, buddy, our friend Joe Garden, a friend of the show, former writer of the Onion. Joe lives there in Woodstock, and he posts pictures on his Instagram eating those Costco hot dogs.

[Josh Clark]

See, he Knows what's going on.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Joe always knows what's up.

[Josh Clark]

He's got his finger on the pulse of Julia Child.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So she also reintroduced America to wine. At the time, Americans were drinking the stuff that's now on the bottom shelf of grocery stores.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, the jug wine.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So not only did she reintroduce America to wine, she normalized it by doing the same thing she did with mistakes. She drank wine on camera as part of her show. On some episodes, apparently she would start to get a little tipsy. She never got drunk or sloppy or anything like that. But the fact that she was drinking this wine and by the way, pretty good wine, made Americans realize what they were drinking was just bottom of the barrel stuff. And let's see what else we've got. And as a result, California wine became super dominant, essentially in part from her normalizing it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, I think that happened in the 70s when California started making good wine on par with the French, according to everyone but the French. She also liked beer, and this sounds very gross to me, but she enjoyed something called an upside down martini, which is you swap the vermouth parts in the gin. So it's much more vermouth than gin.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's also lower abv, so you don't get quite as trashed as quickly. Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

But man, that's kind of one of the good parts about a martini.

[Josh Clark]

Right? For sure. She also had a really great sense of humor, apparently. Another long standing rumor that sometimes fans would confront her with. They were like, I remember that time you drank wine directly out of the bottle on one of your episodes. And that apparently never happened either. Again, it was just the extreme version of what she was actually doing, which is drinking wine out of a glass. But she said, I, I would never do that on television.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. And, you know, I opened with the Dan Aykroyd bit. If you didn't know what I was doing. It was a very famous SNL skit from back in the day in 78, where Dan Aykroyd portrayed Julia Child, where he cut the dickens out of his finger and blood's just going everywhere. Of course, they had the blood pack just squirting blood all over everything. And he was a big fan, apparently. And there was a real incident, I think about a month before that sketch where she was working with Jacques Pepin on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show where she had cut herself pretty bad. And I guess that was the inspiration for that.

[Josh Clark]

She also apparently was very proud of that sketch and thought it was hilarious. So she kept a videotape of him, would show people sometimes, and then at a really particularly fun, enthusiastic dinner party, she might act it out, like word for word by heart.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Can you imagine?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I would have loved to have seen that.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. Incredible.

[Josh Clark]

She was also super charming and funny on TV appearances, but particularly Letterman. You can watch compilations of her on Letterman. She could hold her own against Letterman, no problem.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, you sent me that one clip. I actually think I remember seeing that in high school. But Letterman was, you know, I love Letterman. He was. I felt like he was not being too kind about the food.

[Josh Clark]

Sometimes he's cranky.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. So I felt a little bad for her in that she was serving him kind of a version in this one of a tartare. What do you call it? Yeah, Of a steak tartare, but it was with ground beef and melted cheese. And he just sort of kept making fun of it and then he spit it out. And at the end, I think she said something that kind of made me feel bad. She was like, well, maybe next time I can serve something you like, or something like that.

[Josh Clark]

Well, she used an acetylene torch to melt the cheese, which is pretty hilarious. I had the impression that they didn't have the equipment she needed to make a burger, so she made the most out of it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, interesting. Well, using a torch is very commonplace in kitchens now, but Dave made it. I guess back then it was unusual because Dave thought it was the weirdest thing he'd ever seen.

[Josh Clark]

For sure.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

One other thing we mentioned too, that we have to touch on is she was known for her love of butter. She taught America to cook all through the decades where America started to become health conscious and fat free and all that stuff. And so she would become criticized for pushing things like real butter on people. And she would say things like, well, if you're afraid of butter, use cream instead, which is at least as bad as butter. And her whole thing was like, yes, you shouldn't just be gorging yourself on butter all the time, but if you're going to make a meal, use the real butter and enjoy every bite of it. Like, that's the point is enjoying every single bite of this stuff, not enjoying every single bite until you start eating mindlessly. Because you eat this 10 times a day, right?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And she quoted Oscar Wilde, which I thought was great, but she said everything in moderation, including moderation.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's a great quote.

[Josh Clark]

I think so, too.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I got a little kitchen tip. If you're health conscious and you're thinking like, I Don't want to use a lot of butter. I use olive oil or whatever. Use that olive oil. But you can also throw in like one pad of butter in with that olive oil. You can mix those two things and it's great. And it adds just a little unctuousness that olive oil won't give you.

[Josh Clark]

I love that.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And don't forget the A1.

[Charles W. Bryant]

My friend Clay still loves that stuff, so.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's classy.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, it's very specific taste. I love that tart, tangy A1. I just don't use it.

[Josh Clark]

So, Chuck, we talked about volumes one and two of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. We should say, in addition to the string of successful TV shows, she had a bunch of cookbooks, but These were her two classics, and put together 781 recipes between the two of them. But if you go onto food sites and you look up something like Julia Child's best recipes, some of them kind of percolate to the top where you're like, you see them on just about every list. And I think that we should go over a few of those starting now.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. If you've ever seen the movie Julia and Julia, did you see that?

[Josh Clark]

I haven't. I heard it was great.

[Charles W. Bryant]

It's really good. That is the story of a woman named Julie Powell, who I think was sort of felt lost in life and wanted to dive into this project of cooking every recipe. I think she had a blog or something, maybe. It was a really good movie, though. Amy Adams played Julie Powell, who very sadly passed away a few years ago at the young age of 49.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wow.

[Charles W. Bryant]

And Meryl Streep. I. I don't know if she won the Academy Award. I know she was nominated for playing Julia Child. So it sort of tells those two stories together. And it's a wonderful movie from Nora Ephron. But in that movie, she's cooking all the recipes. And one, the big, big one from the book that she was most well known for, that she really wanted to master out of the gate was the.

[Josh Clark]

Boeuf bourguignon, which is essentially a beef stew with red wine. But again, you take some deceptively simple ingredients and put them together in the right way, it's going to produce a smash hit dish. And that's what beef bourguignon is.

[Charles W. Bryant]

What else?

[Josh Clark]

Quiche Lorraine, which everybody knows you can get quiche lorraine at the grocery store by the slice.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because Julia Child introduced it to the United States with her cookbook.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's Right, Very. Again, very simple, clean recipe. Bacon, onions, egg cream, a few cheeses, some spices, of course, eggs.

[Josh Clark]

Just real quick about bacon. Remember I said that she didn't want to cover up the taste, she wanted to let things to stand on their own.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

One of the things she talks about mastering the art of French cooking was that with American bacon, you have to blanch it first to remove the smoky flavor. So you actually lightly boil it for a little bit until you get the smoky flavor off and then you start to use bacon. Which I think is actually a huge tip for a lot of people out there, believe me, if they don't like.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Smoky flavors, I guess or.

[Josh Clark]

But the problem is the bacon smoke smokiness is going to take over. Like that's all you're going to taste. Whereas you're not. If you can get rid of that smoky flavor, then you're in. You're in hog heaven, as she always said.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I don't mind. I like that applewood and also cook it in the oven. I think that is the best way to cook bacon.

[Josh Clark]

Agreed.

[Charles W. Bryant]

On a baking sheet with the little.

[Josh Clark]

Elf laying on it to keep it flat.

[Charles W. Bryant]

What about a cassoulet? That's a very classic French dish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's pork and beans, poultry, sausage. There's a dark brown crust on the top of the whole thing. She had a great quote about that.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah. Cassoulet, that best of bean feast is everyday fare for a peasant, but ambrosia for a gastronome. Though its ideal consumer is a 300 pound blockingback who's been splitting firewood nonstop for the last 12 hours on a sub zero day in Manitoba.

[Josh Clark]

And like, if you look at pictures of the cassoulette, it's like, I want one so bad.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, it looks really good.

[Josh Clark]

And what about chocolat mousse?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yeah, that's another one that apparently she made a mistake on air. It didn't set correctly. And you know that moose has to set. But good chocolate mousse is out of this world.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I couldn't find the episode, but apparently a 1992 WaPo article mentioned it. But supposedly it is surprisingly easy to make. And the outcome is just amazing. I saw light, airy, silky smooth, says the endless meal. And it's just a few ingredients including rum, chocolate, coffee. And she teaches you these techniques of how to make it, how to fold it, how to whip the egg whites and just get it just right.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Yum.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Every time I hear chocolate mousse, I think of chocolat mousse from Top Secret. Oh, yeah, he's great.

[Charles W. Bryant]

This is a good movie. RIP Val Kilmer.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

[Charles W. Bryant]

And then, of course, French onion soup. I know that you and I both talked on the air about our love for French onion soup. If it's on a menu, there's two things in my life. If it's on a menu, I will get it. One is French onion soup, and the other is a French dip sandwich.

[Josh Clark]

You love the French?

[Charles W. Bryant]

Two of my favorite things. And it's not on, you know, the most menus, so when I see it, I order it. And that French onion soup, crusty on top, and that delicious oniony broth and the bread, it's just one of life's treats.

[Josh Clark]

Have you ever made it?

[Charles W. Bryant]

I've never made it myself. I should try that.

[Josh Clark]

It's really good. All it takes is patience. It's not hard, but it takes a while for everything to come together. It takes a while to, like, genuinely caramelize the onions. But, man, it is so worth it. It's really good.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Don't you just get one of those Lipton packets?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, out of the can. That's how I do it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Well, you take one of those Lipton packets and you put it in a turkey burger. That's what you do.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's supposed to be pretty good. I've not had that. I found a recipe for a roast that has a packet of au jus, you know, the dry au jus packet, a packet of ranch, dried ranch mix, pepperoncini, and maybe one other thing in a roast. And you put it in a slow cooker, and it's supposed to be a knockout dish. And I can't wait to try it.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, man. You gotta watch Julia and Julie and Julia and then start cooking that stuff and let me know how it goes.

[Josh Clark]

Okay? Yeah, I definitely plan to make some stuff, so I'll let you know for sure.

[Charles W. Bryant]

All right. Sadly, we're at the end of this episode. And Julia Child met the end of her life at the almost age of 92. I think she was just a couple of days short of her 92nd birthday when she passed away at her home at the time in Montecito, California, in August 2004 of liver failure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Alain Ducasse, who I think is the only three star Michelin chef in the world, said today the entire community of cooks is sad and feels like orphans.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

I know. Isn't that sad?

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's brutal. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So she's actually buried in one of the more interesting places I've ever heard of. Had you heard of the Neptune Memorial Reef before?

[Charles W. Bryant]

No. That sounds kind of cool, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So they took her cremated remains, mixed it together with some concrete and formed a headstone out of it, put it underwater. I can't remember how deep it is, but this is an acre long underwater cemetery off a Key Biscayne in Florida. On the headstone, again, made from her cremated remains, there's a plaque with a knife and a fork inscribed on it and a quote from her. Fat gives things flavor.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I love it. Yep, that's pretty fun for a scuba diver to see. I bet.

[Josh Clark]

For sure. So, RIP Julia Childen, thanks for everything.

[Charles W. Bryant]

That's right. Our berets are off to you.

[Josh Clark]

Let's see. We talked about Julia Child. You took off your beret. Yeah. That means it's time for listener mail.

[Charles W. Bryant]

All right, so this is from Nathan Winger in Carmel, Indiana. Nathan went through the trouble of calculating how many Olympic pools deep and how many Big Macs we are.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Bryant]

As a show. He says, I love nerd math. So I did some calculations using my trusty search engine, I found out There are over 2,600 episodes of Stuff you should know. We're just gonna use 2600 to make it simple. He says. Okay, all told, the Average length is 45 minutes, which makes me feel good because that's what we're shooting for. Yeah, he said, that seems low though, so I'm gonna adjust it up to 55. I think these days it's 45. They used to be longer, so that's probably what he's witnessing. Okay, at average conversational speed, humans speak about 130 words a minute. So you guys do a great podcast. And his prose have honed your conversational skills to not be fast nor slow. So I'm going to stick with that median figure.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks.

[Charles W. Bryant]

The average number of letters per English word is five. But since you often talk about subjects that require words like spooktacular and hinterket, I'm going to up your average to 6. And finally, we're going to convert your speech into inches based on the size of a standard size 12 font, which is 0.167 inches. I love this stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Bryant]

So based on all that, we can get inches per word. 1 inches per minute of speech. 130 inches per episode. 7,150 total episode inches. 18,590,000 in total episode feet, which is 1.549167ft. That equates. So one episode of stuff you should know equates to the depth of 238,333 Olympic swimming.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Charles W. Bryant]

A bit short of Josh's estimate of 10 to 15 million. And for the sake of transparency and chuck's liking, that is 7.745 and change. Million Big Macs at an average of 2.5 inches per burger.

[Josh Clark]

Man. Who is this?

[Charles W. Bryant]

This is Nathan Winger. Or Winger. Okay, I'd say Wenger.

[Josh Clark]

I think it's Winger in the tradition of Kip Winger.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Well, it's we though. So that's Nathan. He's in Carmel, Indiana. That's a lot of work to go through, Nathan.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Nathan, I could tell you're a true fan with that little trusty search engine aside. I caught that.

[Charles W. Bryant]

I love it.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you for doing that. I always wanted to know how many Big Macs we are and Olympic pools. So thanks a lot Nathan. And Happy Thanksgiving to you. And Happy Thanksgiving to all of you you out there, including our Canada friends. And if you want to send us an email like Nathan did, send it off to stuffpodcastiheartradio.com.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Stuff you should know.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Charles W. Bryant]

For more podcasts my heart radio visit.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever.

[Charles W. Bryant]

You listen to your favorite show. Foreign. Support for the show today comes from public.com you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto, it's all there. Plus an industry leading 3.6% APY high yield cash account.

[Charles W. Bryant]

Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing.

[Public.com Announcer]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Flu season is here and our pharmacies have you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans. Plus it's cough and cold season and now through December 2nd. Stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Mucinex Cold and Flu Kickstarter, Mucinex Fast Max Products, Vicks Daquil and Nyquil combo pack, Alka Seltzer plus also airborne and Afrin offers end December 2nd. Restrictions apply and offers may vary by location. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

[Prime Sports Announcer]

Black Friday game day is coming to prime with an epic day of live sports. Black Friday football is back with the Chicago Bears taking on the Philadelphia Eagles at 3pm Eastern followed by an Emirates NBA cup double, Bucs Knicks at 7pm and Mavs Lakers at 10pm and the whole day starts with the Capital One Skins game as four elite PGA golfers meet with $4 million on the line. Black Friday game day the Capital One Skins game at 9am Bears Eagles NFL action at 3pm and the final night of Emirates NBA cup group play with Bucs Knicks at 7 and Mavs Lakers at 10 only on Prime.

[Charles W. Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.