Julie & Julia Stirs Up Nostalgia And Leaves Me Wanting More

Last night, sitting on my favourite chair with my feet up on my red stability ball (makes a great hassock!), I slipped the DVD into my laptop and watched Julie & Julia – at last.

This morning,  I googled "Julie and Julia" for some material about the film, and up popped the Toronto Globe and Mail's review by Warren Clements, titled "Julie & Julia will leave you hungry for more."

That's an interesting coincidence: this morning, as I tried to think of a title for this review, reliving how I felt after watching it, the impression that kept coming to mind was that it had left me wanting more – not more of the movie, not more food: more of Julia Child herself.

As an amateur cook who had the nerve to open a French restaurant in a small Ontario town in 1972, I didn't really need a French cookbook in English as a source of recipes: after all, I was French-speaking, I had access to "real" French cookbooks, and I had lived in Montreal most of my life where food is practically a religion. 

In Montreal, as a downtown office worker I had eaten lunch in French restaurants nearly every weekday. (I remember my delight when cervelle au beurre noir (brains in brown butter) was one of the daily specials.) Socially, I had been invited to French and Belgian friends' homes for dinner regularly where I would watch as the paupiettes de veau and the endives au gratin were being prepared.

But mostly I had lived in France for several months in the late Sixties (where I boarded with a French family) and so I had experienced directly the whole French food thing.

Still, Julia Child was a constant presence in that little restaurant, in 1972. Yes, we cooked some of her recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking and later, when From Julia Child's Kitchen came out, we used her recipe for whole wheat bread word for word in the restaurant. (See my earlier post about this.)

But that's not the real reason that Julia Child was important to the success of the restaurant. It was because the customers had read Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or seen The French Chef  TV series on PBS, or heard about them, maybe even cooked from them. My puritanical anglosaxon clientele had become aware that French food existed, and so when I opened the Auberge du Petit Prince in 1972, I feel that Julia had paved the way for it to become the instant hit that it was.

Like the movie last night, she had left them wanting more.

"From Julia Child's Kitchen": A Book Review, a Bit of Bread Nostalgia, and a Chocolate Substitution Table

BY THE WAY I keep referring to this book you may have guessed that From Julia Child's Kitchen is one of my favourites. In fact, it has been – ever since it came out, in 1975.

I had been in the restaurant business for a mere three years by then, and we were looking for something to distinguish our restaurant even more than it already was – by then it was already rated as one of the best in Canada – and we found it in Julia's Basic Rye or Whole Grain Bread Recipe on page 454.

We made the whole grain version fresh every day, and served it alongside an excellent crusty loaf supplied by a local Portuguese bakery.

That whole grain bread is as good today as it was then, in spite of all the new books, methods, recipes and websites dedicated to what is now called artisan bread.

There's an excellent review of From Julia's Kitchen on amazon.com (you can access it by clicking on the picture, above) and I won't even try to improve on it, except to add that I think it's the only place in the world where you can find complete directions on how to substitute cocoa for chocolate.

Here it is:

SUBSTITUTIONS: WHEN YOUR RECIPE CALLS FOR ONE KIND OF CHOCOLATE AND YOU HAVE ANOTHER

When you want unsweetened baking chocolate and you have cocoa:

For each ounce of chocolate required, blend 3 level tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder with 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, shortening or cocoa butter (buy it at the pharmacy).

When you want semisweet baking chocolate and you have cocoa:

Proceed as above, but add 3 tablespoons sugar.

When you want semisweet chocolate and have only unsweetened chocolate:

To make 6 ounces of semisweet chocolate, use 2 ounces unsweetened chocolae, 7 tablespoons sugar, and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, shortening or cocoa butter.

When your recipe calls for a name-brand "sweet chocolate", like German's, Dutch, Eagle, or a French brand:

Use regular semisweet baking chocolate, either just as it is, or enrich it with a little unsweetened chocolate – 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate for every 3 or 4 ounces of semisweet.

TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

1. Never hesitate to substitute cocoa for chocolate by using the above guidelines: these recipes for unsweetened chocolate substitute, bittersweet chocolate substitute and sweet chocolate substitute work really well for any recipe calling for either product. Sometimes, the taste is even improved, especially if you use butter instead of shortening or cocoa butter.

2.  Did you know that you can also substitute chocolate for cocoa powder? Hot chocolate can be made with practically any type of chocolate. It melts faster if you chop it first and it gets nice and frothy if you mix it with a hand blender. Adjust sugar to taste.

3. Speaking of cocoa powder, forget about buying hot chocolate mix! Why pay cocoa price for sugar and a bunch of chemicals? I think the reason people buy that junk is because folks have forgotten how to use cocoa – a technique which my generation learned at our mother's knee. Here it is:

-- While the milk is heating, mix the cocoa and the sugar in your cup with a spoonful of cold milk. (The proportions are 1 TB cocoa and 2 TB sugar per cup.)

-- Mix to a paste with a spoon.

-- Pour in the hot milk gradually, stirring constantly.

If you own a hand blender, perform the above operation in the blender's cup, then whir the mixture till you get a nice froth.

Serve in a beautiful mug with mini marshmallows on top – better yet, a dollop of whipped cream – maybe a sprinkling of cocoa or cinnamon, or try some chili powder.

4. There's cocoa, and then there's cocoa. Check out this Cook's Illustrated article about the different kinds of cocoa powder, and how they rated in a taste test.

5. If you're looking for a substitute for chocolate because of health reasons, carob powder is all there is... it's definitely inferior and you sure won't get the same buzz!

6. Recent recipes are likely to call for a certain percentage of cacao; in that case try to approximate it by using the above table as a guide.

I find the above especially useful because I always have cocoa powder around; I buy it in large quantity at the bulk store – it keeps better than chocolate and there's no temptation to eat it!
   
Print out this list so it'll be handy when you run out of chocolate and all you have is cocoa.

Boeuf Bourguignon, the Other Julia Child Version

AS PROMISED, here's the link to the version of Boeuf Bourguignon that appeared in From Julia Child's Kitchen in 1975.

The differences are subtle, but the instructions are much more precise.

In addition, even though in the earlier recipe she wrote that boiled potatoes are the classic accompaniment, she never mentions them in the new recipe. As she writes in the introduction to the "Plain Brown Stew" master recipe: "Although steamed potatoes are in the French tradition, I prefer rice or noodles with my stew." She then goes on to leave them out of the recipe, entirely.

Be that as it may, you really should try it with the potatoes I suggest in my own recipe.

What do YOU think?

The Julia Child Boeuf Bourguignon Recipes

Did you notice the plural? 

YES, there is more than one Julia Child Boeuf Bourguignon recipe.

THERE'S the one published in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I, in 1961, and there's the one she published in 1975, in her lesser-known book, From Julia Child's Kitchen, which she wrote without the partipation of either of her previous co-authors, Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle.

IN THE latter book, she has a section on beef stews, and Boeuf Bourguignon is just one of six stew recipes.

• Click here for the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
• Click here for the version from From Julia's Kitchen.

BON APPÉTIT!