Julia Child's progressive politics
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2019 piece by Helen Rosner of the New Yorker.
The public Julia Child—Julia Child the culinary titan—looms so large that she often eclipses the person who existed outside the kitchen. Her private sides emerge, in part, in her biographies, especially those written by her nephew, Alex Prud’homme, as well as in her own voluminous correspondence, much of which is archived at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library. In a new volume, “Julia Child: The Last Interview,” a collection of conversations with journalists from throughout her life, the Child on display is quick and insouciant, as one expects her to be, pronouncing on methods for turning mushrooms and the pleasure of making one’s own vinaigrette. But in nearly four decades her voice evolves, revealing a steadily growing mastery in matters beyond the kitchen: the craft of making public television, for example, and theories of education and academia. A part of Julia that stands out in the volume (for which I wrote the introduction), one that I hadn’t previously appreciated, is her passionate political engagement.
