Internationally recognized biographer Noel Riley Fitch offers some food for thought in “Sharing Julia Child’s Appetite for Life,” the title of her keynote address at the Library’s recent Dinner in the Library event now available for viewing on UCTV’s The Library Channel.
Fitch gives a revealing look into how Child’s passion for French cuisine made her a culinary icon to generations of Americans. Julia came of age in what Fitch jokingly called “The Golden Age of Food Processing,” when Julia, as a student at Smith College, would ravenously consume jelly-filled donuts, brownies with chocolate sauce, and other “tasty junk food.” At 6’3,” said Fitch, Julia was always hungry but was not all that interested in food per se. It would be many years before Julia became interested in French cuisine, laboring for a decade on her first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which launched her as a culinary icon.
Fitch’s book, Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child, was the only biography exclusively authorized by Julia Child; her other subjects include fellow Paris expats Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach and Anais Nin.
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