Julia Child "got it" decades ago?
I received a copy of the old "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" vol. II by Julia Child and Simone Beck for Christmas. I read through the chapter on breads with considerable interest, wondering what was being said forty years ago. I was amazed at how recent the exposition sounded; it covered lots of things I've run across fairly recently for making "Artisan style" breads. Its advice includes:
- very long slow cool rises (many many hours)
- overnight refrigeration for more convenient schedule
- high hydration (>80%) doughs
- importance of slicing with lame
- hotter oven (450° rather than the typical American 350°)
- importance of baking stone (and simulating with qarry tiles)
- importance of steam in first few minutes (and simulating with a pan of water and a hot stone)
- thorough cooling before cutting
- using flour with lower gluten
- letting wet dough form on its own (autolyse)
- rising in relatively straight-sided containers
- shaping rise on folded canvas (picture is clearly a simulated couché)
- flipping board for transfer from shaping rise
- encouraging a gluten "skin" to hold a loaf's shape
- transferring shaped dough to baking by sliding off a large flat board (a peel simulated with plywood)
It feels to me like finding a "lost precursor"; although it doesn't use some of the terminology that's now common, and it offers substitutes for tools that are no longer hard to obtain, its substance sounds pretty current. Are we just now finally catching up with and surpassing advice that's been out there for decades? Is Julia referenced as a source anywhere? Any guesses why I was completely unaware of Julia's contribution?
My favourite of favourite teachers, I have been a home baker for many many years, and have always found if Julia tells you how to do some thing it turns out as it should, it may take her 6 pages to go through the whole process, but it will be well worth the read.
If you can get Volume one that is also good.......
To me she was far superior than all the modern cooks, chefs, bakers etc.....
qahtan
I got the mass-market paperback edition at a yard sale years and years ago for next to nothing. I still don't remember any bread recipes because I wasn't doing bread at the time. I gave it away more than ten years ago.
Anyway, it's interesting to watch her french baguette videos with Danielle Forestier in light of what you said here. She did seem quite interested in the use of common quarry tiles in the oven for baking. I guess the rest was old hat to her.
Julia had a great teacher: Raymond Calvel. She writes in her book, My Life In France, that it took her two years and around 184 pounds of flour to try all the recipes for "real" French bread, but she still came up short.
She eventually read about Professor Calvel, wrote him, and went to Paris to meet and learn from him:
"In the course of one afternoon, Professor Calvel showed us what we'd been doing wrong, and taught us all about making proper French bread. Every step in his process was different from anything we had heard of, read about, or seen." [p 280]
Julia Child was one of many who learned from Professor Calvel, whose techniques and teachings essentially saved the French baking industry from itself. Dan DiMuzio offers a good history on bread in his book, Bread Baking, an Artisan's Perspective.
Calvel's good advice and influence have been around for years. He wrote the forward to Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread, first published in 2004.
Julia had an enormous direct impact on American home cooking, and her indirect impact continues. I'm sure that those indirectly "taught" by her are often unaware of her importance. Her very detailed instructions were essential for her audience which, unlike the French, was not exposed to the basic concepts and techniques of French cuisine from childhood. It's as if, in one long lesson, she took us from pre-school through culinary school.
I first made French bread and croissants from Mastering the Art ... Vol.I in 1974 or 1975. I'm in good company. Peter Reinhart describes his "bread epiphany" as occurring when he was exposed to another seminarian's French bread made from Julia's instructions in From Julia's Kitchen (Crust&Crumb, pp. 7-8.).
David
Such an amazing lady! I watched Julie and Julia a couple of nights ago. I even found the blog on the internet..... http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html
I think we tend to see her as only chef not a baker, but she was good at every thing!
I've even heard she was a spy!
Mastering the Art of French Cooking vol. II is on my list of recommended bread books for its unbelievably detailed section on bread and baking. Few books are ever written with such precise detail and clear instruction. Anyone who has not read this is missing out on a great piece of writing and baking instruction. Julia's entire actual kitchen can now be seen in the Smithsonian and with good reason as her work is no less than a spectacular achievement.
Were I to be limited to just one book (or two in this case) for cooking and baking it would Vols. I and II of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. By all means look at these books if you have not.
Jeff