Lunch Hour

Back to the American History Museum today, this time for a small exhibit called "Bon Appetit", entirely on Julia Child and her kitchen. Her famous room was relocated from Cambridge, Mass, to the museum a few years ago with almost everything in it - the pots, the pans, the Greater Boston YellowBook, everything but the kitchen sink. Oh wait, the sink was there too, never mind.

The exhibit showed film from Julia's television features, and showed how she tried to move American cookery toward the French gourmet attitude. Her promotion of table wines and "European drinking" seem to have had an impact on post-prohibitian America, while her hope that Americans would see cooking as a leisure activity and spend more time making fine meals is, I think, unrealized, as meals continue to move down the less-time, less-cost, more-healthy-faddish route. Somehow I don't think Julia worried much about the carb content in her proudly home-baked French baguette.