Julia Child’s Kitchen: Visiting the Workspace of a Legend

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has an exhibit titled Food: Transforming the American Table. It is all about the history of food in the context of American culture post World War II. Julia Child’s very own kitchen serves as the introduction to this wonderous exhibit. It was a treat to see it in person!

Career and Legacy

Julia Carolyn McWilliams was born on August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California. She came from an affluent family and was raised with a love for food and cooking. During World War II, Julia worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where she met Paul Child, a fellow OSS employee. They married in 1946, and he remained an integral source of support for her cooking career.

Journey to Paris

In 1948, Paul’s work with the U.S. Foreign Service took them to Paris, where Julia fell in love with French cuisine. She enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu, a renowned culinary school, and later studied at the Cercle des Gourmettes cooking school, an exclusive school that serviced women cooks. Julia was determined to master the art of French cooking and embraced the challenges of learning in a male-dominated culinary world.

Julia collaborated with famous cooks Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle to write Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961. It is a two-volume cookbook that aimed to make French cuisine accessible to American home cooks. Its meticulous instructions and emphasis on technique revolutionized the way Americans approached cooking.

In 1963, Julia Child made her television debut with the cooking show “The French Chef” on WGBH, Boston’s public television station. Her charismatic and unpretentious style endeared her to viewers, and the show became a huge success. Julia continued to host several other cooking shows, including “Julia Child & Company” and “Julia Child & More Company.”

Child received numerous awards for her contributions to the culinary world, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. She authored several cookbooks, made guest appearances on various shows, and continued to inspire generations of home cooks.

She passed away on August 13, 2004, just two days shy of her 92nd birthday. Her impact on American cuisine and culinary education is immeasurable, and she remains an iconic figure whose legacy lives on through her books, television shows, and the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, which she established to support culinary education and research.

Building Julia Child’s Kitchen

The 1950s Kitchen Craze

By the 1950s, there was a home manufacturing boom pushing for state of the art kitchens (Randl, 2014). Along with the increased popularity of processed foods and time saving gadgets, “modern kitchens became a prominent symbol of the American way of life,” (National Museum of American History, 2023).

The kitchens showcased and mainstreamed various household appliances, including refrigerators, toasters, dishwashers, standmixers, and portable appliances that, in reality, were not actually all that portable. Manufacturers touted enameled steel cabinets and countertops with modern upgrades as the ideal choice, and they ensured that they could customize these steel kitchens by making them modular. This allowed consumers to “mix and match base and wall cabinets, sinks, cupboards, and closets… for endless configurations” (Randl, 2014).

Child’s Kitchen Is The Best of Both Worlds

Julia Child’s kitchen stands out as a unique blend of both modern and traditional design elements. In 1961, her husband Paul Child, who served as Julia’s invaluable rock of support, played a crucial role in designing and building her iconic kitchen. This kitchen forwent the steel obsession prevalent in its time and instead embraced painted wooden cabinets, butcher-block countertops, and pegboards for hanging pots and tools (National Museum of American History, 2023). Despite its departure from the steel trend, the kitchen incorporated modern aspects with state-of-the-art appliances for its time.

Child’s kitchen was set up to have work zones to ensure her equipment was exactly where she needed it. “Her pots, pans, and utensils are near the stove, her knives are near the sink, and her small appliances are set on solid work surfaces, ready to use,” (National Museum of American History, 2023).

The kitchen is multifarious, mixing elements of French and American cookery tools. She had an assortment of copper cookware from France, much of it coming from an old yet tried and true culinary store called E. Dehillerin, which is still in business today.

Copper was Queen!

Child preferred copper cookware because it is known for its ability to conduct heat evenly; the pots were also often lined with tin (National Museum of American History, 2023). Among her French stash is also a collection of American cookware such as cast-iron pots and trivets and aluminum doughnut hole punchers.

A Tour of Julia Child’s Kitchen

Bits of Julia’s personality reveal themselves in little cat curiosities and pictures dotted throughout her walls.

1950s Kitchens Have a Bad Rap

1950s kitchens sometimes have a bad rap for their eclectic style and colorways, but I admire their eclectic style; it seemed to be an age of experimentation. It reminds me of Gen Z’s thirst for color that erupted in the wake of the “grey and beige” movement that has overtaken much of interior design today.

Julia’s kitchen has the best of both the modern and traditional worlds. It has personality––something post-modern kitchens and living spaces seem to lack. You will see no extreme examples of minimalism, grey and beige, or clean geometric aesthetics.

Child’s kitchen, however, bursts with color; antique teal cabinets to contrast with the maple wood counters, gleaming copper and tin pans are freely on display with steel appliances, and a white and amber striped tablecloth is draped over the kitchen table.

Despite all tools and quirky art on display, Child’s kitchen is exceptionally charming, homey, and lively as well as organized. Go visit at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., United States.

References

National Museum of American History, (2023). Food: Transforming the American table. National Museum of American History.

Chad Randl. (2014). “Look Who’s Designing Kitchens”: Personalization, Gender, and Design Authority in the Postwar Remodeled Kitchen. Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 21(2), 57–87. https://doi.org/10.5749/buildland.21.2.0057