1963: The Year of Julia Child and Betty Friedan

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The movie Julie and Julia is and has been a must see on the list for many, and I think that is because we really do miss our old friend, Julia Child.  Julia wanted to see "servantless" Americans become successful with French cooking.  Cooking was Julia's passion,and became Betty Friedan's new symbol of woman's oppression. With Friedan and Women's Lib came the years of intellectual disdain for the kitchen prison, too much Hamburger Helper,and a drop in culinary skills from lack of repetition and honing of ancestral cooking skills.

 A few years ago when I was recovering from GI surgery,my television stayed on the Food Channel. I didn't watch it prior to surgery, but I now took great comfort watching the foods being prepared,even though I was hooked up to numerous I.V.s,not allowed solids, and starving (so I thought). I was not a cook aficionado; but just the same, a nurse told me that I was 'not unusual,that all her GI patients loved to watch the food channel'. "Comfort", I thought, and then a realization I had finally managed a show of appreciation for the art of cooking...something I had always considered a task and drudgery. Yet, I must say, I never lost sight of cooking's creative aspect, and appreciated the talents of my Mother and sisters. It was just that it hadn't been meant for me (I then thought) nor the more "forward looking" type of women who had "higher" aspirations.

This is not to say that all women had this viewpoint about cooking as an evil drudgery.  Many women did well working a full-time career, and performed great cooking feats every night. In fact, too many of these admirable women didn't get any help.  It's also true that a stagnant economy was a factor as much as anything else that called for women needing help in the kitchen and the house. The raging effects of inflation in the 70's, and the need for additional income, had begun to push women out the door and into the workforce without any further nudging from Betty Friedan.

Yet now,the country's attitude has changed. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect there to be an entire network for food, just as I would never have been as clever as Celente to predict water being bottled and sold.  Yet, some attitudes do change for the better, and I'm glad, in this case, to be following the flow of new cooking ventures, and learning life's true secret from Julia Child: that real butter is as necessary to life as is water.

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