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| Child | 63% | 56 votes | Total: 89 votes | |
| Pepin | 37% | 33 votes |
Child
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Add to FavoritesThere's no question about it, Julia wins. I am the author of an award-winning cookbook and I got to the point where I was comfortable writing a cookbook by literally reading, from cover to cover, over 1000 cookbooks. In using them I have cooked over 30,000 meals and I can truthfuly say, her cookbooks were the ones that took me through the kindergarten of kitchen techniques and finally got me graduated.
Most cookbooks give you at best 3-4 recipes that you will keep. With Julia however, you didn't just get a cookbook you got a textbook as well. She didn't only give you recipes she gave you what I consider the most valuable bit knowledge when it comes to cooking - how to treat foods. Take a chicken breast and Julia will give you 20 ways to treat it. That's exactly what my cookbook does and I learned a lot of those treatments from Julia.
As to whom was the better chef, I don't think anyone can answer that because how a meal tastes to you is now how it tastes to anyone else. How many times have you cooked a dish that tasted wonderful to you and then have someone else say it was only so so? The main reason Julia stood out from the crowd is that she was not in the least dogmatic, like James Beard, for instance. When cooking one of her dishes, if you discovered you did not have a specific ingredient she prompted you to find another. Her recipes weren't scientific formulas they were ways to cook good food.
In her role as a teacher, Julia transformed the eating habits of America in the 50"s with her television show. People who could barely scramble eggs went wild over Coq au Vin! Julia Childs probably introduced more new dishes to the American scene than everyone else combined. Running short of ingredients, missing one or two, forgetting something important in front of a huge TV audience never fazed her one bit. She taught Americans that it was okay to make a few mistakes in the kitchen and to just develop a laid back attitude as long as what you cooked was delicious.
If you can read The Way To Cook and not begin to feel comfortable in the kitchen you should probably leave the kitchen forever. She taught us all how to recognize the building blocks of a good meal and, if we wanted to build a different kind of meal instead of the one she was talking about, it was alright with her.
One other thing Julia did for all of us cooks, professional or otherwise. She challenged us. When I first read her multi page recipe for Cassoulet it scared me to death. It took almost 2 years before I tried it, and when I did, it was a huge success. I must confess, I never made it again but for a little while, I was almost as good as she was.
Learn more about this author, Ed Dugan.
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Pepin
Coming to this argument from the angel of a Brit looking at the reputation of two chefs who if you ask most people on the street in the United Kingdom who do you think was the better as a teacher of cooking Julia child or Jacques Pepin , most would not know who you was talking about .
I know that Julia Chile was one of the grate televisions chefs in the United States and I have read one of her books once “Mastering the art of French cooking”. I know that she came to cooking late in her life in post war France and brought a style of cooking back home with her that was revelation. In fact I would go as far to say that this is whole unfair to ask any one to set apart to great cooks and chefs. But with out that question you can not have the debate.
When I was just a young man and very wet behind the ears and about to start on what has now been a career in cooking I cam across a book called “la technique” an illustrated guide to the fundamental techniques of cooking. It was by Jacques Pepin. I still have it today and any one who has asked me what do you need to know to be a chef I let them have the book to have a look at.
It starts with the most basic knife craft and then moves on in very simple words and pictures to explain every thing that you might need to know. From shell fish, vegetables poultry and meat even desserts and pastry it cover it all. The book covers almost every thing that I then went on to learn at the collage that I attended.
Then latter I came across a television series that was running on the BBC during the day time. It was in a funny slot that was normally full of old films or programs that you did not want to watch and he cam over as a very sincere and practical man who communicated very well. At a time when on British television the super chef was being borne and just about any body that could hold a knife and promote them selves and not the food was getting on our screens.
That and the fact that he was the personal chef for three French presidents. He must have been a super chef from the nations that gave us the word chef.
And like so many of his fellow country men who I have grown to admire he has also the added ingredients of being an extremely educated man as well. With a B.A. in philosophy and French literature, as well as amongst other things.
But as a testament to the man I will just hold up his book and will say that it has been a start to the foundation that I now earn my living at every day. So for me my vote goes to Mr Pepin.
Learn more about this author, Marcus Bentley Wise.
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