Unlike Julia Child, I was not motivated by the frustrating tedium of empty days in France. And unlike Julie Powell, I was not inspired by Julia Child. I was not moved to lift my whisk out of some insatiable desire to whip an egg into a yolky frenzy. Nor was I impassioned by the notion of monitoring simmering ratatouille for hours. No, I plunged into French cooking out of necessity, pure and simple. I was living in France. I was living on my own. I was hungry.
Luckily for me, there is no scarcity of food in France. Every day along the boulevards, vendors swirl crepe batter, bakers slice fresh loaves and cafe workers press paninis. Restaurants differ in style, price and quality, but all boast an array of creative concoctions. I had always possessed a penchant for good food, but my experience was limited to my family’s cooking, the Amherst College dining hall and some popular Pioneer Valley eateries. Exposed for the first time to a world of culinary innovation, I explored with a ferocious appetite, ordering unpronounceable dishes and sampling from my neighbors’ plates. The variety seemed infinite.
The money supply, however, was definitely finite. As my palate expanded, my wallet shrank. Alas: dining out daily was no longer financially viable. I reluctantly acknowledged that it was time to get acquainted with the kitchen. But where to begin?
The morning market seemed a good place to start. Turning the corner into the Place de Hotel de Ville, I was shocked to discover that the market I had idealized in my imagination had been transposed to the city square in front of me. I wove through the red and white striped awnings offering “Bonjours!” to merchants and shoppers alike, gawking at the vibrantly colored fresh fruits and veggies. Because the prices were so low and I was so overwhelmed, I bought anything I found aesthetically pleasing, from familiar favorites to totally foreign items. Returning to my apartment, I consulted my French to English dictionary only to learn that I had purchased a persimmon, some litchi, leeks, a handful of mache, and a bunch of morels. The translation didn’t help. Not only was I ignorant of how to cook effectively with these materials, I had never even heard of them.
Fortunately, my roommate was well informed. Raised in northern California on an estate with abundant fruit trees and vegetable gardens, Jenney was flabbergasted at my horticultural naivete. We embarked on a culinary crash course. Jenney conveyed her knowledge to me, differentiating thyme from tarragon and demonstrating the proper way to dissect a pomegranate. I watched, intrigued, as she adroitly minced onions, assembled sauces and sipped her stew to determine whether it needed that extra pinch of salt. I wanted to share in that culinary competency.
Jenney and I decided to alternate the cooking duties, each of us making dinner every other evening. Since all the available cookbooks were written in French and only gave measurements in metrics, I relied on the Internet for direction. Databases like Foodnetwork and Epicurious contain immense collections of recipes. These sites encourage users to browse recipes by applying specifications like cuisine type or main ingredient, and then sorting the results according to ratings or level of difficulty. The recipe reviews provide an opportunity for the novice cooks to contribute their opinions and tips, thereby linking world-renowned chefs to beginners like me.
To familiarize myself with the culinary jargon, I referred to the online Cook’s Thesaurus, a site that categorizes foods, features the food’s image next to its description, and suggests possible substitutions. Backed by my arsenal of virtual resources, I strapped on my apron and ventured into the kitchen, incurring only minor burns and spills and producing many dishes, some more successful than others.
I returned to the States with a newfound fervor for cooking. Study abroad proved to be both a cultural immersion and a culinary conversion. My recent love affair with food may have been sparked by my experience in France, the global hub of haute cuisine. But this relationship could have blossomed almost anywhere, provided there was an Internet connection.
My intro to cooking was certainly nontraditional. I didn’t attend courses, study cookbooks or copy my mother. But today, when a vast amount of information is accessible instantly online, younger generations will likely stray from these traditional methods and gravitate towards more informal, unconventional ways of learning how to cook. This doesn’t mean that culinary schools will become obsolete, or that generational family recipes will be casually discarded. Rather, these new media will enable anyone to access the expertise of trained chefs, in Paris or in the Pioneer Valley. Imparting culinary know-how to the masses—now that’s something I think even Julia Child would support.
