Mastering the Art of French Cooking
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" Volume 1 was originally published in 1961 after some early difficulties. Beck, Bertholle, and Child initially signed a contract with publisher Houghton Mifflin, but Houghton Mifflin grew uninterested in the project. Child recalled one editor telling her, "Americans don't want an encyclopedia, they want to cook something quick, with a mix." Beck, Bertholle, and Child refused to make requested changes to the manuscript, and Houghton Mifflin abandoned the project, writing that the book, as it stood, would be "too formidable to the American housewife." Judith Jones of Alfred A. Knopf became interested in the manuscript after it had been rejected. After spending several years in Paris, Jones had moved to New York, where she grew frustrated with the limited ingredients and recipes commonly available in the United States. Jones felt that the manuscript would offer a lifeline to middle-class women, like her, who were interested in learning how to cook French cuisine in America, and predicted that "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", "will do for French cooking here in America what Rombauer's "The Joy of Cooking" did for standard [American] cooking." While Jones was enthusiastic about the book, Knopf had low expectations and invested very little into promoting it. In order to generate interest in the book, and without support from Knopf, Child appeared on several morning talk shows in 1961 to demonstrate recipes, which she later cited as the impetus for her own cooking show, The French Chef.
Darra Goldstein
Goldstein’s second cookbook, "The Georgian Feast: The Vibrant Culture and Savory Food of the Republic of Georgia" (1993), won the IACP Julia Child Award for Best Cookbook in 1993. "The Georgian Feast" was an integration of Goldstein’s art and culinary interests, drawing its inspiration from Niko Pirosmani, a Georgian artist from the early twentieth century who painted many depictions of Georgian meals. Following the book's positive reception, Goldstein redirected her academic research towards food studies. She developed a new course at Williams, “Feasting and Fasting in Russian History,” which melded her two passions for Russian literature and cuisine. The course integrates close readings of Russian literature with a hands-on approach to Russian cuisine, enabling students to experience the intersection of the scholarly and experiential that Goldstein finds crucial to the study of food.