Luke Barr - Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste

Copyright 2013 by Luke Barr
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously unpublished material:

Inkwell Management: Letter from M. F. K. Fisher to Paul and Julia Child, December 11, 1970, and letter from M. F. K. Fisher to Paul and Julia Child and James Beard, December 16, 1970, copyright 1970 by M. F. K. Fisher. Reprinted by permission of Inkwell Management on behalf of the Trustee of the Estate of M. F. K. Fisher.

The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts: Letter from Paul and Julia Child to M. F. K. Fisher, December 12, 1971, Julia Child material copyright 2012. Reprinted by permission of The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts.

James Olney: Letter from Richard Olney to James Beard, October 1, 1970. Reprinted by permission of James Olney, Literary Executor of the Estate of Richard Olney.

John Petersen: Letter from David Pleydell-Bouverie to M. F. K. Fisher, October 10, 1971 (M. F. K. Fisher Papers). Reprinted by permission of John Petersen on behalf of the Audubon Canyon Ranch.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barr, Luke.
Provence, 1970 : M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the
Reinvention of American Taste / Luke Barr. First edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Cooking, AmericanHistory20th century. 2. Cooking, AmericanPhilosophy.
3. Fisher, M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy), 19081992. 4. Child, Julia.
5. Jones, Judith, 1924 6. Beard, James, 19031985. 7. Olney, Richard. 8. Olney, RichardHomes and hauntsFranceProvence. 9. Provence (France)Biography.
10. Provence (France)Social life and customs20th century. I. Title.
TX715.B3417 2014
641597309004dc23
2013007782

ISBN 978-0-307-71834-1
eISBN 978-0-7704-3331-4

Jacket design by Gabriele Wilson
Jacket photography by DNY59/iStock

v3.1

F OR Y UMI

CONTENTS

ON A COOL AUGUST MORNING IN 2009, I drove up a sloping, narrow driveway in Glen Ellen, California, on my way to visit the past. Last House. This was where my great-aunt, the writer M. F. K. Fisher, lived the last twenty-plus years of her life, and where she died in 1992. I had not been back since thennone of us had. In the car with me was my grandmother Norah (M.F.s sister), along with my father, my wife, and my five-year-old daughter. The house was set back a good distance from the country road, facing a dry, rustling meadow. I drove slowly, past a row of large walnut trees covered in extravagant drapings of moss. They were like something out of a dream, alien but beautiful.

The house was a fixture of my childhood: small and white, with a peaked tile roof, thick stucco walls, and arched openings over the veranda and entryway. M.F. referred to it with the barest note of irony as her palazzo. Inside were two grandly proportioned high-ceilinged rooms, and the largest bathroom Id ever seen, with a bathtub in the middle of it and a shower from which jets of water shot out in all directions. The bathroom walls were painted a dark, Pompeian red.

I called my great-aunt Dote, which was her childhood nickname. We in the family all called her that, though she was M.F. or Mary Frances to friends. My grandmother was Noni or NoneDote and Noni, they called each other. M.F. was the older sister, by nine years.

In the 1970s, my parents, younger brother, and I used to come for lunch on our way to visit my grandmother for the weekend. Norah lived in Jenner, a bit farther north on the Sonoma County coast. I can still remember the pulsing, dry heat of midday, midsummer Glen Ellen, the pleasure of escaping the stifling backseat of the family cara red VW Bug or white Toyota Corona, depending on the yearand entering the cool, dark interior of M.F.s house. It always smelled faintly of cooking and even more faintly of vermouth and of books. The books were everywhere, and M.F. would have been reading while waiting for us to arrive, her glasses on a cord around her neck. As she rose to greet us when we walked in the door, her Siamese cat Charlie, never friendly, would retreat stiffly out of sight. The open kitchen was along one side of the large, square living room, and there was a long wooden table that looked out onto the terrace and the pasture beyond. The walls of the house were thick and solid, and the overall impression was completely different from that of the airy, open-to-the-elements glass-and-wood Joseph Eichler house my parents rented in Mountain View, in the Bay Area. M.F.s papers were piled everywhereon her desk, by her typewriter, in her bedroom.

I can still remember the dense and meaty grilled chicken drumsticks with watercress and homemade pickles she served for lunch when I was about ten years old. Or they may have been drumsticks from some other, smaller birdI remember they were tiny and delicate, a little bit sweet. I loved them. Even more than the drumsticks, though, I remember my dawning sense of mortification as I heard myself say:

This is exactly the same thing we had the last time we were here!

The adults all laughed awkwardly. Needless to say, I hadnt meant the remark as any kind of criticism, but thats what they all thought, I realized too late. That I was suggesting she had a limited cooking repertoire. M.F. assured me she had made the dish again especially for mesince Id liked it so much the last time we were there (which must have been months earlier; we visited three or four times a year).

I quickly agreed that I had, and still did.

Everyone watched me as I ate. I ate slowly at that age. This was another topic for discussion.

Luke, you are a very slow eater, M.F. said, not for the first time. She approved of this character trait. One should stop and savor the food while eating, take pleasure in the moment. She, too, was a slow eater.

M.F. spoke to children as if they were slightly amusing adults. She took them seriously, though, I remember. Her voice was quiet and confiding. She looked me right in the eyes and listened when I spoke, and in her eyes I saw an impossible combination of intense interest and dispassionate, calculating judgment. There was no condescension at all, but she left no doubt that she was at all times taking note. Of what you said, and how you said it, what you ate, and how quickly. That look in her eyes is my most lasting memory of my great-aunt.

The adults drank wine. Wine with lunch was something that happened only up north, in Sonoma County, at Last House and at Norahs in Jenner. The lunches were correspondingly longer: leisurely hours spent around the table cracking crab and passing the salad and opening more wine. And there was dessertan unusual and welcome luxury for a ten-year-old at lunchtime. After we cleared the table, M.F. served vanilla ice cream with baked nectarines.

The nectarines werent hot, they were warm, and the same had been true of the drumsticks. M.F. always finished cooking long before her guests arrived, and then pulled dishes out of the cooling oven as needed, or left them on the counter. There was never a hint of effort or any last-minute flurry of activity.