Julia Child Lite

Julia Child once said, “Oh, butter never hurts you,” and the woman died at age 91, so perhaps she had a point.

Five years after her death, Child’s culinary style is again seeing a renaissance. The new movie, Julia and Julia, starring Meryl Streep as the woman who brought French cuisine into the mainstream with her butter-drenched, calorie-rich recipes, was all the rage in the 1960s and 70s, but her cooking methods fell out of favor when gourmet cooks began to favor low-fat, quick and easy recipes.

However, the new film is causing thousands of Americans to reconsider their dismissal of Child, as evidenced by a staggering spike in sales of Child’s cookbooks. According to The New York Times, Nielson BookScan reports that Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, sold 22,000 copies in the most recent week tracked. That’s more copies than sold in any full year since the 752-page book’s debut 48 years ago.

To be fair, people who are buying the book often bug out their eyes when they read some of the recipes, but instead of sticking the book on the shelf, they are attempting to modify the menus to better fit their lifestyles (AKA, their waistlines).

"I’m looking at these ingredients going, Oh, sweet Lord, we’ll die," Melissah Bruce-Weiner of Lakeland, Fla., told the Times after she bought the book on her way home after seeing the movie. So, she got creative. Rather than making boeuf bourguignon exactly as instructed, which involves cooking with pork fat, she opted for what she dubbed “beef fauxguignon,” featuring slightly more heart-healthy ingredients like a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a can of French onion soup, and a can of red wine.

"I know why all of the greatest generation has died of heart attacks," she said. "Yes, Julia Child rolled over in her grave when I opened the cream of mushroom soup, I’m pretty sure of that. But you know what? That’s our world."

But perhaps she wouldn’t roll over in her grave. Maybe she’d be happy that in the age of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Egg Beaters and salt substitutes, she would be happy her recipes have been adapted to introduce a whole new generation to the joys of French cooking. We'd like to think so, anyway.

Photo of Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julie and Julia courtesy of Contigo via Wikimedia Commons