Julia Child was known for taking French cuisine and its cooking techniques and making them accessible to anyone through her easy cooking tips. She’s remained a household name long after her death, and she knew a thing or two about a good meal — as well as a bad one. Child once revealed some details around one of the worst meals she ever ate, and it took place in England while on a trip with her husband.
“We stopped at a beautiful Tudor inn on a river bank,” Child told the Los Angeles Times back in 1987. She described the appearance of the Tudor’s maitre d’hotel as “resplendent,” but the compliment didn’t carry over to the food. “We sat down overlooking the rose garden. And we had a very old fashioned English meal.” Child went on to describe the meal as starting with soup, followed by an order of lamb for her husband and boiled fowl for herself. “The fowl was a great big leg of chicken, and they had the typical white sauce on top of it. And sticking out through the white sauce were the hairs… mmm, yes. I’ll always remember it.”
The hair on the chicken was only one part of her unpleasant dinner. “Over-boiled vegetables then, you know,” she told the Times. “Some horrible kind of a pudding,” Child said of the side dish and dessert. Still, she added that she and her husband found some joy in the meal. “We actually enjoyed it, because it was so awful!”
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Julia Child only had one other food she hated
Julia Child and Paul Child smiling and holding drink glasses – Lee Lockwood/Getty Images
While Julia Child might not have hated the actual food she ordered at the Tudor inn, she at least hated the way it was prepared. But just because Child was a chef doesn’t mean she enjoyed every ingredient she came across in her cooking. Even professional chefs have certain ingredients they won’t touch, and Child was no exception: She absolutely hated cilantro. The New York Times revealed that she once told Larry King she “would pick it out… and throw it on the floor” if it came with her meal.
With that, Child had plenty of favorite foods. She loved something as simple as Goldfish or an In-N-Out burger, and she also adored more elevated dishes like sole meunière (sole fish in a lemon butter sauce) and vichyssoise (a creamy potato and leek soup that’s served cold). While she likely wasn’t in a rush to get lunch in that rose garden again, Child’s food experiences also helped shape her into the renowned chef that she was.
Read the original article on Chowhound.
Dining and Cooking