Early in Mad Men’s first season, Betty Draper gazes at her sleeping husband, Don, and asks the $64,000 question that will hang over every episode to come: “Who’s in there?” Don is like an onion, and peeling back each layer only reveals another. Don has his own $64,000 question and asks it at least twice in this episode: “What do women want?” Well, fidelity, for one, but when it comes to Don that never seems to be on the menu.
When Don takes Betty out for a fine dinner in the city in the same episode, what she wants is tomato juice, a vodka gimlet, filet of sole, and potatoes au gratin. The restaurant isn’t identified, but since its interior is suggestive of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel’s Bull and Bear Steakhouse, we turned to The Waldorf Astoria Cookbook by Ted James and Rosalind Cole (1969) for a recipe for Sole Amandine Betty would surely enjoy.
There was only one place to turn for Betty’s potatoes au gratin: America’s most famous “French” chef, Julia Child. No one had greater influence on the way American’s ate in the second half of the twentieth century, and no cookbook was more indispensible than Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), written with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. The book not only created an appetite for French cuisine, but also incited interest in international foods in general. Child didn’t promise French cooking would be easy. Rather, she wanted people to appreciate that fine food required some effort, a message that ran counter to the American postwar penchant for the conveniences of canned and packaged foods.
Betty probably would not have heard of Julia Child in 1960 when she and Don ventured into the city for dinner (Child burst onto the scene in 1961), but Julia Child’s version of potatoes au gratin would have been a perfect complement to her Sole Amandine.
ADAPTED FROM THE WALDORF ASTORIA COOKBOOK BY TED JAMES (BOBBS-MERRILL CO, 1969)
6 sole filets (about 6 ounces each)
All-purpose flour
1⁄2 cup (1 stick) butter
Salt
Ground black pepper
Juice from one lemon
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
¼ cup slivered almonds
Thin lemon slices, for serving
YIELD: 4–6 SERVINGS
ADAPTED FROM GRATIN DE POMMES DE TERRE AUX ANCHOIS (GRATIN OF POTATOES, ONIONS AND ANCHOVIES), MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING BY JULIA CHILD (KNOPF, 1961)
NOTE: This dish also works well cooked in individual serving crocks.
2 tablespoons butter, plus 1 tablespoon for top
1 cup minced onions
1⁄2 pound raw potatoes (about 2–3 large potatoes), peeled and diced into 1⁄2-inch cubes
3 eggs
11⁄2 cups whipping cream, half-and-half, cream or milk
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1⁄2 cup grated Swiss cheese
YIELD: 4 SERVINGS
THE IREPRESSIBLE JULIA CHILD, AMERICA’S FRENCH CHEF, DURING THE TAPING OF HER PBS TELEVISION SHOW
It’s no surprise we see Mad Men characters frequenting French restaurants such as Lutèce and La Grenouille and eating French foods such as vichyssoise and coquilles. It was during this same period that Julia Child was, to borrow a phrase from the ’60s, turning America on to French cuisine, starting in 1961 with publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Alfred A. Knopf).
Public interest in French food was fueled in part by the Kennedys’ passion for all things French. Distinguished French chef René Verdon was hired to be the White House chef, and Mrs. Kennedy spoke French fluently. But it was Julia Child, America’s first true celebrity chef, who introduced Americans to French cooking, and there’s never been another quite like her. The gangly, irrepressible cookbook author and TV personality became an American icon beloved for her wit, her authenticity, and, of course, her passion for French cooking.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking wasn’t the first French cookbook to appear in American bookstores in the postwar years by any means; there were many. Written by French chefs and professional food writers, the recipes were inaccessible to the average American cook because they assumed a certain amount of knowledge of French cooking. But Child learned her craft from scratch while living in Paris with her diplomat husband. Mastering the Art of French Cooking conveyed her love of the cuisine and the joy of learning from the beginning. It was a cookbook for the complete novice that broke French cooking down step by step.
Alfred Knopf, Child’s publisher, had doubts about the commercial viability of the book from the beginning, and published it only after much in-house debate. Its authors were unknown and Knopf had just published a volume by Joseph Donon, a renowned French chef. Few resources were allocated for promotion. But when New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne gave the book a glowing review, the stage was set for Child to take the country by storm. She was invited to do a cooking demonstration on NBC’s Today Show in front of four million viewers (she cooked an omelet on a hot plate). More favorable book reviews followed, including an endorsement from James Beard, perhaps America’s most famous chef at the time.
“This is a book,” wrote Child and her co-authors, “for the servantless American cook who can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time schedules, children’s meals, the parent-chauffeur-den-mother syndrome, or anything else which might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat.” It wasn’t just the destination that was to be enjoyed, but the journey. She was converting cooks into gourmands, walking her readers through the making of boeuf bourguignon and tarte tatin, and teaching that technique was every bit as important as quality ingredients.
Child took to the airwaves in 1962 on a program called The French Chef, produced at WGBH, Boston’s public broadcasting station. The French Chef soon had a national following. With infectious joie de vivre, the imposing 6’2” Child wielded her kitchen knife with an equally sharp wit. On television, Child proved to be an outstanding teacher that viewers connected with. She wasn’t particularly telegenic or polished, and her voice was given to warbles and sudden changes in register. But her movements were both flamboyant and buoyant, and she handled miscues, both in her presentation and her cooking, with humor and aplomb. In short, she was as irrepressible as she was irresistible. She was so comfortable in her own skin that she made others comfortable trying to do what she had done: master the art of French cooking.