James Beard was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1903, and it was there that his palate was educated at an early age. His first cookbook, Hors d’Oeuvre and Canapés, was published in 1930. After that he wrote nineteen other books on food, including The fames Beard Cookbook, for years a best-selling paperback; the much-honored fames Beard’s American Cookery; and the companion volumes Theory & Practice of Good Cooking, which explored all the whys and wherefores of cooking as he taught his students, and The New James Beard, which put into practice what he preached. However, it is his highly popular Beard on Bread that has been his best-selling book of all time.
Beard started giving cooking lessons in the late 1950s, in what later became the kitchen of the famous restaurant Lutèce. This was the beginning of his popular cooking school, later located in his own brownstone in Greenwich Village, which now houses the James Beard Foundation. Well known throughout the country, James Beard traveled extensively and taught and demonstrated cooking nationwide. He died in New York in 1985.