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“Julia Child: A Recipe for Life” is on view at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture through Sept. 2.
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A large-format digital copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” has pages that flip and reveal the iconic recipes within.
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Guests can relive Child’s formative first meal in Paris, images of which are projected onto a table in the exhibit.
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Child’s collection of kitchen tools
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Virginia Michelin-starred chef Patrick O’Connell stands in front of the stove where he first learned Julia Child’s recipes. The display pictured highlights O’Connell’s culinary contributions.
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The “Virginia a la Carte” tags throughout the exhibit denote sections that showcase a connection to the commonwealth.
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Part of the exhibit outlines Child’s impact on many prominent Virginia chefs.
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A replica of the set of Child’s cooking show; visitors are encouraged to pose and snap a photo.
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Quotes from Child appear throughout the exhibit.
Lots of us have a Julia Child story. Perhaps you’ve spent years perfecting her beef bourguignon recipe, or you cherish the exuberant icon’s seminal cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Maybe you watched one of her PBS television shows growing up, mesmerized by her 6-foot-2 stature, unmissable high-pitched voice and how she worked her way around a chicken. You might still laugh hysterically when remembering the famous 1978 “Saturday Night Live” skit where Dan Aykroyd portrays Child.
And while Child may not be from the commonwealth — she did, however, visit Richmond’s Thalhimers department store in 1976 to promote her fourth book and even carved a ham in her hotel room here — her influence transcends state lines.
Paige Newman, curator at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, says of its latest exhibition, “Julia Child: A Recipe for Life,” on display through Sept. 2, “Is it Virginia specific? No, but Virginians are interested. Almost everyone has a Julia Child memory. Food is approachable; it’s easy to incorporate history into a topic that everyone is familiar with.”
VMHC is the first East Coast venue to host the exhibition, an immersive experience for all the senses that chronicles the journey of the chef who demystified a cuisine once considered complicated and fussy, including her influence on Virginia and its culinary landscape.
The exhibition features handwritten personal letters, notes, recipes and portraits. Visitors can relive Child’s formative first meal in Paris at La Couronne restaurant, with images of the oysters, creamy cheese and sole meunière she enjoyed projected onto a dinner table. They can hop inside a bathtub and re-create one of the many cheeky Valentine’s Day cards sent by Child and her husband, Paul. They can also pick up lids off of pots and get a whiff of coq au vin, pose for a pic in the avocado-colored kitchen modeled after the set of Child’s show and check out her vast collection of cooking tools, dubbed by Paul her “batterie de cuisine.”
One of the most eye-catching items on display is a large-format digital version of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” that flips through definitive recipes, including the omelet. The influential egg recipe is one Patrick O’Connell, chef and proprietor of Virginia’s three-Michelin-starred Inn at Little Washington, knows very well. In fact, in order to work in his kitchen, he requests that candidates craft an omelet.
“Not a day goes by where I don’t send one of my young cooks into the office to get her book and make something,” O’Connell said during a media preview event at the VMHC last week. “It is timeless. Even her television programs, if you watch them today, pull you in, the exact same way they did [when they first aired].”
O’Connell first encountered Julia’s cookbook 50 years ago while living in a cabin in the woods of Virginia. There, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” became his bible. The bright red stove where it all began for O’Connell greets patrons before they enter the exhibit. “There I am, alone in a farmhouse with a wood-burning stove, which is with us today,” he said. “I had to keep warm and had to occupy myself, and I dove into that book and became one with it.”
Possessing a similar enchanting whimsy, O’Connell is just one example of Child’s far-reaching impact. Her influence lives on through a long line of Virginia chefs. Peppered throughout the exhibit, “Virginia a la Carte” tags denote moments that highlight special connections to the commonwealth. One section features chef and owner David Shannon of Richmond’s French-spirited L’Opossum, who was a protege of O’Connell for decade; Jimmy Sneed, who worked for French chef Jean-Louis Palladin, made appearances on Child’s program “Cooking With Master Chefs,” and operated Richmond restaurant The Frog & The Redneck; Tanya Cauthen, locavore and owner of Belmont Butchery; and Rachel De Jong of Charlottesville French patisserie Cou Cou Rachou.
The exhibit also features the stories of Virginia visionaries such as enslaved chef and Charles County native James Hemings, who worked for Thomas Jefferson and was the first American to train as a chef in France, as well as Mary Randolph, who penned “The Virginia House-wife,” considered to be the first Southern regional cookbook.
“We wanted to showcase the influence of French cooking in Virginia and highlight stories of Virginians who made their own culinary mark,” Newman says, “all of the ingredients that make up what we should be understanding about Virginia’s culinary history.”
The exhibition also offers a riveting look at who Child was beyond the kitchen, Newman adds. “We have this idea of who Julia Child was because of seeing her on TV and cooking shows, and I think what the exhibit does is provide a background into what made her who she eventually became ... [allowing visitors] to come in and get to know Julia before our image of her was created.”
As O’Connell put it, “You really feel when you go through this exhibit that she’s here with us, she has been brought back to life in the most wonderful way. It’s tangible because the exhibit perfectly captures her spirit. You can smell, you can touch, you can get the flavor of who this extraordinary woman was. She lives on, which is absolutely wonderful.”
“Julia Child: A Recipe for Life” is on view at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture through Sept. 2; entry is included with museum admission. In the months ahead, the museum will host various food-related experiences in conjunction with the exhibit. On April 12, more than a dozen local food businesses will reimagine Child’s recipes during the sold-out Julia Child Cook-off. Other events include “Representing a Region and Its Cuisine: Appalachia on the Table” April 25, the “Virginia Eats: Farm to Table Bus Tour” June 1 and a kids’ cooking demo June 7.
