For the high-cultured kind, living near Washington D.C. is a blessing. The Smithsonian Museum complex is filled with enough art and exhibits to satisfy almost everyone. For the those who enjoy kitschy Americana, there’s the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. “Bon Appetit!” glorifies and enshrines the kitchen of one of the first people to experiment in the blissfully-right combination of food and television, Julia Child.
“Bon Appetit!” displays the Childs’ entire kitchen, taken from their Cambridge, Mass., home. Although the exhibit is considerably small, the Museum has made great use of the space by filling the walls with Julia Child knickknacks and trivia. Including a stove, pots, and even a special German potato ricer, the exhibit is comprised of more than 12,000 objects. It’s everything and the kitchen sink.
Information panels test your knowledge of the names and uses of various kitchen utensils. While you’re being quizzed, an interview of the famous chef plays in the background in loop. Episodes of Julia’s life are randomly interspersed between instruments of cookery.
Believe it or not, Julia Child was not always the goddess of the kitchen that we know her as today. Her family, with whom she lived in Pasadena, Ca., not the England that her bizzarre accent seems to indicate, was quite rich and hired several chefs instead of cooking for themselves.
When she returned from studying at renowned culinary institude, the Cordon Bleu in Paris, Julia was in the process of writing her groundbreaking cookbook which would bring gourmet cooking to the average family. Through detailed instructions, she managed to make fancy French cooking simple enough for most people to make.
Julia did not stop her quest there. After her book was published, she was invited to start the first how-to-cook television show. The show, taped in her own kitchen instead of a television studio was an enormous success and many people today are still learning how to cook fancy French meals from Julia’s show “The French Chef.”
Donated to the museum by the Child family in 2001, even the most obsessed of Julia Child’s fans can sate their desire by viewing the kitchen. Every little thing is there, meticulously transported from Massachusetts in a six-month-long process.
The display includes not only the kitchen (complete with a jar of Skippy peanut butter and a phone book with a Patriots sticker) but also quotes from the woman herself, including such brilliant lines as “I’m a knife freak.”
In addition to Julia Childs, much of the display is dedicated to her husband Paul Child, who always encouraged her by tasting as many of her failures as successes.
The exhibit takes only about five to 10 minutes to go through, and anyone can spare the time to go see the kitchen of a cooking legend. A wonderful addition to the Museum of American History, it is something which anyone is sure to enjoy. And if not, hey, there’s always something like the Bunkers’ chairs from “All in the Family.”
Bon Appetit! Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian is on display at the National Museum of American History. The NMAH is located at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.
