Judith Jones' Life in Food
Culinary Adventures with James Beard, Julia Child, and Others
Nov 30, 2007
Judith Jones’ memoir, The Tenth Muse – My Life in Food (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), tells of people, places, and food that have filled her life. This is a book you will enjoy even if you don’t usually enjoy memoirs. She begins with her childhood in a gentler New York City, prior to World War II, when people shopped for food by telephone, and where she and her father lunched at La Petite Maison, where she could "wallow in onions as I broke through the cheesy toasted crust of a soupe à l’oignon”. At home, onions were used sparingly.
Food and Love in Paris and America
After the war, Jones went to Paris, fell in love with ordinary French cooking, and with the man who became her husband and food companion through life, Evan Jones. When they returned to America, the manuscript of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, landed in Judith’s lap. Sensing it was something special, she pushed to have it published.
Jones’ life has been peopled with culinary giants. James Beard played a role. So did Madhur Jaffrey, Marcella Hazen, Claudia Roden, and, of course, Julia Child, to name a few. These authors wrote the cookbooks that people still reach for when they want to create something marvelous in the kitchen.
The Tenth Muse is filled with photographs of family and friends. There is also a recipe section, organized into categories such as “From the Past”, and “French – and Other – Influences”, with comfort food recipes for Spaghetti and Cheese, Bread Pudding, and French Baguettes.
In Chapter 10 – “The Pleasure that Lasts the Longest” – Jones writes eloquently about how, after her husband’s death, she doubted she would again enjoy cooking for one. Thankfully, she still does, explaining that: “... we take the raw materials of the earth and work with them – touch them, manipulate them, taste them, glory in their heady smells and colors, and then, through a bit of alchemy, transform them into delicious creations.”
Brillat-Savarin, a French magistrate and gastronome (Larousse Gastronomique), called Gasterea “the tenth muse”, following the other nine: poetry, history, music, dance, love poetry, tragedy, comedy, geometry, and astronomy. The books Jones has edited have contributed to the tenth muse, and are part of cookbook collections around the world. Her memoir should have a place in those collections, too. It is for anyone who loves food, whether the ‘ordinary’ food of their childhoods or the daring food that for many now has become the ‘ordinary’ food of their adult lives.
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