Audrey Payne:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Julia Jubilee, our virtual celebration of the life and legacy of Julia Child. Before we get started, I'd love to know where everyone is tuning in from. Let us know in the chat. I've seen people from Germany, from all over the United States. Very exciting. I also just want to point out the Q&A function. So if anyone has any questions for our panelists today, be sure to put them down there and we'll try to get to as many as possible. Oh my gosh, people from Seattle, from New Jersey, Austin. Hi. So welcome, everyone.
Audrey Payne:
I'm Audrey Payne, Cherry Bombe's cookbook editor and I'm very excited to welcome you all to today's talk about Judith Jones, the legendary editor who among other things, championed Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It seemed almost impossible to have a conference about Julia Child without talking about Judith Jones. If you don't know who she is, don't worry, you definitely will by the end of today's panel. So before we get started, I'd like to thank our sponsors for helping to make today's event and all of our Julia Jubilee programming free. Thank you to our friends at Kerrygold, Le Creuset, Crate&Barrel, Whole Foods Market, San Pellegrino and Kobrand. We've got events every day until Thursday, so be sure to visit our website and check out the schedule there. You can RSVP and everything that we have coming up is free to attend.
Audrey Payne:
So to kick things off today, I'm excited to welcome Abena Anim-Somuah to introduce our panelists. Abena is joining us from Toronto. She's also the co-founder of Food Supply and she wrote a wonderful story about Edna Lewis in the latest issue of Cherry Bombe, which is our Julia Child issue. So if you have this at home, I really encourage you to read Abena's story. Abena, are you out there? Hey.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Classic Zoom. Can everyone see me or hear me? Both things. Yes. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Awesome. Well, I'm so excited to be here, Audrey. Thank you so much for that kind introduction.
Audrey Payne:
I'll leave you to take over now.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Cool, awesome. Hi, everyone. Hope you're having an awesome afternoon. Like Audrey said, my name is Abena Anim-Somuah and I'm truly honored to give the introduction to this afternoon's panel. I'm not sure if this quote is anywhere, but I'm fully convinced that behind every successful cookbook author is a staunch editor supporting them through edits, words of affirmation and helping getting their books out in the world. For Julia Child and many of the women on this panel this afternoon, that editor was Judith Jones. Born in New York City in 1924, Judith joined publishing house, Knopf, in 1957 as an assistant editor, working on translations of French writers books for English speaking audiences. She famously rescued The Diary of Anne Frank from the reject pile.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Judith fell in love with food during her years living in Paris and then upon her returned to America, she was immensely frustrated to find the country obsessed with frozen foods and lackluster recipes. But that frustration melted away when she met Julia Child. The professional relationship began when Judith took on Mastering the Art of French Cooking after being rejected by another publishing house, and she worked tirelessly with Julia to make the classic that we've all come to know and love. Judith famously said that if we could do this for French cooking for heaven's sake, let's start doing it for other cuisines. Her thoughtful approach to editing radically transformed American food writing, and she looked to her cookbook authors and experts who could guide her and the American public to new places through the lens of food and culture. You can see there's two books that she's edited for culinary icons like Madhur Jaffrey, Irene Kuo, Jacques Pepin and many more. Much like the name of this panel, every cooking enthusiast has a Judith connection whether they know it or not. For me, mine began at 12 years old when I watched Julie and Julian in theater with my mother, after a few years obsessing over a child's cookbooks and reruns of the French chef.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
To know that Julia worked with an editor who adores food as much as he does was truly a gift to our bellies and to our hearts. And today, I'm so excited to be welcoming our four incredible panelists and their connection to Judith. Starting off with Emmy Award winning host of Lidia's Kitchen, Lidia Bastianich, who is a celebrated chef and restaurateur specializing in Italian cuisine. Lidia has spent 15 cookbooks including standouts like Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine and Lidia's Family Table. Joan Nathan has been championing Jewish American cooking for several decades through her PBS show, Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan and her 11 cookbooks including her most recent, King Solomon's Table. Joan is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times and I can attest to how amazing her matzah ball soup recipe is. Egyptian born, London based Claudia Roden uses her cooking to introduce the world to new flavors.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
She's spent several books including the book on Middle Eastern Food. And I know this book is way older than me but I personally love picnics. Her 1981 book on the Complete Guide to Savoring Meals Alfresco, it's definitely one of my treasured thrift store finds. And the audience here today is going to be the first to know that Claudia will be coming out with a new book this fall from Ten Speed called Claudia Roden's Mediterranean. I'm super excited to cook my way through that book.
Claudia Roden:
Thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Nina Williams-Mbengue had a role of a teenage Abena would have dreamed of. At just 12 years old and as the daughter of Edna Lewis's sister Naomi, she typed the manuscript for a Taste of Country Cooking. Miss Edna Lewis's seminal cookbook based on her childhood. Nina's also on the board of the Edna Lewis Foundation and offers policy consultation on child welfare. I was so honored and privileged to interview Nina for my piece in the Cherry Bombe issue of Julia Child which you should highly check out. And there's some amazing family photos of Edna Lewis and her family. And last but certainly not least, our moderator. Our moderator is writer, professor and culinary historian Sara B. Franklin. Combining her training and history, public health and documentary studies with her experience in sustainable agriculture and grassroots community, and anti poverty work, Sara has written for many publications including the Washington Post, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure and Longreads. She edited an incredible anthology on Edna Lewis and is currently working on her book, Taste Maker: The Remarkable Life of Judith Jones and I cannot wait to get my hands on that book.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Sara is also a mother of incredibly adorable of twins and I'm so honored for her to be leading this talk. Thank you all for coming. And I hope that by the end of this panel, you can have an incredible Judith connection. Sara, it's all you.
Sara B. Franklin:
Thanks Abena.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Of course.
Sara B. Franklin:
Hi, everybody. This is such a delight after this year of not enough socialization with people that we love and admire. So this is a real just diving into the deep end. And I'm so excited to be talking with all of these women about Judith Jones not for the first time, in some cases the second, in some cases the fifth or sixth time. But hopefully all of us together will bring some new memories to light. So the first thing I wanted to hold up because I'm sitting here in my office is I keep Judith's original business card posted on my wall. And I love it. This was her very first one when she was hired in 1957 and I found it in a box of her papers after she passed away but her stepdaughter gave me access to it. It's one of my treasured possessions.
Sara B. Franklin:
But we have here a group of writers and family members of writers, I'm thinking of Nina, who worked with Judith across an incredible span of time, starting in 1970 with Claudia Roden, which was nine years after Judith published Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Julia all the way until Judith's retirement in 2011 when she was 88 years old. So we have a representation of 40 plus years of her career here which is really remarkable. And so I wanted to begin with a warm up speed round. So this question is for all of you. And we might trip over each other a little bit because it's Zoom and it's want to happen. But if you had to choose a single word to describe Judith as you remember her, what would it be?
Joan Nathan:
I would say charming is one. Tough is another.
Lidia Bastianich:
I would say extraordinary. A person that demanded it of you, but at the same time embraced you and gave you the strength to develop yourself.
Joan Nathan:
Absolutely.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
I'd say patient. Someone who just patiently worked with ... like my aunt Edna to bring these stories out of her, of her childhood. And knowing that she would eventually bring them out in the form that you see them in the taste.
Claudia Roden:
For me, warm and caring. And really understood you, understood what you had to give, and really wanted to get the very best out of you. And she did it in a marvelous, brilliant way.
Sara B. Franklin:
Well, certainly more than one word for each of you for Judith, and now I'm imagining her with her green pen just scratching out the excess verbiage right now, trying to make us all be concise. And so our second speed round question before we dig in deep is ... And this is a tricky one of course, because you all have a lot to choose from, if you had to think of a single best thing you ever ate with Judith, what would it be and where were you?
Joan Nathan:
She made a wonderful rhubarb tart from her garden with tiny little strawberries and we ate it in Vermont.
Sara B. Franklin:
I would assume that was at her house there in Vermont.
Joan Nathan:
Yes.
Lidia Bastianich:
I would say in Italy, Judith and I ... She became part of your life. And she wanted to live your books, your recipes with you. And we took a trip together to Italy. She wanted to know Italy. And she was of course amazed by the products, in particularly ... And it's a soup that, Joan that we were talking about, I made for her birthday, her righty somewhat birthday. She was ... How the Italians make the ricotta and how they use all of the byproducts of the ricotta. The way in making soup. So I think, spring or early summer in Italy, down in lots of those bitter greens with some way and fresh ricotta, sheep's milk ricotta. I think that was a dish to be remembered. I certainly remember eating with her because she was so enthralled and thrilled by it, and the flavors and simple products that made such a good soup.
Joan Nathan:
What a beautiful memory. Claudia, what about you?
Claudia Roden:
Well, I've got so many, many memories of eating with Judith I thought memorable to me and very happy. Because we met in New York, I stayed with her in her flat. I stayed with her in Vermont when she cooked. She stayed with me when we cooked together. And we entertained ... And I'll also add a lot with her in Paris. I would meet her for a while. She went every year almost. And I have a studio there. And we would meet every time that she was there. We would go eating and walking and laughing. But so I've decided that I'll just mention the first time I met her which was 50 years ago before any of you were born. But she came to fetch me at the airport in New York.
Claudia Roden:
She took me to a hotel then fetched me and took me to dinner with Jim Baird and her husband Evan. And we went to an Italian restaurant, and we had courgette blossoms fried stuffed with mozzarella. It was very simple but it was the first time that I ate the courgette blossoms stuffed with mozzarella. So it remained with me. And Jim, we were talking about ... He did the the launch of the book in his house. So we discussed the menu and the chef was going to cook it and it was Lebanese food. So for me it's a memorable event.
Sara B. Franklin:
It says so much about her that the first time she met you she came to pick you up at the airport and brought you to eat. That classic Judith intimacy and hospitality. Nina, what about you? I know you were a young girl and a teenager when but there are photos of you in Central Park eating with her.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
I was going to say, I remember that. I must have been about 14 or 15, I went on a picnic with aunt Edna and Judith Jones and Edna cooked the food. I do not remember what we ate but that it was delicious. I was completely awed. I was super super painfully shy then so I don't know what I was thinking. But I just remember thinking it was pretty wonderful. Central Park was beautiful and to be with aunt Edna at all and to be with Judith Jones, I understood that. I don't remember what we ate but it was something aunt Edna cooked. And I always remember that we did that.
Sara B. Franklin:
And those photos are fabulous. Everyone just looks stunning in those photos. They're just incredible. Okay, so let's jump in a little bit. Because I think for a lot of this audience, they know all of you and they know the books you've helped to put out into the world but they don't necessarily know a ton about Judith as a person and as an editor and the mark that she's left on the food world. And Claudia, I wanted to start with you because you were the first among this group to meet and work with her. And it was a different scenario. Your first book was published first in London. And then Judith acquired it for Knopf in 1970. And so I'm wondering before you worked with her, did you know anything about her? Had you seen Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Were you aware of her connection to that book? What did you know about her in the world, in those early days of food coming into the mainstream?
Claudia Roden:
I didn't know anything. Because in England, we didn't watch Julia. We didn't have the show. But I did know about Julia and I did know her book. But yes, Judith amazed me because even though ... At first, the books that she took on from me were several, which she didn't edit. But even though she didn't edit them, they were edited in England. She still, when she did the American edition, she confronted me about certain dishes. She says, "Why is the patata bravas so many?" "No, only four ingredients." And she said, "The Spanish books that I've just done, this book of tapas, it's got 10/15 ingredients, all these spices." And I said, "I just got it in Spain and that's all they used." But we had arguments over several things even though she didn't edit, she could have just passed them.
Claudia Roden:
But she was so curious. But when she did edit my book, it was a Jewish book, I thought there would be no editor on Earth like her. I have never in England or anywhere else met an editor like her. I don't know the future whether there will be anybody like her. But certainly, the way she really really got into the book, cooked the recipes, and advised and cared and wanted to inspire. I mean, the amount of effort she took, and then at the end in putting the book together ... Maybe I should leave it for another question or something.
Sara B. Franklin:
No, I think it's quite important.
Claudia Roden:
With a Jewish book. I went on for 16 years and I didn't want to leave it. Because I was so fascinated by the research that I wanted to just go on and on. And she would come every year or we'd meet and she would say, "Where are you? What are you doing? How far have you got?" And she wanted to know what I had just been doing. But then at one stage, she just said, "Just give it to me." I said, "I can't. I haven't done the Jews of Afghanistan. I haven't done the Jews of ..." She said, "No, you've got to give it ... And it's going to be just your Odyssey and just what you found. You can't find everybody." And so when I brought her all my huge amount of stuff that I ... Not only recipes but people I met, the history of these communities, the history of these ... And all throughout those 16 years, I kept thinking I could never put it together. Could never put it together.
Claudia Roden:
When I went, she said, "Just bring everything." I brought it to her office. She put all the papers on the floor, all over in piles on her desk, on chairs. And then in two days, we did it with her. She would say, "Where should we put that? There with them. Where should we put this story? With those recipes." The amount of emotional impact she put into what you were doing, and you felt that she really really cared about what you did. And she also cared about you.
Sara B. Franklin:
That level of integrity.
Claudia Roden:
Yes, she was sensational as an editor.
Sara B. Franklin:
One of the things that's making me smile is how frustrated she got when everything switched to email because she was such a tactile person. She wanted to spread everything out and see it and post things up on the wall and be with you and she suffered when everything became digital. I mean, I think she retired at just the right moment for herself because I think she would have hated all this track changes stuff that we do now and Zooming. Imagine Judith on Zoom, it would have been a real trip. So then this is a question ... I want to put this one first to Lidia, but really it's a question for all of you which is, you've spoken a lot about her making a writer out of you. And you talked in great detail with me about it a couple of years ago. And I would love you to talk to this group about, what did she expect you to bring to the process of writing a cookbook? Both the pros and the memories and headnotes, but also to the writing. And how did she help you get better? I mean, you've been quoted as saying, "She made a writer out of me, and she liberated me to write." Can you talk to us about that a little bit?
Lidia Bastianich:
Yes. English for me is a second language. And I was a chef, that's what I love doing and of course recipes. But I did not consider myself certainly a writer. And therefore in writing and putting down the recipe ... And I had stories to tell about those recipes, real stories, involvement. And things that I wanted the reader to take for their own so that they could make this recipe. It was a question of how to put all of that together. And of course, here I have Judith Jones in front of me. And initially, I was intimidated, I really was. So I would write and I would think and I would erase and rewrite. I wouldn't want them to give her almost an edited book because I didn't want her to Lidia. She knew the pain that I was going through that. She grabbed me once by my shoulder, she says, "Lidia, you just put down everything that comes to your mind. The cleaning up is up to me. Just give me all the ingredients, give me all your thoughts and whatever." And then liberated me and put me in a comfortable spot.
Lidia Bastianich:
To write about something that you love is not that hard. And then to put ... The stories because for me food is a story. Food is history, food is who we are. So all of that began to flow from me. And she would just shuffle it around and fix it. And then when you missed something she says, "How about here, Lidia? What did you do here? What can we share here? Why did you do that to those things? Why should we use them just in January or February," so on. And she really took me by my hand, paragraph by paragraph. But the most important is that she made me free to express myself and to put down in words what I love. And then she fixed it up.
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah. I love that you pointed out that she was curious about the why and not just the how because I think often people think about cookbooks as teaching tools. They're how do you do this rather than Why do you do this. And there's a big difference in the approach to a book in terms of a book that asks the question why, which is a much bigger book. It has curiosity to it, and it can open other doors. Joan, what about you? You were not new to writing. It wasn't your first book when you came to Judith. And I remember you telling me that when you turned in your manuscript of that first book ... Why don't you tell the story? But you had a phone call that has loomed large for you ever since.
Joan Nathan:
I remember the phone call so clearly that it was Monday before Thanksgiving. I don't know why I remember that. And she called me and she said, "I think you'd better come to New York. I don't understand what your book is all about." So by the time I hung up ... I was afraid of Judith Jones. This is my first book, it was Jewish Cooking in America. And by the time I hung up, thank God also thank God for the food processor. I figured out what was wrong with the book. I'd done it like a history book, not a cookbook. So by the time I got to New York, I realized how to rectify it. But that too ... I don't know if the others have the same feeling that I do, it's not what she didn't say. If she ruled out the word nice in her green pencil on what you've written, you knew it was really good. But she rarely did that. Most of the time, she did real editing. I could show you pages and pages of green ... I save the worst edits.
Joan Nathan:
And what was so good about her is that ... And she was so smart that way. They said, "She picked people to work with that she knew had something to say." Edna Lewis, Lidia, Claudia, Julia. Then right after then, Marcela has on and Madhur Jaffrey. I mean, it's amazing. And she would always say to me, "Don't do anything in favor of a book unless you think it's worthwhile. It should be something that should be published." And so it made you look at things very differently. And listening to everybody else talk about their trips, we had a lot of trips together. And one of the things that, if I can talk about this now ... You're right, she wanted the best for you. But when we were in France ... She was for her 50th anniversary of working in Knopf. So she invited me, I was working on couscous, food of the Jews of France.
Joan Nathan:
She invited me to Strasbourg where I was already going to be, and she wanted to go to a three star restaurant that Knopf said they would pay for. So we went there, but we had to order because she didn't want the publisher to spend too much money. And that was another thing of Judith, she would never go to the most expensive restaurant. She was just very careful that way. And I think she preferred eating either at home or she loved eating at in Vermont. So whether you went someplace special or not, it was always an adventure.
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah, you're right. She was not impressed by famous chefs, she was interested in people who were really skilled home cooks or had a little cafe and had just tremendous skill and practice. Nina, I want to come to you because you had a really different experience of Judith. You were young and coming of age, and you were helping someone write. She happened to be your aunt but you were in the role of translator cum co-writer. And I would love to know impressionable age, what you learned about writing and writing recipes, specifically through working with your aunt who was working with Judith.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
Right. It was amazing, especially as I look back now. I was literally 12 or 13, had my first typewriter for those of you who remember what that was. I was taking a typing course and aunt Edna's handwriting was chicken scratch. And she'd give me... Yes, she'd give me these yellow legal pads of the recipes. And then my 12 or 13 year old self ... I would just be driven crazy because aunt Edna had these long sentences. The whole page would be one sentence describing all this wonderful food, the baby chickens, the farmyard animals, the streams. And I'm like, aunt Edna ... So I was trying to fix that. They would go to Judith, then we come back, and we'd work on it and go over and over again. So certainly, just the mechanics of writing. And I think more so just wanting to get at what aunt Edna's memories were in bringing that to paper, and how important it was to flesh that out. And that balance between writing a recipe and having some history and how people lived and how they raised food, bringing that all into play.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
And I think writing to bring the person's voice out so that you could hear aunt Edna's childhood memories of growing up in this community of people who had formerly been enslaved, and really making that beautiful. I think that's what I learned or what I remember coming out of that, that I thought was ... And as an adult think is even more remarkable. I don't know that I thought it was remarkable when I was 12 or 13 years old but certainly now I just see that it was such a gift that she gave us to put that on paper and to see the importance of putting that experience in those recipes and the lifestyle that the people lived, that they crafted out of a really horrible experience, but brought us something that's still resonating with us today.
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah. So this is a question that I'd love for each of you to address. But one of the things that Judith is really known for is her literary raker. She was a literary editor, as well as a cookbook editor and brought the same attention to her cookbooks that she did to novels and poetry and she believed they all deserved equal attention. Your words had to be careful and artful, and really expressive of a voice. What did you learn about how to write a recipe that reads beautifully with her? I mean, the recipe she edited our works of art, they're perfect. So I'm curious what you guys learned about language in a form, recipe writing that for a long time was very minimalist, not artful, formulaic, let's say. And the books that you've all written are not that way and they're recipes at all. They're recipes that work but the recipes have beautiful language in them.
Joan Nathan:
Well, she never liked the words mix or place or combined. And she didn't want it to be so formulaic. What she taught me was, you have to go from the minute you pick up the spoon or a fork to do something, do it the way that people do it, not put something in a pot, or in a pot put something with ... What comes first. Which you just had to really think about, the way that you yourself want to explain these recipes.
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah, I think that's right because she learned so much from each of you that she wanted the readers to feel the same way that they were really being led as though they were standing at your elbow from one step to next.
Joan Nathan:
Words like ... I forget, maybe one of you remembers, crocodile. I forget which recipe it was that she did that you would say crocodile about 10 times and that's how long you would mix something.
Claudia Roden:
Yeah, I think with me, it was almost the opposite problem. But she didn't see it as a problem because I started writing the first book was by interviewing people who had never had a cookbook. In Egypt, there wasn't a single cookbook of any kind. You wouldn't even find it in a magazine, did not write recipes to be published. People didn't trust anything that was written. They only accepted things that were passed down in their families. And when I started writing, it was collecting recipes from people. And I wrote down every word they said, sometimes it was a bit ridiculous. Like you rub the almonds in your hands once you've roasted them, and you go to the window or outside the door and blow to get rid of the skin. So if you said that now, people would think you're mad.
Sara B. Franklin:
I think it's beautiful.
Claudia Roden:
I kept thinking Judith would ... Because she had taken the book already but she was glad. And she kept telling me she really didn't like the formulaic way that it had become in America. And she said, "Actually, it's your voice. It's as though you're talking from your heart or from your mind, from your experience, the way you do that. People will really feel you're there beside them. And they'll know." So very much she had this saying, "You tell it how you would do it."
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah. Nina, how about you? Oh, I'm sorry Lidia. I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead.
Lidia Bastianich:
No, no, go ahead, Nina. Go ahead.
Sara B. Franklin:
I was just going to say, there's an interesting thing there because your aunt was translating recipes that were cooked on wood stoves for the most part into contemporary home kitchens. So there was a lot of tinkering and experimenting that had to go on to try to replicate those tastes. What was that like? In terms of trying to get it on paper.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
Right. I remember Claudia, when you were talking about some of the things that you had to ... You were taking from people and trying to put it on paper that would have been aunt Edna's case, remembering from her grandmother and grandfather who lived into their 90s. They were not literate and they weren't reading cookbooks, they certainly weren't used to writing things down and aunt Edna would talk about measuring things in the palm of our hands or on a fingertip or something like that. That's the way they cook, they cook from memory and pass it down one to the next. I remember because she tested all the recipes in our little kitchen up in the Bronx on 38th Street between Willis and Brooke. We had a tiny kitchen and she tested all the recipes there just over and over.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
And I'm sure Judith had a hand in her calling her ... She had a sister and brother who remained in Virginia on their farms and she checked everything with them. And the sister would have still had a wood cook stove, I do remember that. I even learned how to cook on a wood cook stove. And together, they were doing the translating. So she'd talk with her sister Jenny, then she'd tried on our stove and would be adjusting the temperature. So it was hands on, and putting that down and Judith would bounce that back if something didn't make sense of it wasn't quite right. It was indeed, and again, another testament to Judith getting that from her mind and her heart things that she got from people who were not writing anything down. And to get that to us today, I think it's just an incredible gift that she had.
Sara B. Franklin:
And now it's this time capsule that we couldn't possibly.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
Yes.
Sara B. Franklin:
Lidia, what about you?
Lidia Bastianich:
Well, I felt that she really got into me. She wanted the emotion, she wanted the sentiments. For me, I left as a young child, 12 years old to come to United States. So I cherish those memories and the time that I spent as a child with my grandmother in the fields with the animals. To me, I cherish that as a story, something that gave me strength and that she wanted all those stories. And I told her ... Claudia, you're talking about the almonds, I remember with my grandmother, the beans, the strings. You eat them green, then they mature, they dry. And then as kids, we used to shell them in the courtyard and they we would save them for winter soups. But when we would shell them, we would shell them on a cloth. And kids, each one on one corner would throw these shell beans up in the air and the wind would blow away the little membrane on top, just like the almonds.
Lidia Bastianich:
And she wanted all of these things. I kept this memories because we escaped communism back into Italy and I didn't know I was going to see my grandmother again. And food was my connector to those emotion, to that time. So I really remember vividly and she wanted it all. "Yes, Lidia put that down." Because people enter into your world. We are leading them into a world of comfort, of food or be comfortable with food, cooking. And each in our own ethnicity in a way, we can take that away from what we do. And you bring people with you and people just love to enter into somebody that they can trust and ultimately cook their flavors and make their flavors. And she was so good. As much as she could, she would get out of you, she wanted it.
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah.
Claudia Roden:
I can see you all. I just think one of the great things about Judith is that she cared about you but she also, in my case, wanted to meet her other authors. And this created also a friendship and I remember going to lunch at Lidia's.
Lidia Bastianich:
Yes, yes.
Claudia Roden:
And it was memorable. I always remember. But I also remember being with Edna a few times, with Judith and I've got several photographs that Judith took of Edna and me at the market. And then Edna invited me to ... We went together at somebody else's. And she brought her biscuits that she was doing for a shop for Dean and DeLuca. And I just thought it was a kind ... She gave you also an experience. And yes, Nathan wasn't in New York, but it's how I met here. But also, yes, Jeffrey Steingarten, Marian Cunningham, all her authors she really cared about. And I felt I had a real real friend who really cared, which was ... It's not often that you get it in the publishing world.
Sara B. Franklin:
Nina ... Go ahead.
Joan Nathan:
Well, I remember when I took ... Judith wanted to go to Israel and I took her with me, and with Bronwyn, her stepdaughter. And we were up at the Sea of Galilee and one of the things I really loved about Judith was her spunk. When we were in Vermont, we would ... I love to swim. So we would go into that freezing cold pond every morning when we were doing our editing sessions. I'm sure both of you had those too. And we would take these walks and she was game for anything. So we were in Israel, there were two things that happened at the Sea of Galilee. One, we have this bread that was cooked on top of these black stones. And it was one of those bread ... What is it plungers, Claudia, whatever they're called. But anyway, it was like a long rod that you put the bread and the oven on. So Judith insisted that she gets some of these black flat stones. And they said, "Well, you have to go into the Sea of Galilee to collect the stones."
Joan Nathan:
So she said, "I must bring them back." So we went to the Sea of Galilee, we collected the stones. And then she said, "I've got to have one of these paddles." So we got two paddles, one for her and one for me. And of course, it was very hard bringing them back on the planes but we got them. And the other time was ... She also wanted to go to see a field that she thought that Jesus might have gone on. So this was before the first Intifada in Israel in 1990. And the three of us took a cab to Bethlehem because we knew that this was a field in Bethlehem that I had never seen before, we went there, we came back. And of course, it was very dangerous at that time to go there. And Judith just tossed it off. She didn't care. And she would drink ... I gave her some goat milk at a farm and she would just toss it down. I mean, she would do a lot and she was much older than I was at that time. Now she wouldn't be that much older. But it was just an adventure being with her and it was so much fun. She was ageless really.
Lidia Bastianich:
Nina, I wanted to share with you. Edna worked in Nickels on 58th Street between second and third. Felidia was on 58 between second and third. And she would come down, she would walk down and walk in front of Felidia and of course, I knew of her. But I loved her because she reminded me so much of my grandmother, that's fragile, individual. Her hair was in the back just like my grandmother. And she would come in, I invited her in and we would have some coffee. And the way she talked about food and cooking food on the open fire and all of that, it was magnificent. Just to share a few moments with her. She would go from there, I guess home sometimes in the afternoon but she worked in Nickels up on the east side. This was in 1981, '82.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
Oh my God, thank you so much. That's amazing. Amazing.
Sara B. Franklin:
I have so much more I want to talk about with all of you but I think I only have time for one more question. So I'm going to try to compress three questions into one and you can each answer it as you like. But we have to talk about legacy. We're talking about a woman who is no longer with us, Judith died in 2017. And the world of food and cookbooks is changing and fast since she left us. And so I'm curious to know from each of you what imprint you think that she left. And two of the things that I've thought about a lot, particularly as I've been working on my book about her and having known her are that I feel like she really gave Americans permission to take pleasure in food and cooking in a very un-American way, we tend to be a very tight country. She talked about that a lot, the puritanical streak.
Sara B. Franklin:
But also that she was really out in front of identity politics, and finding ways for people to tell stories of their particular experience, whether it be from a different race, from a different religious group, from a different socio economic group, rural versus urban. And so I'm curious how you each think about the magnitude of her impact on how we think about food and the role that cookbooks play in food as culture. Big question.
Claudia Roden:
I think this thing about pleasure, she was afraid that people were not cooking for pleasure anymore, that they were afraid of food. They're afraid of it going to do something bad to them, that people were so worried about health. But also there were all these fads that were coming and going and that people were losing this love of just eating for pleasure, good food. I wanted to put in, if I've got a moment that when I was in Paris, she would have a list of where we should eat and some of it came from Jeffrey Steingarten suggested. But once she went to ... There was two American chefs from California who had rented a big flat. And they were doing dinners there, mainly for Americans. And they had a huge, long table. And there was chandeliers and it was very dramatic. And they were cooking French food. And the Americans had all booked from America. But she started telling me about when she was young as a girl in Paris, that's what she was doing to earn her money.
Sara B. Franklin:
1948.
Claudia Roden:
Yes. And it was just after the war. It was a very, very extraordinary time in Paris. I went to school there in '51, not much longer. I must have been there at the same time but the fact ... Yes, for her, politics, people ... We talked about everything, personal things. Although she looked stiff and straight, she really was warm. And she adored her husband. She loved people that she met in Paris when she was very young. And until now, I'm speaking to one of her close friends. I speak to her almost every week on the phone. I've never met her. But she was Judith's friend and Judith would see her-
Claudia Roden:
Yes. And now she can hardly walk because she was older [inaudible 00:46:44]. But she phones. And we talk about Judith. And she talks about the great times they had in Paris. But I think she was a very passionate woman, passionate about food, and passionate about truth and reality. And she was caring about human beings.
Sara B. Franklin:
Absolutely.
Joan Nathan:
I think of her legacy ... I saw her just before she died and I was at her apartment just after she died. And I saw all those books, not just cookbooks, all the books by authors that she had shepherded through their careers. And I realized that each of them, in a sense, was one of her children. And I think her legacy, certainly her cookbook legacy is what she taught all of us that we put in our books, that we worked so hard on, and that we try to keep the standards that she had taught us. And through our books that have spawned all these next generation of cookbooks, I'm sure the legacy will just continue through generations because Claudia, Lidia, Madhur, all of these people have great books, Edna. And look at this whole generation, especially Edna right now are looking to her. And I think that's the most important thing that she did. And I think she realized it.
Sara B. Franklin:
Yeah.
Lidia Bastianich:
I think that she really has a very special place in American cooking, the opening of Americans, of feeling comfortable with themselves, with cooking, with enjoying food. I always felt, because coming from a culture, that cooking is at the basis of who we are, what we do, eating, the table. I mean, that's Italian, everybody gets involved. I found initially that maybe food in America was almost maligned. It was the thing that caused all the sicknesses. She slowly turned that around with all of us. And what she realized also is that America is made of all these different ethnicities and she picked us all one by one for each to make the road into this wonderful America, this multiple culture, great nation, for us to bring in ... And I think that now, people ... They write to me, I'm sure they write to all of you, "Lidia, now I can cook. I feel comfortable." And that's not Lidia. That's Judith and all of the great writers in her wake that we continue. And there's certainly other ones. But I think starting with Julia, she started on TV and opened that window, but Judith opened the literary window, the window of books and really making them accessible and really making them true.
Sara B. Franklin:
Absolutely. Nina?
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
Sure. Yeah. I really think through Judith and the tastes of country cooking, working with aunt Edna and bringing her childhood memories, I think that Judith knew that this was something special. That's something that I don't think that people expected of black people, a beauty and a dignity that went beyond what we know is fried chicken and greens, what we think of as southern food. And it wasn't just about refinement of southern cooking, it was that too. But I think of the thought process of a people that had formerly been enslaved but were able to come out and form their community, build a society. They were people that were uneducated and especially in the case of aunt Edna, they were not classically trained in the culinary arts or anything like that. I think this is something pretty special about Judith that she trusted aunt Edna with this voice.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
And aunt Edna, again, had no classical culinary training, she had very little formal education. But she really trusted her to go with this, to pass this voice on, the voice of the people of Freetown that aunt Edna was writing about. And it's had such an impact on what we think of as southern cooking, and American cooking. So I think that is much of the legacy of Judith, at least in my eyes. And I'm just grateful that she took that chance with my aunt and had her pull that voice out to enable aunt Edna to still impact people today, which is amazing to me.
Sara B. Franklin:
So we have pleasure, dignity, humanity, excellence, and the power of the human voice and human storytelling. I mean, what a legacy, and in only 40 minutes and I know each of you could go on and on and on with more stories and details. I want to give space for maybe one question. Abena, if you can pick one out of the chat pile, for this really esteemed panel.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It's going to be a tough one. I think we're probably going to go a couple minutes over if that's okay, so maybe we'll do three or four questions. Truly, this has been incredible, I'm honestly so emotional just listening to you all. It's like watching the Super Bowl, but for cooking and just for strong female voices. So thank you all so much for just sharing your stories. And again, I love all your cookbooks so much. They are very treasured at my home. We'll start off the first question. I'm going to ... Let's see, there's so many amazing questions in here. Sara actually, I'll start with you just based on your history with Judith Jones. Did Judith Jones ever visit Julia Child in France? If so, can you compare her kitchen in France and her kitchen at Cambridge? And what do you think Judith observed in both?
Sara B. Franklin:
So Judith and Julia missed one another in France. They overlapped in terms of timing very briefly, but they didn't know one another there at all. So when Judith began working with Julia, Julia was living in Stockholm. And they were on their way to Cambridge. So as Mastering was getting ready to be published, Paul and Julia were headed home to settle in Cambridge. So I can't make that comparison from firsthand knowledge at all, unfortunately but they'd spent a lot of time in Cambridge together testing recipes, going over ... I mean, endless time. There are a lot of stories there. And vice versa. Julia spent a lot of time with Judith in her apartment in New York and also up in Vermont. I mean, you're talking about a working relationship that lasted for decades.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Truly. Talk about a solid partnership. Not too many cooks in the kitchen, I guess. Joan, this question's for you. What was it about Judith that so connected her with ... This is from Shelley. So this question is, what was it about Judith that you just loved about connecting with her? In terms of her foresight and intuition and helping you develop your books.
Joan Nathan:
What I really liked about Judith was ... It was so unexpected, I was scared to death of her. I mean, that's why I never called her to ask questions for the Jewish Cooking in America until she said, "Come to New York." But we got to know each other very well and I had a tough mother who I also loved. And that's why I loved Judith. But what I really liked about her more than almost anything else was that she respected human beings. She might have been very critical of a lot, she hated processed foods, she hated a lot of the things that we did ... She thought of as superficial chefs. But she loved human beings. And she had a knack for picking people that she thought were really worthwhile to be working with. So you felt privileged just being in her company. And if she heard us talking right now, I was thinking about this, she would have thought this is a lot of guff.
Joan Nathan:
I did it because I loved it. I didn't do it for anything else. And I think that's what I liked about her. People used to wonder ... I was middle class Jewish and she was Protestant and in a way waspy. And we got along great because there was the humanity in both of us that was very similar. And I'm sure it's the same with everybody else, all the other women that are here today and men too, that there's something human that I loved working with Judith about. And once I got over my fear of her, we became great friends for many, many years. So I think it was the humanity that really got ... I knew who she was as a human being. She was flawed like all of us but she was great.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's so powerful. I believe there's a Farsi term which is just this love of food and just everyone has ... It's almost like a hidden talent, just appreciating food. And I feel like just reading her stuff and listening to how you talked about her, it's that love of food that you can't really quite put your finger on. So that's incredible.
Joan Nathan:
She was also her own person.I remember her telling me this story about when she was very young, and her parents wanted her to go straight through. And she thought she really would like to be with her grandparents in Vermont and she had the spunk to just get there. This was very, very young ... Sara, I don't know exactly.
Sara B. Franklin:
I read the letters. They're bananas.
Joan Nathan:
She led her life like that. And that's also what I really ... A spark in her that I think we all loved. She wasn't conventional, even though she seemed conventional.
Sara B. Franklin:
I wan to pause there for a moment, Joan because I think that's actually so important, especially now, I think there's been a tribalization of our culture. So people picking their corners and associating more and more with people that maybe they think share their values or an identity on the surface. And she just was in the business of knocking down barriers wherever she went, she didn't care about them. She didn't care how people identified her or what they thought was appropriate for a woman to do or someone from the northeast or Protestant or whatever, what have you. She did what she wanted to do. And she did it fearlessly. And she did it with excellence. And so it was really hard for people to call her out about it because she always did it well. And she did it with grace and humanity.
Joan Nathan:
And that really goes back to the beginning of what you were saying, because Doubleday published ... She was working for Doubleday in Paris when she dipped on the table ... Her editor went off for lunch and said, "Look at whatever you want to look at." And he had tossed The Diary of Anne Frank into a basket and she picked it out and she read it and said, "The American people have to look at this." And the editor came back and said, "Oh, that girl?" It was like, why did he want to do this?
Sara B. Franklin:
And then he took credit for it.
Joan Nathan:
She was tough. I loved her.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. And also, I think, especially at a time when women weren't necessarily for her to be such a staunch believer in herself and then translate that to Jewish cooking and Italian cooking and just cultures that typically weren't revered or looked down upon. And just being a great voice for a lot of pioneers, someone like Madhur Jaffery, someone like Lidia or someone like you Joan which is immensely powerful that ... Cooking I think wouldn't be here today if it weren't without her. I don't think that's a bold statement to make. Lidia, this question is for you, the next question. So everyone was mentioning ... There's a lot of cake conversations happening in the chat. So Ryan's cake came up and Louis's cake came up, Claudia's almond cake came up. Lidia, what is the cake recipe from one of your books that everyone needs to know how to make?=
Lidia Bastianich:
Well, simple things ... I must say what's in now is the tiramisu. So as simple as it's straightforward but I think what not only the tiramisu out of coffee, which is as traditional but getting into the season, making it of a lemon tiramisu or a peach tiramisu. People appreciate that very much. They're called in Italian, which means food desserts, which means desserts that are made at home with things that you have, we put them together in a container or individually and voila you have it. So I think tiramisu is one of the ones but some of my favorites ... that was under the Austria Hungarian thing. So I love food desserts, so nice apfelstrudel. I just love it, making them fall the smell of cinnamon and a little bit of lemon. I love that.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, my mouth watering. I need tiramisu. Can you talk more about this peach tiramisu? What are you serving for that coffee?
Lidia Bastianich:
Tiramisu is made with the ladyfingers, you would say. But traditionally was made with leftover sponge cake or leftover cookies. So this freedom, and this is what Judith really did well. It brought out this options and gave freedom to the reader through us in a sense. And yes, this tiramisu I'm sure can be made in many ways. So peaches ... And peaches, there's nothing better than when peaches are really ripe. But the ones that are really ... that are let's say bruised a little bit. And so you posh them, give them some cloves, some flavorings, and then you let them chill, condense the sauce, and then you use all peach schnapps, a little sugar. And so a little lemon juice just to exalt the peachiness. Now, you can do apricots like that, so it just keeps on going.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Lidia, I'll have to test it out and send you a picture. Hopefully it passes.
Lidia Bastianich:
Do that. A few months peaches over here.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yes, I live in Ontario, Canada. We get some of the best peach peaches produce ... If I can send them to you, I'll try and make it. Awesome. Well, speaking of sustainable food, we know Nina, aunt Edna was one of the biggest pioneers when it came to slow cooking. She inspired so many people including Alice Waters if you read the Taste of Country Cooking. Alice Waters has a great forward in there. So a question I had for you was ... Joanne brown asked a question on, it's interesting ... I think someone's talking about fast food and how food is changing. Can you talk about, how do you feel about the current state of just fast food? With people like aunt Edna and Joan and Claudia who are just such good advocates of great home cooking without the processed food or the processed items.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I think Judith did not like processed foods as you can tell, she was immensely frustrated and want to emulate home cooking back into foods. Based on where we're at now, based on when you were editing the book with Judith, what are your thoughts on that?
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
Oh, boy. Well, it's so funny because I hear aunt Edna echoing Judith Jones with the fast food and processed food and I hear echoing in my head. Probably she knew I had a microwave, she'd have a fit. I just think so many things. It seems to me that this is continuing to grow. I mean, fast food is still there but I think all the food that we're hearing about, people talking about Edna Lewis and talking about you all and the food, I think that has brought that back. And I really think to some extent, I hope that that's one good thing that will come out of COVID-19, people being home and having the time to cook and wanting some really good food because they can't go out to the restaurants. And then when they do go out, really appreciate the time that people put into making food really well at great restaurants.
Nina Williams-Mbengue:
And they don't have to be expensive restaurants, great restaurants in your neighborhood. Or great foods that your family cooked. And you just forgot how wonderful that was until you were forced to sit tight, sit still and really remember good flavor. So I really think that we're coming ... I don't know, if it's full circle or if we're coming back to really appreciating food, and how it tastes and what it means to each other, and to be with each other. All this time we've had when we couldn't be with our families, we couldn't see our older people, our grandparents, and we missed all that talk and preparing food together. We've got to just remember how special that is. Fast food has its place but really this food and the flavors that it engendered, the memory it serves in us and the feeling it gives us, we can't get any other way other than to take the time to really do it right and do it well.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, I think this will be especially ... We're slowly getting vaccinated, the world hopefully is slowly opening back up. Those food centered gatherings are going to be so much more special. We're going to be like ... You never want to not be home with family again. Claudia, this last question is for you and then we're going to wrap things up. So first question is, when is your book coming out? I think there are a lot of fans that are fired up.
Claudia Roden:
In September, I hope. Yeah.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Fingers crossed. Well, hopefully Cherry Bombe.
Claudia Roden:
They've done a beautiful book. What they did. They're happy with what I did. Wonderful.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love that. And then just a follow up question for you. So obviously you have so many books behind you. I'm trying to count them, but I feel like I'd lose count. So it looked like Judith was a big green pen person as opposed to red pen person. And I'm curious just to ask you, if you had your personal green pen, what are one or two things...
Claudia Roden:
Yes, I do have a green pen and all of that, but not that much. Not that much. I never thought of myself as a writer. Because I just wanted to say what I had to say. I was desperate to say. But in the early days and most of my life, I was really recording reality, how people cooked at home, the regional cooking, the home cooking, and what they did. I wasn't trying to do my own thing. I wasn't trying to invent. Now I feel freer. Everybody's made me feel free to do things the way I want to. But all of my books and with Judith, this is what I did, to actually tradition which I thought might be lost. Because yes, if we don't record it, it will be. And I think what a lot of the chefs and food writers now I see who tell me that they use my books as their primary source. They use the book as a primary source and they can go and do their own thing. They can do their own take, but they want to know how was it.
Claudia Roden:
And for me, that was my role. And now I think my role for my last book was to give pleasure in any way. And it was really ... For five years, I thought, at my age, what I love most is having people to eat at my house like my friends. I have relatives who come from abroad but I cooked constantly. I live alone. So that was very important for me. And also, I love writing about food. So I had to do both. And for five years, I was just testing recipes that I remembered from all my travels. That gave me joy. And then I tried them and everybody was able to give me their views. And for me, this thing of finding which of the great ... The recipes that gave the most pleasure, but they had to be easy because I cook on my own. I haven't got a helper or an assistant. So it had to be easy.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. Well, if you ever need a sous chef, I'm more than happy to apply post pandemic. Well, thank you all so much for spending the hour with us. Truly, I think this is an event, an hour that I will probably cherish forever and Sara, thank you for such amazing questions and just truly an awesome afternoon. I want this every day.
Audrey Payne:
I'm just going to echo what Abena said. Lidia, Joan, Claudia, Nina, thank you so much for sharing all your Judith stories with us. And Sara and Abena, thank you so much for moderating. I know we all wish we could hang out all day. It was such an honor. I also do just want to point out that Sara actually wrote a story about that for the Julia Child issues. So if you have that at home, be sure to read that story. Thank you again to all of our friends Kerrygold, Le Creuset, Crate & Barrel, Whole Foods Market, San Pellegrino and Kobrand for supporting The Julia Jubilee and today's talk. Be sure to join us through our Food Stylist Secrets demo this afternoon at 5:00 PM Eastern. Thank you so much. You can visit our website for the schedule and RSVP. All right.
Sara B. Franklin:
Everybody, be safe. Take care.