Julia Child on MAGA: "Those irresponsible meatballs"

Armed with a spatula and a blowtorch.

In 1952, Julia Child was busy developing recipes for her future classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Living in Paris, she would send drafts to her beloved pen pal, Avis DeVoto, an editor living across the pond in Massachusetts. Were the same spices available in the U.S.? Were the measurements accurate in the U.S. Customary System? Did the recipes, as written, make sense?

Thousands of miles apart, the women’s lives stirred in parallel beyond their well-stocked kitchens. For starters, their husbands: Paul Child was an exhibits officer with the U.S. Information Agency; Bernard DeVoto was a prominent journalist and political advisor. Both, in this era, were in J. Edgar Hoover’s files, the subjects of federal investigations and public scrutiny. They were deemed Communist sympathizers, DeVoto a public-lands advocate and Child a possible homosexual.

Julia regularly weaved politics into her thoughts on beurre blanc. “What’s the country coming to, with those irresponsible meatballs in control!”