WEBVTT - James Beard: Food Legend 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.080 Hey, everyone, we want to announce that we have our 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.840 final three shows of the year on the books August 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.480 twelfth in Orlando, Florida, September sixth in Nashville, Tennessee, and 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.440 winding it up right here in Atlanta September ninth. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.760 They're going to be great, just great, great, great great. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:20.720 So if you want to come see the Stuff you 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:22.840 Should Know greatness, the last of it for the year, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.759 you can by going to Stuff you Should Know dot 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.080 com and checking out our tour page or going to 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.319 link tree slash sysk. Either way you'll get links to 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:33.919 tickets and all the info you need. We'll see you 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:34.919 starting in August. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:44.880 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.640 Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.640 Jerry's here too, and that makes this Stuff you Should Know. 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.120 Let's see that's right. 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.200 This is about James Beard, the Human and the James 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.200 Beard Foundation and awards. Big thanks to Dave Brus who 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.000 helped us put this together. And I also got a 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.760 lot of stuff from a writer, a bunch of interviews 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.319 in magazine articles on this guy, John Birdsall, who wrote 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.600 a book called The Man Who ate too much about 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.440 James Beard, about James Beard and James Beard through the 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:22.560 lens of sort of what it was like to be 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.920 a closeted gay man, and then you know, starting in 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.000 the early nineteen hundreds in the United States. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.400 Yeah, one of the things about the Internet is is 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.520 when something comes along that's kind of definitive, most of 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.880 the stuff that turns up on a search engine is 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.800 interpretation of that. Yeah, it's a bunch of different reviews 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.280 of in this case of a book or think pieces, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.000 you know, based on the book whatever. But if you 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.240 dig hard enough, you can find like pre you know, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.840 definitive articles as well. And this is a case of that. 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.000 And it's really interesting to see things that were written 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.920 about James Beard in nineteen eighty ninety seven or yeh, 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.600 twenty ten or whatever, anytime before twenty twenty when John 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.440 Birdsall's book came out, and it's just totally different. It's 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.240 so much more surface level and accepting him as who 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.400 he was basically or taking on face that he was 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.280 who he seemed to be. And then now after that, 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.000 it's like there's meditations on you know, whether he actually 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.000 hated being gay, like a friend said he did or 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:33.080 did he hate being gay in the mid twentieth century. Like, 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.440 it's just a completely different approach to James Beard. And 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.160 certainly it's a lot more robust and well rounded and thoughtful. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.840 But in some ways it's like, man, it's too bad 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.840 we can't go back to the happier interpretation of James Beard. 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:50.160 But that's just not how it goes. 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.240 Yeah, So who we're talking about is, like you said, 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.480 James Beard. If you are into food, if you're into restaurants, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.320 if you are into cooking shows and reading cookbooks and 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.239 foodie culture, then James Beard is a very big name. 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.760 Because if you get a James Beard Award for your 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:15.360 podcast or your restaurant critic column or your cookbook or 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.480 most importantly for your restaurant, yeah, or as a chef, 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:25.040 then that means big. That means fame and fortune and 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.560 all the things that go with winning a major award, 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:29.760 as if it were a Tony or an Oscar or 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:30.720 a Emmy or whatever. 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.600 Yeah, because that is generally how it's viewed as the 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:35.400 Oscars of. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.720 Food until the Oscar said stop saying that. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.360 Yeah they did. Apparently. The James Beard Awards were broadcast 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.480 of Food Network in the nineties and they call it 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.520 the culinary Oscars, right, and the Oscars. Yeah, they were like, please, 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:52.480 please don't do that anymore. We're going to see you. 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.800 Yeah, and we'll get into his early history. But he 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:00.680 is or was a chef and a cookbook right, and 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:06.280 a business owner. He was probably the first American celebrity 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.760 chef and really formed the mold for all to follow 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:17.920 of chef as brand. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of food. 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.479 I saw some cool interviews with different like legendary chefs 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.880 that were like, he knew more about every type of 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.840 food you could imagine and every ingredient on planet Earth 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.960 than anyone that I've ever met. And this is like 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.520 Alice Waters and Jacques Papin and like the legendary chefs 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:37.960 of the world. 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:38.520 Yeah. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.440 Yeah, he's very highly regarded, highly thought of. And what's 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.719 amazing is he was self taught. Basically, he had a 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.280 lot of influences along the way, but he never went 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.960 to any he never had any formal training in cooking. 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:56.360 Yeah, yet he started what we now call farm to 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.840 table cuisine and New American cuisine because from the very 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.680 beginning he was like, it's just got to taste good. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.600 It's simple ingredients put together in a non fussy way 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.880 is the way it's best to cook and eat. And 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.000 now that's people are all about that. But that's sort 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.240 of a more recent sort of resurgence of that kind 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:17.520 of thing. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.880 Yeah, And I mean if you took him now or 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.520 back then and just fast forwarded him to now, the 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.880 only two differences would be he'd be allowed to be 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.640 out as Carrie and he would have to get both 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:36.640 of his sleeves fully tatted. Right, That's it, because that's like, 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.520 it's we just finally kind of caught up to his vibe, 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:41.120 totally established it. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.560 All right, So should we go back to the beginning. 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.080 Let's all right, let's go back to Portland, Oregon then 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.520 in nineteen oh three. I can't imagine what Portland could 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.359 have possibly been like growing up as a kid in 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.240 the nineteen tens and teens, but. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:01.160 There's a lot of horses and rugged people probably so. 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:03.560 In his own memoir, he. 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.279 Semi accurately just described his life as very idyllic, in 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.280 the sense that from the very beginning he grew up 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:16.080 eating great food. For a couple of reasons, one or 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.360 for three reasons. Early one is because where he lived 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.560 in Oregon near the coast. They had great fresh seafood 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:27.000 everywhere and forest everywhere, so these great wild berries and vegetables, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.160 organic stuff, because that's just everything was basically organic, pre 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:37.920 mass farming and pesticide. And the other two reasons are 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:42.760 that his mom, who was an english woman named Elizabeth Beard, 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.039 was very much into good food and like making sure 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.119 her son ate like really great stuff and the finest things. 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.360 Because they had some money in there. He was pretty spoiled. Yeah, 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.200 I think so. And then the other was his who 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.200 ended up being kind of a godfather because apparently his 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.960 dad wasn't a very good guy, which was a Cantonese 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.320 immigrant chef who was the chef of the house name 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.360 jew Lette, who they were very very close and from 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:18.440 a very early age, James Beard was exposed to Chinese 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:22.920 and Asian cooking, Cantonese cooking in particular. I believe that 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.800 jew Lette was also a master breadmaker, and Portland has 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:28.640 one of the oldest China towns in the US. So 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.560 as a young kid, he was being exposed to all 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.440 kinds of great cuisines thanks to the I think live 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:35.960 in chef. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.000 Yeah, and if you put those two together you get 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.680 a really good approximation of what he did. He took 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.160 He created American cuisine at a time like when he 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.640 really kind of became a public figure. It was at 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:52.840 the exact same time that we were learning how to 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.240 make frozen foods and building TV trays, and there's a 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:58.920 whole g whiz thing to like aluminum foil and stuff 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.440 like that. So he pushed against that and said, no, 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.720 we want fresh stuff, we want seasonal stuff. You don't 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.040 want stuff that was picked six months ago and frozen 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.160 ever since. And a lot of America was like, yeah, 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.080 we dude, this is amazing. This is like the space 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:11.800 age in the future. 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:12.200 Sit down. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:18.040 And then the other the Giulette influence was to take 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.960 other cultures dishes and americanize them in certain ways, just 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.600 swapping out ingredients, changing the name, and just making it 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.960 that much more approachable. But it's still something that you know, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.199 it's still an exotic dish, but it's an exotic dish 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.720 that he's explaining the average American cook who's interested can 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:38.440 go do. 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:39.920 Yeah, for sure. 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.280 Like I said, his dad was not a great dude, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.160 wasn't around that much. His mom, who I mentioned, was 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.520 born in England was she ran the family. They had 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.560 a boarding house called the Gladstone in Portland, and she 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.719 ran that and apparently was a perfectionist and very domineering. 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.960 So while she was, you know, orchestrating all these gourmet 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.320 meals for her young son, I get the idea that 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.600 it wasn't the easiest sort of home life with her 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.800 perfectionism and diamondeiring qualities. 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:13.960 Yeah, but you didn't get that from his memoir, which 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.360 is another good kind of sketch of what he was like. 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.360 He presented himself totally differently as a public figure then, 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.320 I don't want to say totally differently, but much differently, 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.560 especially as he became more and more of a public 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.720 figure right than who he was in real life. He 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.400 was very good at embellishing anecdotes or you know, he 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.320 realized the value of the backstory to a recipe would 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.120 make people want to make it more and then they 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.679 could share that when they cooked it for their friends. 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:42.959 Yeah. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.360 He went to Read College there in Portland and ended 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:52.280 up being asked to leave Read College basically expelled his 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.360 freshman year in nineteen twenty one, because he had a 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.000 couple of affairs with other students and one with a 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.959 professor where apparently some of his roommates actually witnessed this, 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.199 like walked in on them, and they very quietly said, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:08.960 you've got to get out of here. And I don't 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.200 know if being gay was illegal in Oregon at the time, 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:14.800 but it was illegal in some states, and it wouldn't 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:16.280 surprise me if Orgon was one of them. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:18.280 But they said, you got to get out of here. 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.960 And the yearbook hadn't even been published yet, and they 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.720 erased every mention of him in their yearbook before it published. 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:29.120 Yeah, which, depending on who you ask, either like scarred 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.160 him for life when he secretly held it as a 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.000 mark of shame, and maybe that was one of the 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.240 reasons why he hated being gay, or he just you know, 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.880 rolled with it and moved on. I'm not quite sure 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.320 which is correct, but either way, he still had a 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.360 deep and abiding love for Reid College and left most 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.000 of his estate to Read College after he died. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.120 Yeah, I'm not I don't know. 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.080 I wonder why that happened, because I know they eventually 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.720 came around once he got famous and were like, oh, 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.920 he's a very famous reading and they gave him an 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.400 honorary degree. Many years later, in nineteen seventy six. But 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.120 I don't know, it still surprises me that he just 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:11.920 for being there one year that he I don't know, 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.040 left in that kind of endowment. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:15.920 Yeah, not even one year. He didn't even make it 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.080 through his freshman year. Yeah, yeah, No, it's surprising because 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:20.880 he also could have been like, oh you want me 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.600 to be a ready, now, shove it, but he didn't. 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.280 He very he was very pleased to have been given 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:32.640 an honorary degree. So after college, his little Stanton College, 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.120 he's like, you know what, I want to be an actor, 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.600 maybe an opera singer. My family's pretty wealthy, so I'm 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.480 just going to go to Europe, joining a traveling theater 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:49.120 company and study my craft in Europe. There he learned, 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.160 I think the hard way that he had a mediocre talent. 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:57.160 I saw it described, But in like Paris and London 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.280 and some of the great European capitals he found like, 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.080 oh my gosh, there's like these gay communities are just 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.760 barely on the downlow, Like there, you know, they have 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.079 great parties and they have their own bars and places 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.040 to go, like it's totally unlike America. So in that sense, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.280 I think he learned to appreciate being gay, or at 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.960 least interacting with the gay community for the first time 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.280 there in Europe, which would have been a great education 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:25.800 for him. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:26.720 Yeah. 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.480 And he spent the next I don't know, fifteen or 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.440 so years moving around a lot, still trying to work 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.520 in theater and doing also getting involved in cooking some 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.000 and I think twenty four he moved back to Portland, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.600 worked as a radio announcer and again joined another theater troupe. 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.880 Twenty seven moved to la for a little while and 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.760 actually got a couple of bit parts in Cecil. 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:51.480 B de Mille movies. 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.560 Oh yeah, very small part, so you know, kind of 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.120 just like you were saying, he apparently he could sing 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:57.520 and act. 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.480 It just was, you know, he was right there in 0:12:59.520 --> 0:12:59.840 the middle. 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.200 Yeah, but it wasn't like, oh like he had no 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.200 talent whatsoever, and he was just a rich kid. In 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.200 twenty eight he went back to Portland, more local theater, 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.600 and then started spending a lot of time in Seattle, 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.120 did a semester at Carnegie Tech and Pittsburgh where he 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.240 studied like scenic design and costume design and stuff. So 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.400 he was really still trying to do the theater thing, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:24.959 and that's what he was still trying to do when 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.679 he moved to New York in nineteen thirty seven. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:28.640 Yeah, and he. 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.400 Didn't aspire to be a chef. He basically did it 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.160 to make ends meet. That's when he started. When he 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.680 was in New York, he fell in with the gay 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.920 community there, which was super underground apparently at the time 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.240 in nineteen nineteen thirties. Even in New York, you couldn't 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:49.240 even hint that you were gay, like you just did not, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.439 at least not in public. So you couldn't go out 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.640 to bars because bars didn't want you. They could lose 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.640 their license if they were caught with a gay person 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.440 in their on the premises. So what the gay community 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.040 did in New York was throw private parties at people's houses. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.160 And what he did was he started hiring himself out 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.760 to cook for these parties. And he got particularly good 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:15.800 at creating cocktail party food, finger foods, cannapis or dervs, 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.720 that kind of stuff, so much so that he ended 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:20.960 up making writing his first cookbook on that, which we'll 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:21.760 talk about in a second. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.400 Yeah, and this all this New York stuff, this is 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.160 post prohibition, like there were gay bars in New York 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.600 pre prohibition, which I didn't even realize. No, I didn't either, 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.440 but they basically use prohibition once the things started post prohibition, 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.760 once things finally started opening up again, to say, okay, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.560 but here's the deal, like no more gay bars. 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.200 Yeah, it's just like history. It's crazy. It's just a 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.800 back and forth of progressive and conservative, progressive and conservative 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.320 like a seesaw. It's interesting because you tend to think 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.440 of everything as kind of moving forward. It would be progressiveness. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.640 But it doesn't always, No, it doesn't. 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.480 You're talking about those cocktail parties in New York where 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:02.520 he was making food. He ended up meeting a very 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.880 key person in his life named James Cullum, who was 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.640 a wealthy gay socialite, and he said, hey, why don't 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:12.280 you move in with me. I got a spare room 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:14.760 and you can kind of be my I thow these 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.000 huge parties and you're great at this, and you can 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:22.080 kind of be my live in cater chef essentially, And it. 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:22.760 Was I saw. 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.440 It was like a completely platonic thing. But he moved in. 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:27.560 Through culumn. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.520 He was able to work all these other parties, meet 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.400 all the sort of well healed gay New Yorkers with money, 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.480 and like you said, he made quite a name for himself. 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.840 And he was doing this, like you said, with these 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.240 sort of simple or dervs and finger foods, that he 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.080 would make his own. One thing that he's still very 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.040 famous for was his onion sandwich. 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:50.720 Yeah. 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:52.840 I looked up this thing. I gotta make one now. 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.080 Really I was not inspired to, Oh. 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.240 Man, I think they looked delicious. I saw Jacqupapine make one. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.800 Maybe I had some with sure. But you take some 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.680 bryoshe and you cut, like use a biscuit cutter or 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.440 something to cut it into a circle so it doesn't 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.560 have any crust. You cut two of these. You make 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.240 up some homemade mayo ideally or dukes of pure in 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.880 a pinch, and then you spread mayo in each side. 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.800 You slice very thinly. You cut an onion in half, 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.640 and then very thinly slice you know, a half moon 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.240 of onion and a half moon of onion, and put 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:29.880 those together so it is, you know, covering the whole sandwich. 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.560 And then you spread mayo along the outer rim of 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.200 this sandwich. Once you put it together, and then roll 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.920 that in either chopped parsley or some combination of chopped 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.680 herbs that you like, and it just it looked really 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.480 good and it looks very simple, and everyone goes nuts 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.120 on it. So I've got to try it. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.560 Okay, Well, let me know how it is, and if 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.640 it is particularly good, I'll try it for sure. And 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.960 it's not like I'm like that's gross. I just I'm like, 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:58.800 this is missing something that would make me want to 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.680 eat it, like where's the deli meat? 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.920 He apparently wealthy, and this is something birds All wrote 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:11.000 about that, like wealthy straight parties at the time, they 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:16.280 had like really fancy stuff like you know, caviare and truffles, 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.760 but the food itself, apparently, and the finger foods and 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.840 sandwiches are all kind of boring, and apparently this stuff 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.680 was just way better and more creative. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:30.320 Yeah, so again, he made his name as a catering chef. 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:34.399 He founded a company called or derv Inc with a 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.119 brother and sister, Bill and Irma Roade, and at the 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.560 same time he learned a lot from these people. He 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.960 also learned a lot from a woman named Jean Wilson 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.879 who was a socialite in New York, and all three 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.640 of them kind of took him under their wing, taught 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.840 him things like the value of like going out and 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:59.000 finding good ingredients at stores in New York, like how 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.720 to appreciate wine or at least pretend like you understand 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:06.600 how to appreciate wine. From Bill Road. He learned the 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.440 value of adding a story, a backstory to a dish. 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.800 How important that was. And it was another it was 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.639 if his education came in like peaks and valleys. This 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:23.160 was another big peak in his culinary education, you could say. 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.000 And he went on in I think nineteen forty, just 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.119 a few years after he started cooking. I think, right, 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.240 didn't you say it was thirty seven that he really started. 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:32.480 I mean he moved to New York in thirty seven, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.199 and I think kind of ditched everything else in like 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:36.280 thirty eight and thirty nine. 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.320 Okay, So in three years he went from teaching himself 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.920 how to cook basically hanging out with New York society 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.600 to writing his first cookbook in nineteen forty, which he 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:48.720 claimed over written in six weeks. 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.880 Yeah, shortly thereafter. And I guess we'll take a break 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:57.000 after this. But he was drafted into the army. I 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.360 saw he enlisted and that he was drafted. So I'm 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.080 not sure which is true. But I was all drafted 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.520 more often than enlisted, and UH that ended his catering 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.359 business for a couple of reasons. I think even before 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:13.080 he was drafted, the food rationing basically ended that catering business. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.080 But he was drafted in forty two UH into a 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.080 cryptography school and served in the US Seaman Service in 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:24.080 places like Brazil and Puerto Rico and Panama and France. 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.280 So he's in a way still kind of continuing his 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.520 food education by living in these places with awesome food. 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:31.680 Man, that's super interesting. 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.960 Should we take that break, Yeah, let's all right. We'll 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:36.680 be right back with Moron James. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:50.320 Bear Stoffy, Josh, I want to learn about a terris 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.840 ort and college Taradactyl, how to take a berger bout 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.879 fractalk Is Khan, that's a little hunt, the Lizzie Boarders, 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.280 plane everything, and Josi. 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:04.359 Sport up. Jerry. 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:10.640 All right, So I mentioned Gene Wilson, Bill and Irma Road. 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:16.800 They had a huge impact on his culinary education. I 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.040 should say, nothing formal again, like that was just hanging 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.520 out with the right people who kind of provided this 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:27.080 and that and sometimes recipes. He co owned the catering 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.440 business with them, but the first chance he got to 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.320 cut them out credit wise, he took in his nineteen 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.720 forty cookbook can or dirves and Cannipates. There's no mention 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.320 of them. There's no mention of any of the order 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.080 of ink, or of their ownership and order of ink, 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.320 I should say. And he kind of, at least in retrospect, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:56.040 became a little bit famous for, at the very least 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.800 put it as nicely as possible, not giving credit where 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.439 credit is due, at worst, using people and then burning 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.480 the bridge in an effort to climb ever upward. 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.640 I saw that onion sandwich recipe might have even been 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.520 from the roads. Yeah, I'm not sure about that one 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.720 hundred percent, but that could be an example. 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:16.800 He wrote. 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.120 He was very prolific, wrote a lot of books. From 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.520 nineteen forty to nineteen eighty three. He had twenty cookbooks, 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.080 including nineteen fifty nine sort of his seminal work, the 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:31.520 James Beard Cookbook that had it was kind of like 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:33.840 a kitchen bible, which apparently he wasn't a big fan 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.320 of those kinds of books, and this was not even 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:38.720 close to his favorite of his own, but it was 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.719 the best selling and had everything in there from how 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:43.560 to make like a French Castle, aid to how to 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:48.760 Boil Water, and was I think the first cookbook to 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.399 feature the chef on the cover. It was just unheard 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:54.800 of to do at the time. It was just you know, 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.200 the joy of cooking or whatever, you just have text 0:21:57.520 --> 0:21:59.280 and he was the first person to put his mug 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:01.920