James Beard

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James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 23, 1985) was an American cook, cookbook writer, tutor, and television personality.

Beard was a promoter of American cuisine who taught and mentored generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts.

In twenty books, other books, and his foundation's annual James Beard awards in a variety of culinary genres, his legacy lives on.

Early life and education

James Andrews Beard was born in Portland, Oregon, on May 5, 1903, to Elizabeth and John Beard. The Gladstone Hotel was owned by his British-born mother, and his father worked at the city's customs house. The family spent the holidays in Gearhart, Oregon, where Beard was introduced to Pacific Northwest cuisine.

Salmon, shellfish, and other fresh seafood are among the dish's staples; game meats such as moose, elk, or venison; mushrooms, berries, small fruits, potatoes, and wild plants such as fiddleheads or young pushki are among the menu's most popular items.

In his memoir he recalled:

At age three Beard was bedridden with malaria, and the disease gave him time to concentrate on the dishes that his mother and Jue-Let, the family's Chinese cook, had prepared. Beard was raised by Jue-Let and Thema, who instilled in him a love for Chinese history. Beard is said to have "attributed" a large part of his upbringing to Jue-Let, whom he referred to as his Chinese godfather.

Beard graduated from Washington High School in 1920. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for a short time. In 1922, he was banned from homosexuality after having had a student or a professor. In 1976, Beard received an honorary degree.

After leaving Reed, he went from Portland to Liverpool aboard a British freighter, spending the rest of his life and traveling around Europe. He formed a dramatic troupe and studied voice and theatre in 1923. He also spent time in Paris, where he enjoyed French cuisine at its bistros and central market, Les Halles. In France, he had the opportunity to enjoy sexual freedom after a brief friendship with a young man. He became a Francophile during this period and the widespread influence of French food culture. In 1927, he returned to the United States, spent time in Portland, Hollywood, and New York, trying to explore acting, costume design, and radio.

Personal life

Julia Child summed up Beard's personal life: a personal biography of the beard.

Mark Bittman characterized him in a way that Child's description: he was described in a manner similar to Child's:

"I guess I had a really bad temper until about forty-five," Beard said.

Beard was gay. "I knew I was gay by the time I was seven years old," Beard's memoir says. "I think it's time to talk about it now." Beard came out in 1981, in Delights and Prejudices, a rewritten version of his memoir. Gino Cofacci, who was given an apartment in Beard's townhouse in the will and died in 1989, and Beard's former cooking school assistant Carl Jerome were among Beard's "most significant romantic relationships." Beard's sexuality is tied to his food aesthetics, according to John Birdsall, a food writer who received two James Beard Awards, and it's only recently that people are acknowledging the relationship.

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Career

In 1937, Beard moved to New York City. Despite being unlucky in the theater, Bill Rhodes and his companion Bill Rhodes capitalized on the cocktail party craze by launching Hors d'Oeuvre, Inc., a catering business. This culminated in lecturing, teaching, and writing, as well as the realization that "part of his mission [as a food connoisseur] was to protect the pleasure of real cooking and fresh ingredients against the Jell-O-mold people and the domestic scientists." Hors D'Oeuvre and Canapés, a collection of his catering recipes, was published in 1940. Julia Child, a fellow foodie, says this book put him on the culinary map.

Beard's catering operation was halted by World War II rationing. He was drafted into the Army and trained as a cryptography specialist. He had intended to serve in the Army Quartermaster Corps' hotel management branch, but he was refused admission from the Army in 1943 due to a law prohibiting males over the age 38.

He appeared on NBC's I Love to Eat from August 1946 to May 1947, beginning his ascent as an American food authority. "He gradually became not only the country's top culinary figure, but also the Dean of American Cuisine," Child says.

Beard wrote a letter in 1952, establishing a friendship that would continue until Brown's death. Both the two individuals and her partner Phillip formed a professional-personal relationship. Beard and Brown became like siblings, admonishing and promoting each other, as well as cooperating. "He founded The James Beard Cooking School in 1955," the James Beard Foundation website states. He taught cooking to men and women for thirty years, both at his own colleges (in New York City and Seaside, Oregon), and in other countries at women's clubs, other culinary schools, and civic organizations. He was a tireless traveler, spreading his word of good food, especially made with fresh, wholesome American ingredients, to a world still unaware of its own culinary roots. During the 1950s, Beard introduced French cooking to the American middle and upper classes, making him famous as a cooking celebrity on television. Beard's was the first cooking show on television, according to David Kamp (who discusses Beard in his book). He compares Dione Lucas' cooking show and school with Beard's, noting that their popularity in the 1950s presaged the emergence of a globally recognised food culture. Beard made his name as James Beard in this decade [the 1950s]—the brand name, the brand's name, the product's front and belly of American gastronomy," Kamp wrote. Beard met Alice B. Toklas on a trip to Paris, indicating the community of fellow food celebrities who will track him through his life and pass on his legacy after his death.

Beard made endorsement agreements to advertise items he may not have used or suggested in his own cuisine, including Omaha Steaks, French's Mustard, Green Giant Corn Niblets, Old Crow bourbon, Shasta soft drinks, DuPont chemicals, and Adolph's Meat Tenderizer. Beard later regarded himself as a "gastronomic whore" for doing so, according to Kamp. Despite the fact that he felt that fast-produced food that was neither fresh, local, nor seasonal was a betrayal of his gastronomical convictions, he needed the funds to finance his cooking schools. "Beard, a man of stupendous appetites [for food, sex, and money, you name it] stunned his subtler coworkers," Thomas McNamee said. Beard and a friend, Gael Greene, founded Citymeals-on-Wheels, a charity that continues to support the homeless elderly in New York City.

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