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Julia Child

Julia Child is a creative genius who changed the culinary world with her energetic personality and fine cooking skills. She is a fine example of the gusto-olfactory intelligence with special accents of visual spatial and interpersonal intelligence’s. There were many chefs that could fall in this intelligence category, including Escoffier, Beard, and Farmer . I chose Julia because she is a woman who broke new ground in the world of cooking. She empowered America by encouraging them to cook and enjoy food. The gusto olfactory intelligence is really a matter of taste and smell. A gusto olfactory intelligent person is able to create a specific taste, to create their own additions to recipes, and to bring something new to the sense called taste.

Bringing Cooking to TV

Shortly after the success of her book, Julia was called in to do an interview for educational television. The response to this show was enormous and soon after WGBH’s president offered her a pilot show. Julia had started television’s first cooking show and at the same time strengthened the trend of French cooking. Julia received several awards during the next years both for her cookbook and for her television show. Through all her success and fame Julia’s husband was her number one fan. They were a team and were interdependent on one another. Julia continued to grow in fame and Paul helped design all of her sets and tasted all of her recipes. Julia even did a show at the White House, where she met President Kennedy. In February of 1968 Julia found a lump in her left breast and had to have a mastectomy. During the next few years, Julia relaxed a bit on the cooking shows and wrote a cookbook, mastering the second. By 1970 Julia’s show was in color, and people were thrilled to see how red the strawberries were! Through her career in the U.S. Julia kept in close contact with the chefs of the day, she mainly collaborated on a weekly basis with chefs such as James Beard and Richard Olney. Julia continued her work and wrote a new cookbook titled, From Julia Child’s Kitchen. It was at about this time that the Novelle Cuisine movement began to take place. The term meant innovative cooking, and Julia was not fond of it. " This food looks fingered. It doesn’t look foody to me." It was also around this time that feminism was a big deal. This movement made her reflect on her role as a woman in a male dominant field. " it wasn’t until I began thinking about it that I realized my field is closed to women! It is very unfair. You can’t teach in the Culinary Institute of America! The big hotels, the fancy New York restaurants don’t want women chefs!" she declined the label of feminist, but she is recognized as a symbol of women’s liberation. In the following years Julia continued a successful career both in writing cookbooks and on television. In the mid nineties Martha Stewart came on the scene, a corporate overachiever turned domestic superacheiver who was building an empire that included cooking, home decoration, and gardening. Julia began fading in the spotlight as Martha Stewart took over. Still the public viewed Julia as a warmer person, a friend, and not a rival. Julia shifted her focus more to teaching and began giving commencement addresses at world renowned colleges. She received an honorary degree from Harvard. She also had her own CD-ROM, and video series. She had a variety of master chefs on her show, and wrote a cookbook, titled cooking with master chefs. Today Julia Child is retired, but her legacy lives on. "She is one of those figures who transformed American culture."

How She fits into the Gardner Model

Julia Child creative genius was the gustatory/ olfactory intelligence, combined with smarts in the inter-personal arena. Throughout her life Julia retained the spark of curiosity because of her strong personality. As a child, she was able to explore a variety of interests. It was not until later in her life that she explored cooking, but from that moment on cooking occupied her time and mind. As Gardner expected it took a great deal of time and steady work at her discipline to master it. Julia Child cast off in new directions never explored before. She fought the battle of being a woman in a male dominated field and world, along her way. She found the tools and status quo of her field unsatisfactory and began work on a new way of thinking about food. Julia, however, did not follow Gardner’s concept of Faustian bargain, but rather had good interpersonal relationships. Julia’s creative genius allowed her to succeed in a critical world.

Bibliography

Internet Source: http://www.users.muohio.edu

Child, Julia. The Way To Cook. Knopf Inc. Canada, 1989.
Cooper, Ann. A woman’s Place is in the Kitchen. Reinhold, 1998.
Fitch, Noel Riley. Appetite For Life. Doubleday, NY. 1997.

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