Simone Beck

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Simone "Simca" Beck (* July 7, 1904 , Normandy ; † December 20, 1991 ) was a French cookbook author. Together with Julia Child and Louisette Bertholle , she wrote “ Mastering the Art of French Cooking ”, which had a lasting impact on American culinary art and food culture.

Life

Apart from a few years in which she learned bookbinding and worked for the family business, culinary art played a major role in her life. Even as a young girl, she enjoyed helping the cook who cooked for the family. In 1922, when her first marriage fell apart, she began taking classes at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She married Jean Victor Fischbacher in 1937, but used her maiden name for publications.

Her professional career as a cook began after World War II . She became a member of the Cercle des Gourmettes , an exclusive club for female gourmets. Louisette Bertholle suggested that she write a French cookbook for Americans. In 1952, together with Bertholle, she published What's cooking in France? . This was followed by Le pruneau devant le fourneau: Recettes de cuisine , which also appeared in 1952. It remained Simone Beck's only publication for the French market. In 1949 she met Julia Child, with whom she and Bertholle pursued the idea of ​​writing a cookbook for the North American market. The first volume did not appear until 1961, but became a huge hit with Julia Child's TV show The French Chef . The second volume followed in 1970. Louisette Bertholle was no longer involved in this volume.

Bertholle, Child and Beck ran a cooking school called L'École des trois gourmandes in Paris for a number of years , which was primarily intended to bring Americans closer to French culinary art. The cooking school existed until the late 1970s. In the 1970s, Simone Beck published several cookbooks in the United States that she wrote independently of Julia Child. Her autobiography and her last cookbook appeared in 1991.

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literature

  • Betty Fussel: Masters of American Cookery: MFK Fisher, James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Julia Child , University of Nebraska Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8032-6920-x

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Trish Hall, Simone Beck, a Cook, Dies at 87; Co-Wrote Book With Julia Child , New York Times , December 21, 1991.
personal data
SURNAME Beck, Simone
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beck, Simca (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French cookbook author
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Normandy
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1991