Why Do We Need James Beard? in “The Man Who Ate Too Much: the Life of James Beard,” John Birdsall Ments

For personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution, contact Dow Jones Reprints & Licensing at (800) 843-0008 or www.djreprints.com. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, October 3 - 4, 2020 | C11 The Wall Street Journal - 10/03/2020 FALL BOOKS Page : C011 ‘A gourmet who thinks about calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.’ —JAMES BEARD Why DoWe Need James Beard? The Man Who All the while, the food world forced Ate Too Much Beard to tip-toe around his sexuality. By John Birdsall His books were campy, maybe even queer-signifying, but only if one read Norton, 449 pages, $35 closely between the lines. His byline in BY RIEN FERTEL the pulpy men’s magazine Argosy read “Jim Beard,” the nickname a low-key OES ANYONE read concession to all-American masculinity. James Beard any more? This came soon after Gourmet’s Do home cooks still founder, Earle MacAusland, banished Dcrack open one of his Beard from the magazine’s pages after many voluminous rec- the writer openly discussed his homo- ipe collections in search of how to pre- sexuality with the editorial staff over pare a roast chicken or design a dinner- martinis. Beard hosted cooking classes party menu? Beard’s contemporaries— in his Greenwich Village home, where Julia Child, M.F.K. Fisher, Edna Lewis— he and his longtime partner, the pastry we still delight in, reading their prose, chef Gino Cofacci, kept separate apart- cooking their food and suffering through that blasted recipe for beef bourguignon. But the man once dubbed He made America the dean of American cookery, the culi- a nation of smarter, nary personality whose name graces the “Oscars of the food world”—his savvier, more books survive as fussy old-fashioned adventurous eaters. mementoes of a gastronomic era gone by. Why do we need James Beard? In “The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard,” John Birdsall ments. When the time came to draw makes the case that though perhaps we up a will, Beard stipulated that Cofacci shouldn’t rescue Beard’s books from keep his apartment, along with a the dollar bin, we should honor the monthly stipend. But most everything debt we owe him for making us a na- else—liquidated assets, rights and roy- tion of smarter, savvier, more adventur- alties—went to Reed College, the same ous eaters. Mr. Birdsall’s book builds on institution that had expelled him for “America, Your Food Is So Gay,” which being queer. won a James Beard Award in 2014. Beard publicly came out in 1990: That essay—part memoir, part rallying “By the time I was seven, I knew that I cry—argued that homosexual men, was gay. I think it’s time to talk about notably Beard, New York Times food that now.” Those words appeared in editor Craig Claiborne and Francophile For personal, a posthumously published cookbook. gastronome Richard Olney, trans- He had been dead for five years. formed our bland, postwar national Even in death, Beard’s life remained palate into one that was “unflinchingly, what Mr. Birdsall calls an “open se- unapologetically, magnificently queer.” cret.” Previous biographers have men- A precocious boy born in Portland, tioned Beard’s queerness as an after- Ore., in 1903, Beard was a big kid with thought, if at all. In his final days, “a face as plump and pale as milk- Beard confided his desire to vanish— poached meringue,” according to Mr. CLAUDIA D’ALESSANDRO/NORTON; ON C5: YALE JOEL/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES sell everything, destroy any incrimi- Birdsall, who paints his subject’s early TASTE MAKER James Beard outside the Seagram Building, 1980. nating papers, with no celebration years with similar Proustian flourishes. of life and certainly nothing resem- Beard’s memories contained countless months into his freshman non-commercial year, Beard aged through the city, sniffing out the useThat knowledge, only. Mr. Birdsall re- bling the James Beard Foundation, madeleines: his father’s skillet-fried, would be kicked out of Reed College finest, then-unheralded ingredients— veals, was often called into question. established by admirers months after gravy-smothered chicken; the golden for being caught in flagrante delicto German sourdoughs, Genoa salamis, Beard frequently printed unattributed his passing. And yet his name remains chicken jelly sublimated by his family’s with a professor. creamy Roquefort. Nearing the age of recipes purloined from associates and most associated with the foundation’s Chinese-born cook; and especially his In 1922, Beard fled to London, then 40, his life suddenly fell into place: The plagiarized from other cookbooks. He annual restaurant and media gala mother’s smoked ham, soaked for days Paris, where he trained for the oper- city hungered for what James Beard cannibalized his own recipes through- awards, with his face “fixed on a then simmered for hours in a baby’s atic stage. He returned to the U.S. to could provide. out his career, sometimes publishing medal,” Mr. Birdsall writes, “like a soul tin bathtub. tour with a theater troupe and landed Cookbook contracts swiftly fol- the same recipe in two different cook- trapped in a mirror, restless to be Born in Wiltshire, England, the gigs as an extra in Hollywood produc- lowed. In the 1940s, he published books, for two different publishers, in freed.” future Elizabeth Beard stowed away tions—he played a Roman soldier in books on appetizers, outdoor grilling, the same year. He squandered friends “The Man Who Ate Too Much” is aboard a steamer to Canada when she the crucifixion scene of Cecil B. De- fowl and game, as well as a collection and exploited business partners, occa- more than a story of one man’s exis- was 17, working as a governess before Mille’s “King of Kings” (1927). In 1937, of 1,200 recipes called “The Fireside sionally wrote dreadful cookbooks tence; it is a portrait of 20th-century settling in Portland at 21. Like her only he relocated to New York, where his Cook Book.” Books on Paris, economiz- and sexually harassed subordinates. gay life and aesthetics. “So much of child, Elizabeth loved food more than theatrical dreams fizzled out. ing, fish, casseroles, barbecuing and But the public trusted James Beard the public face of American culture,” anything else. James Beard later came Beard couldn’t sing and he couldn’t another titanic compendium, which when it came to culinary matters. Mr. Birdsall writes—our literature, mu- to understand that his mother, too, much act, but he knew how to enter- included a recipe on how to boil water, There were no national celebrity chefs sic, movies, television and, especially, was queer. Separately, unconsciously, tain. “Papa,” as his acquaintances appeared the following decade. He pre-Beard, no American food gurus— food—“was shaped by those compelled mother and son learned “how to as- called him then, quickly developed a possessed an uncanny ability to recol- Child’s “The French Chef” wouldn’t to live behind walls, nursing half-open cribe to food all the thoughts and feel- reputation for the “boutique cocktail lect most any “taste memory,” as he air until 1963. Beard had to invent the secrets.” Like the life of James Beard, ings too dangerous for one to avow parties” he gave the city’s affluent— called it in his 1964 memoir, “Delights role from scratch. He premiered the na- this biography is big and beautiful, openly.” In a nation hostile to homo- and often gay—high society. His hors and Prejudices,” arguably his only title tion’s first television-network cooking heartbreaking and true. It is the cele- sexuals, Oregon ranked among the d’oeuvres came with a story, real or still worth reading for its twinning show, NBC’s “I Love to Eat,” in 1946. He bration that Beard deserves. most savage. A 1917 state eugenics law invented: the Duchess of Windsor’s of recipes and reminiscences. Forget penned columns for several magazines. forced sterilization upon men con- fried corned-beef-hash balls, say, or the Falstaffian: Beard’s breadth of knowl- And he shilled for most any brand name Mr. Fertel is the author of three victed of sodomy (the law was not same vichyssoise first prepared for the edge, like his appetite, was, well, noth- that would have him: Pernod, O’Quin’s books, including “The One True abolished until 1983). Less than six Sun King himself, Louis XIV. Beard for- ing but Beardian. Charcoal Sauce, Benson & Hedges. Barbecue.” This copy is for personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution: Contact Dow Jones Reprints & Licensing at (800) 843-0008 or djreprints.com that human-like life may exist else- times achieving the suspense and plete Neanderthal skeletons at the composite tools, and the residue of WanderersCopyright (c)2020 Dow Jones & Company,where in the Inc. universe. All Rights Reserved. 10/03/2020excitement of a Hollywood thriller, Betche-aux-Roches cavern in Belgium coal fires.Powered Although by TECNAVIA they made no Fortunately, we do not need to Ms. Wragg Sykes makes a bold and provided unequivocal evidence of a representational art, there is evidence wait for space travel to transport us magnificent attempt to resurrect our unique human species. of the type of symbolic thought char- Of the to distant exoplanets to identify new Neanderthal kin. In doing so, like a Our current understanding of Ne- acteristic of modern humans. They examples of human existence. We can conjurer channeling a reluctant genie, anderthals derives from thousands of used red-ochre pigments to adorn interrogate the ground beneath our she generates a window into a strand fossilized bones and fragments from shells, collected pigment sources and Stone Age feet, replete with a disparate kaleido- of alternative human possibility that multiple sites, including a number of mixed colors, and engraved notches scope of clues that may help us com- originated 400-450,000 years ago and significant “anchor” sites.

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