Julia Child, Chungking and Sichuan Food on her Centenary

I posted on Julia Child and her husband Paul’s spying days in China during the Second World War in Chungking back in 2009 when the biopice Julia and Julia came out. Both Julia and her husband Paul (they met in China) worked for the OSS in China. I didn’t know that she also developed an interest in Chinese food while there, and particularly, apparently, Sichuan cuisine which she never cooked but did enjoy eating in restaurants. I now know that she did because a couple of stories about it popped up this week – here in the Christian Science Monitor and here in the New York Times/San Jose Mercury News. Child would have been 100 this week.

So there’s another little China history factoid to gather with some of the other rather obscure ones that pop up here!! Julia Child ate Sichuan food and enjoyed it in Chongqing in the Second World War – feel free to drop in as an anecdote at your next Sichuan style dinner party – no attribution required, a little gift from China Rhyming.

Child in her Chungking digs during WW2