Setting the Table for Julia Child: Gourmet Dining in America, 1934-1961

Before Julia Child’s warbling voice and towering figure burst into America’s homes, a gourmet food movement was already sweeping the nation. Setting the Table for Julia Child considers how the tastes and techniques cultivated at dining clubs and in the pages of Gourmet magazine helped prepare many affluent Americans for Child’s lessons in French cooking.

David Strauss argues that Americans’ appetite for haute cuisine had been growing ever since the repeal of Prohibition. Dazzled by visions ...