Premiering on Boston’s educational television station WGBH in 1963 (after three pilot episodes in 1962), and starring reputed cookbook co-author Julia Child, the highly acclaimed series The French Chef fundamentally established the powers and possibility of the cooking demonstration on TV. It was not the first televised cooking show, but its success essentially defined the genre for years after. Child and her show have remained enduring influences on American cooking, American television, and American culture more broadly. Her culinary lessons were never just about food preparation but also about social mobility, the discovery of foreign culture, and a personal fulfillment that promised to transcend domestic drudgery. Child was an extremely compelling instructor who radiated energy and enthusiasm and thereby enlivened the pedagogy through comic shtick, background lore, and dramatization (for example, constant anthropomorphization of the ingredients), all of this narrated by a breathless warbling voice that delighted viewers.
