A Taste of Julia Child and Ruth Reichl

Julia Child and Ruth Reichl are two exceptional authors' who captures food as their source of well being in their books. However, the difference between Childs' and Reichl is their unique experience with food that "marked a crucial period" in their life. Child reveals the pleasure and taste of food as her central point to her experience in France. In her novel, My Life In France, she transforms a traditional cookbook into an autobiography of her life and experiences in France. The recipes she illustrates in her novel links to  her developing passion towards food. She explores the content of food to her relationship to her husband, Paul Child's, and how food brought them closer together. As she conveys the significance of food to her experience in France, I notice the french theorist Roland Barthes concept of power and food as he  writes, "When he buys an item of food, consumes it, or serves it, modern man does not manipulate a simple object in a purely transitive fashion; this item of food sums up and transmits a situation; it constitutes an infor- mation; it signifies." He suggests that food has the ability (power) to create and diffuses situations, for instance, in the section of Child's novel, Le Belle France, she describes her explorations of restaurants in France with her husband that created a joyous experience and allowed their bond to become tighter.

Such situations, similar to Child's, exemplifies foods' power to create specific experiences. Her detail to food in her novel signifies her obsession and how she uses her time in France to "master the art" of cooking. Child's focus on food, specifically french cuisines, as an important influence in her life. Unlike Child's, Reichl reveals food as a structure to her world and how her interaction with food enhanced and defined her identity in her family and in society. Through food, Reichl explains her family characteristics and how her "taste" shaped her perception of people. Nevertheless, both authors share the same compassion in the art of food but in a different outlook.