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Day Around the Bay
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Officer-Involved Fatal Shooting in Bayview [Updated]
Sunday: Watch Women's World Cup Finals at Public House
Recent months have seen the passing of two revolutionary figures in gastronomy, first Frugal Gourment Jeff Smith and this morning the iconic Julia Child. Both hosted staple programs on America's original 'food network,' KQED.
Julia Child's work in the formative days of television revolutionized cooking in the post-war era, eschewing 50s futurism for tried and true French fundamentals, de-boning ducks and whisking Bechamels at a time when much of America was opening a tin of Spam. Her signature warble and gangly body made her an unusual star, but her humor and zeal won over American audiences, bringing cooking effectively out of the kitchen, and paving the way for contemporary celebrity chefs like Jaques Pepin and, dare we say it, Emeril Lagasse. As the foremost American gourmand, Child's endorsement always meant a great deal to foodies, and SFist has always particularly enjoyed the image of Julia fearlessly navigating her way around Sixth and Market to Tu Lan.
SFist also noted with sadness the recent death of Jeff Smith, who in the pre-Food Network days, was arguably the most influential chef of his time. In the wake of Julia's Child's dynamism, 80s food shows fell into snoozy schtick, like the tragic Yan Can Cook or sedentary Dom Deluise-lookalike Paul Prudhomme. The Frugal Gourmet loudly championed America's varied ethnic cuisines with a healthy dose of humor - the recent ubiquity of Sriracha sauce, for example, can be directly attributed to Jeff Smith. And Thailand, SFist supposes. The Frugal Gourmet was abruptly cancelled by PBS when Smith was accused of child molestation in 1997, though he was never charged. He died in July.
SFist is a little salty about cooking shows these days, with the exception of the very excellent Good Eats, in which Georgian Alton Brown gastronomically geeks out, dissecting recipes both high fallutin and low brow with trademark raised eyebrow. Very recommended. SFist might say the same thing about Iron Chef if it wasn't rigged.
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