Thanks to the new movie Julie & Julia, a resurgence of interest has been shown in Julia Child. For the first time in decades, bookstores are reporting a regular occurrence of sold out Julia Child cookbooks, especially Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia Child, who passed away in 2004, has never been more popular in American society or more in demand.

Many professional cooks in American society will acknowledge that Julia Child had a profound impact on the cooking industry. Before Child made her impact on American cooking, it can be said that wives and cooks alike who were responsible for dinners and meals were stuck in a rut. With Child’s cooking techniques and introduction of fine French cooking into the American mainstream, entirely new recipes and menus were suddenly available. Although her cookbooks have been noted as being incredibly complicated, the overall importance of an introduction of new techniques, foods and meals cannot be understated in the evolution of American cooking.

After World War II, Child married Paul Cushing Child, a poet and artist well known for his sophisticated palate. He introduced his wife to fine cuisine and moved them to Paris in 1948 with the U.S. Foreign Service. While in Paris, Child attended the Le Cordon Bleu famous French cooking school after having an incredible meal at Rouen and experiencing a kind of spiritual and soulful meal of oysters and fine wine.

In 1951, Child began teaching French cooking to American women along with two other friends Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. They also proposed the idea of creating a French cookbook that would appeal to all Americans. Published in 1961, Mastering the Art of French Cooking was released and became an incredible best-seller. The popularity of the book was attributed to the illustrations, sharp detail and sheer accessibility of the information of a new way of cooking. Afterwards, Child became a regular contributor with The Boston Globe and a variety of other magazine publications.

Child’s influence on food and wine continued. She founded the American Institute of Wine and Food in Napa, California, including such vintners as Robert Mondavi and Richard Graff. She also starred in numerous television programs, including a book and instructional video called The Way to Cook, which was distributed in 1989.

Child’s works had a huge impact on popular culture. She had helped to establish a huge cooking industry in the United States and opened a new world of cooking to popular society. She was often featured in magazines, but also as a parody in such cases as the famous Dan Aykroyd interpretation on Saturday Night Live. More recently, the movie Julie & Julia has made waves in society, introducing Child to another generation and sparking potential talk of Meryl Streep, who plays Julia Child in the movie, gaining an Academy Award. Regardless of her performance, the impact of Child on the cooking industry has helped to show the incredibly popular cooking industry just where their foundation started and where the credit begins.