Premieres April 3 | Watch now with PBS Passport
Starting in 1963, Julia Child and The French Chef series taught a nation how to cook well, eat well and drink well. Now today’s chefs share insightful, funny and personal comments in appreciation of the first lady of cooking. Bon appétit!
Episodes
The Whole Fish Story
José Andres and Eric Ripert are amazed by Julia Child’s hands-on treatment of a whole fish. They discuss her ability to dive in to fish filleting while encouraging viewers to attempt this difficult preparation. José jokes about his debt to Julia for popularizing fish in America and both are impressed with the information Julia conveys in the show and her ability to work without any retakes. 
The Good Loaf
Celebrity chefs Vivian Howard, Marcus Samuelsson, Carla Hall and Sara Moulton follow Julia Child’s bread making recipes for classic pain de mie and a raisin bread. Sara highlights Julia’s role in re-orienting people’s perception of food, while Carla notes Julia’s skill in making ingredients and techniques accessible. And all the chefs note that by this point, Julia had her on-camera look honed. 
Your Own French Soup
Chef Rick Bayless marvels over Julia Child’s knife skills and what great technique training she provided. José Andres and Eric Ripert are also impressed with her teaching – how she took the time to include skills and techniques in her programs, and they wonder how many tips are in her two hundred episodes of The French Chef. 
Boeuf Bourguignon
Chefs Sara Moulton, Carla Hall, José Andres and Eric Ripert discuss Julia Child’s first episode of The French Chef, remarking on how purposeful she was as a teacher, and how comfortable and magnetic she was, even in her first episode. Martha Stewart weighs in on how influential Julia was in completely changing how viewers thought about food and cooking. 
The Potato Show
Chef Rick Bayless supplies commentary on Julia Child’s high wire performance preparing potatoes and her comfort in the kitchen. Then chef, frequent Julia collaborator, and dear friend Jacques Pépin weighs in later in the show on Julia’s love of butter and her gracious approach to meeting all of the staff, down to the dishwasher, at the restaurants where they dined. 
To Roast a Chicken
Chefs Vivian Howard and Marcus Samuelsson enjoy Julia Child’s presentation of chickens, which includes an entire counter filled with raw poultry. They note how she invented cooking on television with no existing rulebook and discuss her mission to educate viewers about the value of prime ingredients, including how to shop for them as well as how to prepare them. Martha Stewart reveals how Julia influenced her personally and, more broadly, how she opened up the world of international cuisine to Americans.
About the Show
She was quirky, yet charming. Unpolished for television, yet irresistibly whimsical. Her kitchen was brimming with new ideas and was also the site of many on-camera faux pas. Her producer frequently employed a cue card that read “Stop gasping.”
But Julia Child was devoted to the art of French cuisine. And starting in 1963, The French Chef single-handedly taught a nation of Shake ‘n Bakers who didn’t know their Boeuf Bourguignon from their Bouillabaisse how to cook well, eat well and drink well. Sometimes all at the same time.
From humble beginnings in a makeshift studio that had no running water and was located inside the Boston Gas Company, The French Chef changed palates and cooking habits across America in two hundred informative and unforgettably entertaining episodes broadcast on PBS.
Julia Child was the recipient of an Emmy® Award and a Peabody Award, and she was featured on the cover of Time magazine. But unquestionably, Julia’s greatest achievement was that she made cooking a national pastime, paving the way for so many remarkable culinary experts to follow.
More than fifty years after its debut, The French Chef remains important television. That’s why today’s most popular chefs, celebrities and Julia Child devotees have joined PBS to delight in six of the most-beloved episodes from her groundbreaking series, The French Chef, offering insightful, anecdotal, funny and deeply personal comments in unabashed appreciation of the first lady of cooking.
PBS has always offered programming with good taste. Now, along with a feast of celebrity chefs including Martha Stewart, Jacques Pépin, José Andres, Eric Ripert, Vivian Howard, Marcus Samuelsson, Sara Moulton, Carla Hall and Rick Bayless, get ready to celebrate a series with great taste.
Today’s top celebrity chefs mix it up over classic episodes of The French Chef.
Bon Appétit!
