Archive for the ‘Culinary Greats’ Category

Father of Modern Day American Gastronomy

James Beard

American food and cooking expert James Andrews Beard promoted excellence and variety in dining experiences.  A native of Portland, Oregon, he was born on May 5, 1903 to Mary Elizabeth Jones Beard and Jonathan A.  Beard, a shipyard appraiser.  His mother taught him cookery of all types, including informal dishes suitable for picnics, backyard feasts, and barbecues.  In the introduction to The Cook’s Catalogue (1975),  Beard quipped, “I grew up in the Iron Age of American cookery.  We had a cast-iron wood stove.… For stove top cooking we used iron skillets, iron Dutch ovens, and iron stew pots.” He declared iron the king in his mother’s kitchen in Gearhart, seventy miles northwest of Portland, but conferred some culinary credit on “earthenware, tin, some copper, and the ghastly enameled pots known as graniteware.” Read the rest of this entry »