James Beard

American chef and cookbook author

Biography

James Beard (Portland, Oregon, 1903 - New York, 1985) was an American chef and cookbook author who helped shape the idea of American cooking as a culinary tradition in its own right. A pioneer of television cooking, he became a name closely associated with the food of the United States.

The son of a British-born mother and a father who worked at the Portland customs house, he grew up in Oregon. In his memoir he recalled that the food at home and the Chinese cooks and nannies who worked for the family left a lasting impression on him. He studied at Reed College, from which he was expelled in 1922, and spent the following years in Europe, where he came to love French bistro cooking and the markets of Les Halles in Paris. Back in the United States he tried his luck in theater and set design without much success, until in New York he and a friend started a catering business for cocktail party canapés. His first book, Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapés (1940), collected those recipes. After the war he hosted I Love to Eat on NBC from 1946 to 1947, and in 1955 he opened his cooking school in Greenwich Village. For three decades he taught amateurs and professionals alike, travelling the country to lecture to women's clubs, schools and civic groups.

He championed simple American cooking built on fresh, local ingredients. He also lent his name to commercial endorsements for mass-produced products that he later regretted, though he said he needed the income to keep his schools running. He wrote more than twenty books, among them James Beard's American Cookery (1972) and Beard on Bread (1973). He was gay and made this public in 1981 in a revised edition of his memoir. His legacy lives on in the James Beard Awards, given every year by his foundation, and in Citymeals-on-Wheels, which he co-founded with Gael Greene in 1981 to feed homebound older people in New York City.

Key contributions

The James Beard Cooking School (1955), where he trained generations of professional cooks and home enthusiasts.
I Love to Eat (1946-1947), one of the early television cooking shows.
Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapés (1940), his first book, drawn from his catering work.
James Beard's American Cookery (1972), a case for cooking with fresh American ingredients.
Citymeals-on-Wheels (1981), founded with Gael Greene to feed older people in New York City.

Trivia

An early food memory. In his memoir he said his first memory of food was watching Triscuit and shredded wheat biscuits being made at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland in 1905, when he was two years old.

A letter that began a friendship. His friendship with the cookbook writer Helen Evans Brown began with a letter he sent her after her book appeared in 1952. Their correspondence was published in 1995 as Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles.