"In the beginning, there was James Beard."

 
You shouldn't argue with Julia Child .  Especially if she's giving kudos to a fellow chef.

A native Oregonian who spent his childhood summers in Gearhart.  An opera singer.  Author of over 30 cookbooks.  First television cooking personality.  And rumored to have been booted out of Reed College for his sexual preference.

James Andrew Beard. 

Long story short, his mother ran a hotel, then a boarder house and catering in-between.  She had French trained chefs, and native Chinese cooks and James was in the middle of it all.  After being asked to leave Reed, he traveled to London where he studied with Gaetano "Tano" Loria, gourmet cook and best friend of Caruso.  He performed some opera, went to New York, did some plays, came back to Portland and did some more plays. did a short stint in Hollywood and then came home and did radio plays in Portland and Seattle and San Fran before deciding to go back to New York.  And that's where it all started.

In the same week, Lewis MacArthur, of Oregon Geographic Names fame returned home from college.  There were also hints of the numerous activities being prepared for New York Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Walter Damrosch, and his wife, who were pperforming during Rose Festival in June that year.

He still worked around the theater, costuming, set designing, etc. but he realized that being 6'4" and with his expanding pant size, roles were not going to come easy to him.  Catering became his main source of income--the re-invention of the New York Society cocktail party.  Baby artichokes stuffed with foie gras or caviar.  Tiny tomatoes cored and filled with yumminess and rounds of brioche turned into non-your-mother's-soggy-canape.  And that launched his first book in 1940, as seen on the left.

In an interview about his book, he was asked if he was happy in the same way acting had made him.  "Designing hors d'oeuvre in not different from designing sets and costumes.  And being nice to people.  Food is very much theater.  Especially cocktail parties."

And then the war came.  Rationing and cocktail parties--not so good together.  After Pearl Harbor, he ended up traveling around the world with the Merchant Marine's United Seamen's Service.  Since the Merchant Marines were outside of the area covered by the USO, there were basically vacation homes all over the world for them to go when they had leave.  This was critical to expanding his World cuisine knowledge.  Puerto Rico, San Juan, Rio, Cristobol on the Panama Canal and finally Marseille.

He came home to New York and began a life of magazine column writing, cookbook writing, restaurant consultant, restaurant critic--he was shameless for his need to make a buck and it caused him many troubles as he tried to juggle all of his commitments. Eventually it all evened out.

He always had time for his friends and continued to maintain many relationships that he had in Portland as a child.  And then there were his new friends.  Paul and Julia Child, MFK Fisher, Chuck Williams of Williams-Sonoma, Alice Waters, etc. 

And in the end, a few weeks before his 82nd birthday, he came home for good.  His ashes were scattered on the beach at Gearhart.

Beard in the Present

Join this tour before you see I Love to Eat, a production at Portland Center Stage based on his life.  This is helping to raise funds and awareness for The James Beard Public Market which I hope comes to fruition.  When James was young, groceries were had the public market on Yamhill.  It would be fun to have that again!