Rick Simonson

The Tenth Muse, A Life in Food (and Books)
November 27, 2007

Perhaps it was the Thanksgiving weekend - all the preoccupations with food abounding - or, more likely, it was helping the woman in the food and culinary section of the store, going over various selections. We were more in the realm of the life and times of food books, and  became one of those conversations where information I didn't know I had in me came to the fore - one can start holding forth about books you don't think you know so much about, until you're somehow called on to exercise it, and then you realize you do.

Food lit books are a genre I for no great reason only dip into now and then (food politics books I have done more with). Like mysteries, I enjoy what I read immensely, but tend to avoid the big plunge into all of them.

There is one particular one I came to by a different, albeit familiar (book publishing lore) way. I was prompted in this direction back at this past year's BEA, the always lovely Knopf dinner being even more brightened this time by the presence of numerous editors. It had been great to see Dan Frank, Robin Desser, Deb Garrison, Marty Asher, and George Andreou, among those whom I've seen too little outside of Broadway or East 50th Street offices. In leaving that night, trying to gather what might constitute a  'we' that would be for walking out into the big city, there had been one last editor encounter. There, clearly also on her way out, was the esteemed Judith Jones. I was making ready to greet here, checking to see if who I was with had met her. Ms. Jones and I had only had brief visits - on my Knopf office prowl-arounds in the past - and I'd always enjoyed what I had. So greetings once again and introductions. 

Then I realized and remembered: Ms. Jones had her own book on this fall's list. That was part of the brief, last words there of the night. The last move of the night was to go find, amidst the stacks of various galleys and finished copies, some lavender-colored copies of the old-fashioned (no artwork covers) galleys of her book, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food.

It would be a few months, but sometime in the fall, amidst the busy, sometimes quickened reading of books by authors who were coming through Seattle for readings, one of the books I read by someone who was not (alas) coming to Seattle, was The Tenth Muse. For a book written with such a deceptively light air - it reads easily. Judith Jones as an author tells a lot in a book that is nearly one-quarter recipes. There's the story of a young woman who goes to Europe after World War II, seeks and finds romance, and then love - not always in the easiest of circumstances. The love of France - of Paris - is abundant and evident - and this is where the love of her life is found, her late husband Evan. Together they would lead a life that took them back, in time, to the U.S., to books and work.

There is wonderful writing in here of her work as an editor - mostly, in this book, of cookbooks and their kin (she has also edited John Updike, and first came to Knopf, working on the major French literary writers). Even more, there is informative portrayals of a time and people - how publishing worked then. Judith Jones started working at Knopf in 1957. Alfred and Blanche Knopf are real characters here. As she begins to work more and more on food books, there are humorous asides of how she enticed other Knopf colleagues to try out recipes, testing them as it were. The stories of Julia Child, James Beard, Madhur Jaffrey, Claudia Roden, and others, from early on, down to more recent authors such as the late Edna Lewis and Lidia Bastianich, are one of a kind, both relaxed in their relating ... and with moments of distilled, all-in-a-moment perception.

One of the things this book tells, quite unselfconsciously, is how attitudes towards food and eating really did come to change. Judith Jones' own young self being captivated by a French way of cooking and eating was something she brought back with her from France. She learned to see other cultures and cuisines - how they also, at heart, had this more organic, more tied-to-life view of food, of nourishment, the table and the hearth. More than most, she has gone on to do so much to help facilitate this awareness by bringing out these many books full of good writing, good recipes, good life. Bon appetit ...

Posted by Rick Simonson on November 27, 2007 | Comments (0)