Winner of two James Beard Foundation Awards, author and co-author of more than 30 cookbooks and books on culinary history, teacher, culinary historian and food columnist Anne Willan made a special appearance at Central Market recently to promote her latest book, One Soufflé at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France (2013).
Accompanying her was Amy Friedman, a professional memoir writer and creative writing teacher who co-authored the book. They met after Anne, who grew up in Yorkshire where sheep were omnipresent, read an essay about lambing that was submitted for consideration by Amy, who grew up on a sheep farm. “It was a love at first meeting,” they both agree.
I was understandably in awe of meeting Willan. She is a highly respected and commanding fixture in many kitchens worldwide who has been cooking and teaching since 1963. She founded École de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris in 1975, and it became the only accredited culinary school in Paris that taught in French and English. Bon Appetit named her Teacher of the Year in 2000, and she was inducted in the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2013. Eloquent and measured in her speech, with an ever-present English accent, Willan shared her story and I treasured every minute.
You have lived an extraordinary life on two continents, and you have affected every corner of the culinary world. When did you decide to write a memoir?
I was telling stories at the family table and our daughter was getting slightly sick of it. One day she said, “Mom you’re always telling stories, you should write a memoir.” So I said okay and went away and wrote a chapter and showed it round the family and there was a kind of silence, and they said, “Mom, we think you need help,” and help emerged in the form of Amy, who is now a very good friend.
You graduated from Cambridge with a master’s degree in economics. What took you to Paris?
I didn’t get a very good degree. I got the third-class degree, which means you’re not qualified to teach, which I never really thought of doing anyway. I’d always enjoyed doing domestic things, which was very unfashionable at the time and I drifted sideways, as it were, into the Cordon Bleu in London by doing a cooking course and then knowing that I never wanted to do anything else. I stayed on to teach and that led me very clearly to France, because then, and I believe still, if you really want to explore cooking in depth, you must go to France.
I was fascinated by the fact that you lived in the Château de Versailles. It was 1963 and you were 25 years old.
I put an ad in the International Herald Tribune, “Cordon Bleu cook available for dinner parties and gives cooking lessons.” One of five replies was from Versailles. It was not very well written, and I thought, “That’s got to be a hoax.” But it wasn’t. It turned out to be somebody famous – Florence Van der Kamp – an American socialite who was newly married to Gerald Van der Kamp, the head curator for the restoration of Versailles. They had Mexican servants and they were going to entertain a lot. So there was I, an English girl in France, living in the Château of Versailles and teaching French cooking in kitchen Spanish to Mexicans!
You founded La Varenne Cooking School in Paris in 1975. La Varenne also had a presence in Burgundy until 2007 and The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia until 2008. Some of your distinguished alumni include Nathan Myrvhold, Gale Gand, Nathalie Dupree, Virginia Willis, Alex Guarnaschelli, Amanda Hesser and Susan Herman Loomis.
Some of them were trainees and some of them were students. Virginia is really one of ours. She was with us on and off for two years, and she’s a very good friend. We were teaching together about a month ago.
Did you work with Julia Child?
We didn’t work together a great deal, but we were very good friends for many years, and I got to know her very well. Julia and Paul Child were early investors of La Varenne in Paris.
You moved to Château du Feÿ in Burgundy, France, and your La Varenne cooking school opened there in 1988. You had easy access to delicious wines …
… and wonderful markets! I did appreciate them. But our son has a mas (farmhouse) in the South of France near Perpignan. It’s near the sea and we go and stay there quite often, but it’s just not the same. There’s very good fish. There’s lovely fruit in season – I mean, it’s one of the gardens of France. Good wine – it’s not Burgundy – but it’s just fine. They are hot-weather red wines on the whole, and there’s a dry Muscat that is quite nice. I had forgotten that we got so spoiled in Burgundy. Just in our local little market with 10,000 people and there would be 50, 60 different cheeses from all over France in peak condition and in all stages of ripeness, but down in the South, most of it is Spanish-style hard cheese – perfectly nice – but there’s no goat cheese locally made, let alone cow cheeses.
Tell me about your visit to El Bulli.
Well, I’ve been twice, first in about 2002, and Ferran Adria was already very famous but not quite the worldwide master celebrity that he is now. I interviewed him, and he is the most amazing man. He never stops talking and it’s all up here [motioning to her head] and he’s full of enthusiasm when he’s talking – very creative.
At this time, a chef at Central Market presented a couple of hot out-of-the-oven Aunt Louie’s Cheese Balls for Willan’s approval. “Looks great,” she exclaims, “Could we beg one to taste when they are a little bit cooler?”
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