A Never-Before-Published Interview with James Beard

by John Ferrone

Recently, James Beard’s longtime friend and editor John Ferrone uncovered an interview he conducted with Beard on February 23, 1973, and shared it with the Foundation. In turn, we wanted to share their discussion about entertaining and home-cooked meals with you. Below is the transcript of the interview, edited by John Ferrone.

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John Ferrone: Most people are afraid to cook for food celebrities. I can remember you saying that people say, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly cook for you, it would scare me out my wits.” Yet I think you are very grateful to have someone cook for you.

James Beard: Well, certainly whenever you’re on a trip somewhere or even around New York it’s very flattering to have someone cook for you and very pleasant.

JF: Why flattering?

JB: Well, just for the reason you brought up. People say, “Oh, I’d be afraid to cook for you. You must be so critical.” Well, who’s critical? I’m the least critical person in the world of anything people prepare in their homes. I can be very critical in a restaurant, but that’s another matter. But if someone does one dish that absolutely wonderful, I enjoy it thoroughly, whether it’s at a big dinner party or a tête à tête dinner or whatever. Just give me good bread and butter.

JF: Don’t people sometimes attempt to be a little too elaborate, too pretentious?

JB: I think that used to be a problem more than it is now, but of course some people try to produce all of their specialties at one meal, which is just crazy. I go very often to my friends the Batterberry’s and Michael is a very good cook. Ariane doesn’t cook at all. They entertain a tremendous amount, but it’s always simple and good and interesting. And you always come away grateful for it, you know.

JF: Do you remember any foods they cooked for you?

JB: The last time I was there we had a rolled lamb in phyllo leaves that was crisp and delicious, with a very pungent chopped lamb filling and sort of a piquant sauce. Then we had a great salad of endive, cut in julienne, almost, with beets and onion and nuts, and a perfect dressing. That was practically all there was, except for a pudding of some kind of dessert. This was a very gracious meal.

JF: Do you have any complaints or pet peeves at all about being entertained you can think of?

JB: Well, there are people who are too hospitable and want to push things on you when you don’t want to have things pushed on you and who make you think you’re slighting them if you don’t partake of something you may not want to eat. But those are usually people you don’t know too well, people you meet on the road somewhere, who out of the kindness of their hearts think, “Oh, you’re here and you’re alone. Let’s invite you for dinner.” And then they try to make a production of it. Well, I think a production isn’t necessary, but they feel it’s more impressive.

JF: A production—to many courses?

JB: Yes, that’s it. And maybe over-elaborate.

JF: I’m interested in your reaction to that sort of thing—to people you meet casually. After all, your friends know your tastes pretty well. So it’s a little bit different.

JB: Well, I’ve always felt uncomfortable if somebody I know very slightly, an acquaintance, invites me to a dinner, and it’s a big, fussy meal. I feel they’ve just broken their backs to do this for me and that I’m obliged to avail myself of everything offered. People will serve a lot of hors d’oeuvre before a meal. And sometimes they will do a big pâté with toast and other things passed around with it. Then you sit down to a first course. And people always seem to think they must do the traditional things. They must give you a filet of beef or racks of lamb or a saddle of lamb or a filet en croûte, and several vegetables. And then a salad and cheese and dessert. Well, this is more than you want.

JF: This is for an informal dinner, supposedly?

JB: Supposedly for an informal dinner. It’s a hell of a lot of food, done with great flourish and full of hospitality, but it’s embarrassing hospitality. I would be perfectly happy with bread and cheese and beer and sausage, you know, or wine.

JF: There are very few things you don’t like. What have you done when you’ve encountered—what?—chicken livers? What else don’t you like? I can’t think of very many things.

JB: Not very many things. I’m not fond of Beef Wellington, as you know.

JF: But you can eat it if you have to.

JB: If I have to. But it’s a chore.

JF: Just because it’s done too much?

JB: But this is something else I must confess. I don’t like, I really don’t like, cheese with salad, although I like salad. And I think people serve salad too much. Not every meal needs a salad.

JF: We’re having one tonight.

JB: Good. And I especially don’t like to have a salad that is very tart with beautiful cheese. I like cheese as a separate course. A lot of people don’t. A lot of people don’t like cheese at all. Nor do I like cheese and fruit at the end of a meal. If I’m going to have fruit, fine. If I’m going to have cheese, fine. But I want to enjoy the cheese by itself, and I want a glass of wine with it if I’m drinking wine. Instead of cheese and fruit people often have elaborate-ish desserts. Not that I mind, but very few people really balance what they serve.

JF: This is what I’ve always said, that one of your great contributions is menu building, because some people don’t know how to put things together.

JB: Funny, I met a woman—sitting at the next table in a restaurant the other night—who said, “Oh, I enjoy your books because you always tell us what to serve with things.” Well, I think it’s fun for people to get an idea of what goes with this and what goes with that. And a lot of cooks have no conception of how to do it.

[Apart from food] I don’t like to be an overnight guest where I’m not awfully well known. I feel uncomfortable, because, as you know, I like to get up in the morning and wander around. If I want tea at 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock, I want to be able to have it. I sometimes feel almost claustrophobic if I have to listen for the patter of my host’s great big feet and wait until I’m called. Although I do go to visit other friends who are fortunate in having staff who will often surprise me with breakfast on a tray, which is ideal. That of course, is almost something of the past.

JF: I’ll see that you get breakfast in bed the next time you come to the country.

JB: All right.

JF: Can you think of any really extraordinary meals you’ve had at the hands of amateurs?

JB: Yes, I had a perfectly beautiful pâté done by an amateur not long ago that, there again, was served with drinks. There was nothing else that night except the pâté. But it was extraordinarily good. Yes, I’ve had a lot of things that I would call good. I had a chicken breast dish that was quite interesting, and which I thought—when I was told how it was being prepared—was going to be absolutely ghastly. I’m not crazy for chicken breasts, to begin with, because most people overcook them, and I thought, dear God, this is going to be as dry as a third-day doughnut. And instead it was moist and had a funny little tartness about it that some lemon had brought. And it was very god. It’s not a dish I would want to eat again, but it was fun for the time being.

JF: Can you think of any horrors?

JB: Oh, I’ve got plenty of those.

JF: Embarrassing ones?

JB: No, I don’t think I can say that I’ve had embarrassing ones, but I’ve had things that were triumphs of mediocrity. I don’t think too many people make embarrassing things anymore. Do you really?