The Fish-Filled Meal That Helped Jumpstart Julia Child's Love Of French Cooking

Julia Child famously brought classic French cooking into American kitchens and helped lead a culinary revolution still being felt today. And if not for a meal she had on her inaugural visit to France, the world may never have had Child's accessible take on French cuisine that has helped home cooks take their food to the next level. Long before Child co-wrote her groundbreaking "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," a bestselling cookbook from 1961, and starred in "The French Chef," her long-running television show on PBS, she had a fateful lunch in Normandy that changed the course of her life.

It was November 1948, and Child and her husband Paul had recently arrived in France. Child was 36, and didn't know how to cook or speak the language. They were at Restaurant La Couronne, in Rouen, for a lunch of oysters, sole meunière, a salad, a baguette, Pouilly-Fumé white wine, fromage blanc — a tangy spreadable cheese — and coffee. "It was the most exciting meal of my life," she later recalled in her memoir "My Life in France." But it was the sole meunière that stole her heart, a dish she called "perfection."

Over her long career, Julia Child created many fish-related recipes, from her extravagant Hollandaise-glazed salmon with seafood mousse to Child's elevated tuna salad sandwich with capers and cornichons. Growing up in Pasadena, California with a mother who came from New England, the family ate codfish balls and broiled mackerel. But it was her first taste of sole meunière that gave Child a new appreciation for fish. "I experienced fish, and a dining experience, of a higher order than any I'd ever had before," she recalled in her memoir.

At its most basic, sole meunière is a pan fried sole filet in a brown butter sauce with a touch of lemon juice and sprinkling of parsley. Child's version includes capers. She was not alone in her enthusiasm for sole meunière — the late chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain had an affinity for the dish that can be found on the menu at Bourdain's favorite restaurant in Paris, Le Dôme Café. Child's revelatory lunch led to her attending the prestigious Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and a life dedicated to food. And it was all thanks to a simple fish dish (and perhaps the bottle of good French wine).