Name: Julia Child Teaches Dave How To Make A Croque Monsieur | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-11-20T16:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Julia Child Teaches Dave How To Make A Croque Monsieur | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Julia Child Teaches Dave How To Make A Croque Monsieur | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-20. Transcript available.

Julia Child, of course, she is this country's favorite chef.
She is a charming woman.
She has a brand-new television series coming up on PBS
entitled Dinner at Julia's House, which premieres October 14th.
It's a pleasure now to welcome Julia Child.
Hi, Julia.
Hi.
Nice to see you.
This is really, really fun for me because you're someone I've watched for many,
many years
and have admired your work, and I think you're, in addition to being a talented
cook,
you're just a keen, genuine personality.
Why didn't we hear in the audio when you went in to see Sophia?
Well, you know, it was the microphone.
I have one here, and I had one there, and I get confused.
It's like walking and chewing gum.
That was fun, anyway.
Yeah, but I forgot to give her the sponge.
I'll give you a sponge.
They're good, too, aren't they?
I haven't got a pocket.
Well, hang on to that.
I don't know.
You, um...
You, you, uh, I know you're, you're taller than I thought you were going to be,
and I don't want to be rude about this, but is it, is it okay to ask you how
tall you are?
I'm six feet two without anything, and then the, my heel's about an inch.
Uh-huh.
I'm the shortest in my family.
We come from California, and I guess that's good, good food and everything else.
There's plenty of sunshine, and orange juice, and...
Did you play sports when you were a young girl in high school?
I did pro ball.
When I was in grade school, I was jumping center, and nobody could beat me.
When I got to college, they changed the rules, and my function was over, so...
Yeah, girls' basketball used to be much, uh, it was actually very primitive
until recently, wasn't it?
Well, I didn't have anyone that was big enough.
Yeah.
So, I mean, that was really all I did was do the jumping center.
Now, when somebody picks up one of your cookbooks, are you responsible for new
recipes?
Is part of your job as a chef to always be thinking of different ways to cook
different things?
Tis, the first book that we had mastering with the art of French cooking,
number one, was a, uh, classical cooking.
Right.
It's all supposed to be done in a classical way, and at that time, that was
before the Nouvelle Cuisine came in,
and it wasn't done to change how things were done.
Yeah.
But now, I think with the Nouvelle Cuisine, one is much freer.
Anything goes, doesn't it?
Anything goes, but I think the better background one has, the better a cook.
Because if you don't know much of anything, it's kind of that kind of sloppy
type of painting where you throw the paint at something and hope something will
come out.
But do you spend a certain part of your day thinking, today I'm going to think
of a new way to fix ham?
Today I'm going to think of a new way to, you know what I'm saying?
Well, sometimes, because I have a monthly article in Parade magazine,
I have to think of, that'll be an interesting way, sometimes a new way of doing
something.
But I'm awfully interested in young people going into food as a profession,
because you can always get a job.
I mean, a good, a trained cook can always get a job, and the salary starts at
about $20,000 a year.
But you have to like hard work.
Yeah.
Now, when you're testing a new idea, or, what is the kind of success rate?
Does it come out perfect the first time, or do you just get one and then?
Well, I'm awfully lucky if it does.
Well, for instance, I was doing a new recipe for fresh strawberry souffle that
kept collapsing all the time,
and I kept working on it, and then I used it in a usual dish like this,
and then it would rise up so high it would stick to the top of the oven.
Finally, after 29 tries, and then we finally worked on a larger souffle dish,
it's turned out very well.
But it really took 29 ways to do it, and even most of the French chefs I've
talked about would say, "No, I wouldn't bother with it."
Is the souffle one of the most difficult things to get to?
No, it's automatic, but sometimes things don't work like for our new edition of
Mastering.
For some reason, the chocolate souffle that we had in it began not to work
anymore, because I think ingredients change.
There were about eight or ten chocolate souffles, which my husband happily ate.
Oh, so now I was going to ask you about that.
Before we got one that really works.
With the strawberry souffle, what do you do with the mistakes?
Your husband just eats them?
Well, we eat them.
Well, he eats both of them.
Does he know their mistakes when he's eating them?
Yes, he doesn't care.
Eat virtually anything, will he?
You know, they're stuck to the oven, you know, the oven racks.
This rolls right up through the oven rack and stuck to the top, and you know,
it's a very nice Polaroid picture of it, which I have.
Well, you folks were lucky to get out alive, you know that.
I guess we were.
Now, quickly, maybe it's impossible to say quickly, but what is the trick to
getting a souffle to come up and stay up?
Well, it's to beat the egg whites properly so that they're really up in stiff,
shiny peaks,
and then to fold them in properly so that they don't collapse as they go in.
I mean, otherwise, it's absolutely automatic, but in the strawberry souffle, I
had the fresh one.
I had a puree, and it was just too liquid, and it would go up like that, but
there wasn't enough body to hold it up.
Yeah.
So, I won't even go into what we did the 29 times, but I finally worked it out
so that it worked and still tasted fresh and not like strawberry jam.
Yeah.
Do they collapse automatically when you serve them, or is that part of the
trick?
Well, the difference between a souffle and a cake are really very much the same
thing,
but a cake has more flour in it so that the flour really hardens and the
bubbles are baked into it so it stays up.
More structure there.
The bubbles aren't hardened, but they just have enough body so that they'll
hold up and get it to the table and cut it and serve it.
And then, boom, it begins going down a little bit.
Now, at the last minute, you were kind enough to agree to cook something for us
tonight, and I certainly appreciate that.
And we don't have a big deal here.
I'll cook it if you'll eat it.
I'll be happy to eat it.
Okay.
If your husband is still with us, isn't he?
Yes.
All right, then I'll be happy to eat it.
I'll be happy to eat it.
It was entertaining, though.
Gerald and I are here.
Boy, this is a dream come true for me.
I always envisioned myself involved in cooking something with you on television.
And we're going to get to do it.
Now, we have...
We shall do it together.
Yeah.
All right.
It's primitive, but it'll work, won't it?
Sure.
All right.
What are you going to make for us, Julia?
Well, what we're going to do is a French toasted ham and cheese sandwich called
a croque, monsieur,
which is very good.
It's very easy to do.
Okay.
If you'll sort of open that up, I'm going to butter the bread.
All of your better ham is sealed in plastic, isn't it, Julia?
Yep.
Absolutely.
I think that's the mark of any good pork product if it's sealed in...
I'm making a little mustard butter here.
All right.
And that's just...
We don't have to be fancy.
That's just like the name says, right?
Mustard butter.
It's not hot dog.
It's not hot dog mustard.
It's that kind of Dijon.
Okay.
How much of this ham would you like?
We have enough here to make a wallet, by the way.
I think just one slice.
All right.
One slice.
Okay.
I like mozzarella cheese.
All right.
I love cheese pretty much any way it comes.
There you go.
Look at that.
Now look at that.
They're the same size.
Look at that.
Yeah.
Is that some sort of yellow cheese?
All right.
I love cheese pretty much any way it comes.
There you go.
All right.
Now we just want to...
Look at that.
They're the same size.
Look at that.
Yeah.
Uniform packaging regulation?
I guess.
The ham and cheese will be the same thing.
I'll just cut that in half and put that on and then have a big piece of cheese
there.
Okay.
I'll make a double thing there and a piece of...
Now would you yourself eat this kind of thing as a snack late at night?
Oh, I love it.
Oh, it's delicious.
Okay.
Then you've got mustard butter on there.
Now you trimmed off the crusts of that bread, right?
Then I trimmed the crusts off and then I'm going to trim this off and then you
can eat separately
while you're cooking the sandwich.
And...
That's what we do on the television.
We always throw it on the floor because nobody can see it.
Oh, that's great.
I like that.
Now this is a very important thing.
Take your hand and lean on it.
Lean on it?
The reason really, really lean on it quite hard.
That's right.
That's enough.
And the reason for that is...
And that's really a very important trick because that keeps the sandwich
together while you're
cooking it.
And so all we have to do now...
So it's very important to lean on your ham, boys and girls.
Regardless of what mom and dad said, lean on your ham.
Well, that's all right.
I'm sorry.
I was actually fearful of leaning on it too hard.
Well, that's all right.
I don't want assistance to keep together.
Okay.
Now you can tell me sweet nothings while it's cooking.
All right.
Because all it needs, all you need to cook it until the cheese begins to ooze
out and it's
sort of lightly brown.
And it's just delicious.
You might want to get the meat.
Is there any kind of food that you yourself wouldn't eat?
Well, I hate fried food that's cooked in stinky fat.
Some people like that.
I know we did a show on french fries and we had fresh peanut oil in it.
And some of the chaps on the crew said, well, I don't like it.
I'm used to greasy spoon fat.
Oh, sure.
Well, yeah.
Would you rather have wine or beer with this?
Well, beer, I think is...
Well, whatever you want.
Beer or wine.
What do you want, guys?
Beer or wine?
Beer.
Beer.
Beer.
- Wow, look at this lovely gift decanter Julia brought the beer in. It's
certainly festive, isn't it? Boy, that smells great.
- It doesn't, that couldn't be easier. It's much better cooked in butter than
saute and then grilled, really. And the pressing, leaning, you did a beautiful
leaning job.
- Thank you very much. Well, you have other things, tomatoes and stuff, but...
- Well, I can garnish and you might give us a plate.
- Oh, sure, a plate. You asked me that earlier, I'm sorry.
Now, you're not going to be doing any cooking on your new television show, is
that correct?
- Oh, yes. - You are going to cook.
- Well, it's a very lively show because it's a dinner party sequence and we go
out and gather things like ham, not ham.
- You go out and gather ham, do you?
- We go through a big chicken processing plant, which is fascinating.
- Ooh, but talk about stinky, isn't that...
- Well, we didn't go through the stinky part, which is taking off the feathers,
but it's very interesting to see them all hanging by their feet like this and
just going around and around this building.
They'll cut off a leg and cut off a wing and package it up.
- You also went salmon fishing once, didn't you?
- Salmon fishing, we went shrimp fishing and so forth.
- It sounds like a fascinating deal.
- Is that oozing out?
- Yep, it's oozing a little bit.
- Well, we'll let it ooze just a little bit more.
- Okay.
- And then eat it.
- I think that one sandwich will be enough for all of us, don't you?
- I'm sure it will.
- All right.
- Now, this can be done if somebody just was like shut-ins or anybody didn't
have a stove.
We just get a hot plate.
- Yep, just get a hot plate.
Cut it apart nicely.
- Oh, jeez.
Excuse me, Julia.
- All right.
- Decorated with a two or three cherry tomatoes.
It's a lovely dull knife you gave me, David.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
That was the envy.
I think that came from the executive dining room and they like to keep the
knives dull up there.
- It doesn't really need decoration, but we'll put it around.
- You'd like to see a menu while you have your beer?
All right, there you are.
Okay, how close are we?
Boy, that's beautiful.
- That's it.
- That's very nice.
And can we give this a...
- Did the cheese ooze enough?
- The cheese is oozing a little bit.
Now, do you want me to eat this or do you want it?
- Yes, I'd like to see you eat it.
- Okay.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll do it with your fingers if you want.
- I'm going to eat it here with my fingers, but I do have one little thing to
do.
All right.
- What was that?
- I have an artificial tooth there and the cheese will just pull it out anyway,
so I...
- Oh.
- All right.
- How does it taste?
Is that pretty good?
- Well...
- It's a cheese.
- It's a cheese.
- It's a cheese.
- It's a cheese.
- It's a cheese.
- It's a cheese.
- Hmm.
- That's very good.
- You know what that is?
Is that unsalted butter?
- Mm-hmm.
- Well, see, that's it.
I don't like the way that stuff tastes.
- Oh, there's not much salt in it.
- Well, no.
It's not that I'm just accustomed to the other kind, but the sandwich itself is
great, but
what I got there was a little...
- More mustard.
- Yeah, I love mustard.
Now, you're not offended by that, are you?
- No.
- I mean, the sandwich is great.
It's just...
I mean, it's very good in our television show.
You get the idea of doing it, and then...
- That's right.
- You put on your own frills.
- But this stuff is better for you than salted butter, right?
- I don't think it makes much difference.
- Oh, really?
- Mm-hmm.
- The thing is, how it tastes to you.
- Well, the sandwich is great.
I mean...
- Well, I think the sautéing of it is very nice.
- Yeah, it's very nice.
Julia, it's a thrill for me to have you on the show.
You're an absolute delight.
Good luck with it, Julia.
- Thank you.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you very much.
- What did I call?

Julia Child Teaches Dave How To Make A Croque Monsieur | Letterman

Julia Child, of course, she is this country's favorite chef.
She is a charming woman.
She has a brand-new television series coming up on PBS
entitled Dinner at Julia's House, which premieres October 14th.
It's a pleasure now to welcome Julia Child.
Hi, Julia.
Hi.
Nice to see you.
This is really, really fun for me because you're someone I've watched for many,
many years
and have admired your work, and I think you're, in addition to being a talented
cook,
you're just a keen, genuine personality.
Why didn't we hear in the audio when you went in to see Sophia?
Well, you know, it was the microphone.
I have one here, and I had one there, and I get confused.
It's like walking and chewing gum.
That was fun, anyway.
Yeah, but I forgot to give her the sponge.
I'll give you a sponge.
They're good, too, aren't they?
I haven't got a pocket.
Well, hang on to that.
I don't know.
You, um...
You, you, uh, I know you're, you're taller than I thought you were going to be,
and I don't want to be rude about this, but is it, is it okay to ask you how
tall you are?
I'm six feet two without anything, and then the, my heel's about an inch.
Uh-huh.
I'm the shortest in my family.
We come from California, and I guess that's good, good food and everything else.
There's plenty of sunshine, and orange juice, and...
Did you play sports when you were a young girl in high school?
I did pro ball.
When I was in grade school, I was jumping center, and nobody could beat me.
When I got to college, they changed the rules, and my function was over, so...
Yeah, girls' basketball used to be much, uh, it was actually very primitive
until recently, wasn't it?
Well, I didn't have anyone that was big enough.
Yeah.
So, I mean, that was really all I did was do the jumping center.
Now, when somebody picks up one of your cookbooks, are you responsible for new
recipes?
Is part of your job as a chef to always be thinking of different ways to cook
different things?
Tis, the first book that we had mastering with the art of French cooking,
number one, was a, uh, classical cooking.
Right.
It's all supposed to be done in a classical way, and at that time, that was
before the Nouvelle Cuisine came in,
and it wasn't done to change how things were done.
Yeah.
But now, I think with the Nouvelle Cuisine, one is much freer.
Anything goes, doesn't it?
Anything goes, but I think the better background one has, the better a cook.
Because if you don't know much of anything, it's kind of that kind of sloppy
type of painting where you throw the paint at something and hope something will
come out.
But do you spend a certain part of your day thinking, today I'm going to think
of a new way to fix ham?
Today I'm going to think of a new way to, you know what I'm saying?
Well, sometimes, because I have a monthly article in Parade magazine,
I have to think of, that'll be an interesting way, sometimes a new way of doing
something.
But I'm awfully interested in young people going into food as a profession,
because you can always get a job.
I mean, a good, a trained cook can always get a job, and the salary starts at
about $20,000 a year.
But you have to like hard work.
Yeah.
Now, when you're testing a new idea, or, what is the kind of success rate?
Does it come out perfect the first time, or do you just get one and then?
Well, I'm awfully lucky if it does.
Well, for instance, I was doing a new recipe for fresh strawberry souffle that
kept collapsing all the time,
and I kept working on it, and then I used it in a usual dish like this,
and then it would rise up so high it would stick to the top of the oven.
Finally, after 29 tries, and then we finally worked on a larger souffle dish,
it's turned out very well.
But it really took 29 ways to do it, and even most of the French chefs I've
talked about would say, "No, I wouldn't bother with it."
Is the souffle one of the most difficult things to get to?
No, it's automatic, but sometimes things don't work like for our new edition of
Mastering.
For some reason, the chocolate souffle that we had in it began not to work
anymore, because I think ingredients change.
There were about eight or ten chocolate souffles, which my husband happily ate.
Oh, so now I was going to ask you about that.
Before we got one that really works.
With the strawberry souffle, what do you do with the mistakes?
Your husband just eats them?
Well, we eat them.
Well, he eats both of them.
Does he know their mistakes when he's eating them?
Yes, he doesn't care.
Eat virtually anything, will he?
You know, they're stuck to the oven, you know, the oven racks.
This rolls right up through the oven rack and stuck to the top, and you know,
it's a very nice Polaroid picture of it, which I have.
Well, you folks were lucky to get out alive, you know that.
I guess we were.
Now, quickly, maybe it's impossible to say quickly, but what is the trick to
getting a souffle to come up and stay up?
Well, it's to beat the egg whites properly so that they're really up in stiff,
shiny peaks,
and then to fold them in properly so that they don't collapse as they go in.
I mean, otherwise, it's absolutely automatic, but in the strawberry souffle, I
had the fresh one.
I had a puree, and it was just too liquid, and it would go up like that, but
there wasn't enough body to hold it up.
Yeah.
So, I won't even go into what we did the 29 times, but I finally worked it out
so that it worked and still tasted fresh and not like strawberry jam.
Yeah.
Do they collapse automatically when you serve them, or is that part of the
trick?
Well, the difference between a souffle and a cake are really very much the same
thing,
but a cake has more flour in it so that the flour really hardens and the
bubbles are baked into it so it stays up.
More structure there.
The bubbles aren't hardened, but they just have enough body so that they'll
hold up and get it to the table and cut it and serve it.
And then, boom, it begins going down a little bit.
Now, at the last minute, you were kind enough to agree to cook something for us
tonight, and I certainly appreciate that.
And we don't have a big deal here.
I'll cook it if you'll eat it.
I'll be happy to eat it.
Okay.
If your husband is still with us, isn't he?
Yes.
All right, then I'll be happy to eat it.
I'll be happy to eat it.
It was entertaining, though.
Gerald and I are here.
Boy, this is a dream come true for me.
I always envisioned myself involved in cooking something with you on television.
And we're going to get to do it.
Now, we have...
We shall do it together.
Yeah.
All right.
It's primitive, but it'll work, won't it?
Sure.
All right.
What are you going to make for us, Julia?
Well, what we're going to do is a French toasted ham and cheese sandwich called
a croque, monsieur,
which is very good.
It's very easy to do.
Okay.
If you'll sort of open that up, I'm going to butter the bread.
All of your better ham is sealed in plastic, isn't it, Julia?
Yep.
Absolutely.
I think that's the mark of any good pork product if it's sealed in...
I'm making a little mustard butter here.
All right.
And that's just...
We don't have to be fancy.
That's just like the name says, right?
Mustard butter.
It's not hot dog.
It's not hot dog mustard.
It's that kind of Dijon.
Okay.
How much of this ham would you like?
We have enough here to make a wallet, by the way.
I think just one slice.
All right.
One slice.
Okay.
I like mozzarella cheese.
All right.
I love cheese pretty much any way it comes.
There you go.
Look at that.
Now look at that.
They're the same size.
Look at that.
Yeah.
Is that some sort of yellow cheese?
All right.
I love cheese pretty much any way it comes.
There you go.
All right.
Now we just want to...
Look at that.
They're the same size.
Look at that.
Yeah.
Uniform packaging regulation?
I guess.
The ham and cheese will be the same thing.
I'll just cut that in half and put that on and then have a big piece of cheese
there.
Okay.
I'll make a double thing there and a piece of...
Now would you yourself eat this kind of thing as a snack late at night?
Oh, I love it.
Oh, it's delicious.
Okay.
Then you've got mustard butter on there.
Now you trimmed off the crusts of that bread, right?
Then I trimmed the crusts off and then I'm going to trim this off and then you
can eat separately
while you're cooking the sandwich.
And...
That's what we do on the television.
We always throw it on the floor because nobody can see it.
Oh, that's great.
I like that.
Now this is a very important thing.
Take your hand and lean on it.
Lean on it?
The reason really, really lean on it quite hard.
That's right.
That's enough.
And the reason for that is...
And that's really a very important trick because that keeps the sandwich
together while you're
cooking it.
And so all we have to do now...
So it's very important to lean on your ham, boys and girls.
Regardless of what mom and dad said, lean on your ham.
Well, that's all right.
I'm sorry.
I was actually fearful of leaning on it too hard.
Well, that's all right.
I don't want assistance to keep together.
Okay.
Now you can tell me sweet nothings while it's cooking.
All right.
Because all it needs, all you need to cook it until the cheese begins to ooze
out and it's
sort of lightly brown.
And it's just delicious.
You might want to get the meat.
Is there any kind of food that you yourself wouldn't eat?
Well, I hate fried food that's cooked in stinky fat.
Some people like that.
I know we did a show on french fries and we had fresh peanut oil in it.
And some of the chaps on the crew said, well, I don't like it.
I'm used to greasy spoon fat.
Oh, sure.
Well, yeah.
Would you rather have wine or beer with this?
Well, beer, I think is...
Well, whatever you want.
Beer or wine.
What do you want, guys?
Beer or wine?
Beer.
Beer.
Beer.
- Wow, look at this lovely gift decanter Julia brought the beer in. It's
certainly festive, isn't it? Boy, that smells great.
- It doesn't, that couldn't be easier. It's much better cooked in butter than
saute and then grilled, really. And the pressing, leaning, you did a beautiful
leaning job.
- Thank you very much. Well, you have other things, tomatoes and stuff, but...
- Well, I can garnish and you might give us a plate.
- Oh, sure, a plate. You asked me that earlier, I'm sorry.
Now, you're not going to be doing any cooking on your new television show, is
that correct?
- Oh, yes. - You are going to cook.
- Well, it's a very lively show because it's a dinner party sequence and we go
out and gather things like ham, not ham.
- You go out and gather ham, do you?
- We go through a big chicken processing plant, which is fascinating.
- Ooh, but talk about stinky, isn't that...
- Well, we didn't go through the stinky part, which is taking off the feathers,
but it's very interesting to see them all hanging by their feet like this and
just going around and around this building.
They'll cut off a leg and cut off a wing and package it up.
- You also went salmon fishing once, didn't you?
- Salmon fishing, we went shrimp fishing and so forth.
- It sounds like a fascinating deal.
- Is that oozing out?
- Yep, it's oozing a little bit.
- Well, we'll let it ooze just a little bit more.
- Okay.
- And then eat it.
- I think that one sandwich will be enough for all of us, don't you?
- I'm sure it will.
- All right.
- Now, this can be done if somebody just was like shut-ins or anybody didn't
have a stove.
We just get a hot plate.
- Yep, just get a hot plate.
Cut it apart nicely.
- Oh, jeez.
Excuse me, Julia.
- All right.
- Decorated with a two or three cherry tomatoes.
It's a lovely dull knife you gave me, David.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
That was the envy.
I think that came from the executive dining room and they like to keep the
knives dull up there.
- It doesn't really need decoration, but we'll put it around.
- You'd like to see a menu while you have your beer?
All right, there you are.
Okay, how close are we?
Boy, that's beautiful.
- That's it.
- That's very nice.
And can we give this a...
- Did the cheese ooze enough?
- The cheese is o