Culinary Knowledge and its Investment: By Shiva Neupane
Julia Child was an American celebrity chef. A towering personality who introduced French cuisine to the American epicurean landscape through her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and also her TV program “The French Chef” in 1963. Indeed, Child’s ingenuity and affinity for cooking ushered her to the American food empire.
One of the most popular cakes that Child talked about was the Queen of Sheba, or Reine de Saba in French translation. This cake has a murky history in terms of how it came about in today’s culinary discussion. The Queen of Sheba is a type of dark almond chocolate cake that has a moist and rich texture.
Historically, this cake reminds one of the dark and beautiful lady who was known as the Queen of Sheba in the south Arabian kingdom. This cake is known by the sobriquet, the Queen of Sheba, after her dark beauty and tender body. As Child once said, “The Queen of Sheba is a dark beauty made of chocolate, and almonds, and rum and butter… it’s the best chocolate cake you’ve ever put in your mouth.”
Her love for this cake was quintessentially breathtaking. Her ability to unravel the closely guarded French cooking techniques was tremendous. To learn French cuisine, she had spent substantial years in France and soaked herself in the food culture there. She graduated from the reputed Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and subsequently joined the women’s cooking club Lecercle des Gourmettes. One of the fascinating ideas of Julia Child was her broad knowledge about food.
For example, even if you are not interested in becoming a cook, she believed, you could still become a product developer, food editor, dietician, food engineer, food scientist, food columnist, you name it. There are many TV shows in Nepal, but to my knowledge there aren’t any cooking shows or documentaries for imparting knowledge about what we eat in our daily life. We have a great potential for showcasing agricultural products, but we lack the knowledge to bring those food products to the table.
We can learn from the legendary chef who transported her French cooking skills to the US and made French cuisine popular. The government must acknowledge the skills of Nepalis living overseas who can contribute to publicizing their country of origin in the same way that Julia Child did in America.
The recipe to making a country prosperous is by providing incentives to the people who have innovative skills and knowledge. Therefore, to develop a country, investment in knowledge and skills is the way forward.
Bio of the writer: Mr. Shiva Neupane, is a Nepalese born permanent resident of Australia. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Mrs. Devi Neupane Gaihre and a three- year- old daughter, Devyanshi Neupane. He has published Falang English Dictionary, In the Pursuit of Utopian Life in Australia, My Waves, Falang Food Dictionary and The Elixir of my voice. He has been writing articles since 2001 for various publications; his articles have appeared in The Himalayan Times, The Kathmandu Post, The beatnik Cowboy (U.S.A), The Nepali Times Australia, scotnepal.com, and the Australia based newspaper “THE AGE”. He has studied multifarious disciplines in Australia. Interestingly enough, the former Prime minister of Australia the Honourable Scott Morrison issued him a letter during his tenure in 2022 in response to Shiva’s dictionary of multicultural cuisines (Falang Food Dictionary). In a nutshell, Mr. Neupane is a well-rounded personality and a social- butterfly.