Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian

This post was originally published on my old blog – Cookbook Fetish. That’s now long gone, but I kept all of the words and pictures.

I am not a Julia Child devotee. In fact, I’ve never cooked a single recipe or read through a single cookbook written by the grand dame of American television cooking shows. But being in Washington, D.C. back in 2013, I had to go see her kitchen.

The entire kitchen is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as part of the permanent exhibition exploring Food in America. Child donated the kitchen and all contents in 2000.

You cannot literally stand in the kitchen; however, there are several viewing areas strategically around the kitchen, mostly where ’real’ windows would have been.

Area One: In Julia’s house, there was a pastry pantry and butler’s pantry in this area. These two pantries are not on display, but you can take pictures from here. Julia’s kitchen – from the pantry (1) to sink and windows.

From the pantry (1) to the back door (3.) The stove is along the wall to the back door.

Side window near the stove and back door (3.) You can see through to the plexiglass window (2.)

Area Two: This area of Julia’s house led to a food pantry. In the display, the wall where pots and pans hung on pegboard has been replaced with plexiglass and shapes of pots and pans. The pots and pans hang in a separate display. The cookbooks are along this wall, too.

This picture looks through the plexiglass window (2) near the cookbook shelves.

Julia’s cookbook shelves contained her cookbooks and videos, plus Joy of Cooking and a few others I couldn’t read from the pictures. Unfortunately, all of my shelf pictures were too blurry to share.

Area Three: the back door.
The back door to Julia’s kitchen.

Utensils along the stove top.

Learn more about Julia’s kitchen at the official website which lets you electronically wander through the kitchen and explore the various objects.

Julia’s kitchen is a small piece of the Food: Transforming The American Table 1950-2000 exhibit. Near the kitchen, you can browse by several display cases and learn a little about the rise of the “Celebrity Chef.”