Julia Child's Last Meal Was Her Own French Onion Soup

Along with her cookbooks, cooking shows, and an extensive repertoire of French recipes, Julia Child was also known for her onion-cutting skills. They're memorialized in the scene from the movie "Julie and Julia," where Child struggles to cut an onion during her first cooking lesson at Le Cordon Bleu, then proceeds to spend the rest of the evening working on her technique until a mountain of sliced onions takes over her kitchen counter.

Despite this being a movie scene, it accurately depicts what Child wrote about in her autobiography "My Life in France" and shared in an early episode of "The French Chef," her first cooking show. "See how I chop them? It's very quick like this," Child said as she showed off her onion-cutting skills, "It's easy to do if you just take a little practice." Given how many onions she was able to cut in such a short amount of time, it makes sense that Child dedicated the rest of the episode to cooking French onion soup, one of her most famous recipes from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." The soup also happened to be her last meal before she passed away.

Most people would probably expect Julia Child's favorite food to be beef bourguignon or something similar, but as it turns out, it was a much simpler dish altogether: soup. Rather than French onion, however, Child preferred vichyssoise, another type of French soup made with potatoes, leek, chicken stock, cream, and ironically, no onions. So while Child did get soup for her last meal, it didn't end up being her favorite kind.

Child died at 91, but she was still cooking well into her 80s, even starting a brand new cooking series on PBS with Jacques Pepin when she was 85. Child's last meal of French onion soup was actually prepared by someone else; though, The Los Angeles Times reported when the news of her death broke. Though Child was in her own home when it happened, her assistant Stephanie Hersh was the one who had cooked the French onion soup. Child ate the soup for dinner and sadly passed away in her sleep.

Though Julia Child didn't cook her own last meal, it's safe to say that her assistant at least used her recipe, given that onion-cutting was apparently an unspoken requirement for Child's employees. As one of her former colleagues revealed to The Associated Press, Child once refused to hire an otherwise qualified candidate simply because they didn't slice onions correctly.

That may seem a bit extreme, but the way you cut the onions does matter when it comes to French onion soup. Child's recipe calls for thinly sliced onions that she cooks over medium, then medium-high heat, adding salt and sugar in between. The combination of the temperature, the addition of salt and sugar, and of course, the thickness of the slices allows the onions to caramelize to a "dark walnut color." Child whisks in flour and removes the pot from the heat before adding beef stock. Cognac and wine are the final steps, after which she lets the soup simmer for over an hour.