Delights and Prejudices

Delights and prejudices by James Beard. Drawings by Earl Thollander

This American culinary icon began life on the Oregon coast, where his mother ran a high-class boarding house renowned for the quality of its food. Beard’s was not a happy childhood, but it was a feast for all the senses, since the raw ingredients were incomparable and the dishes were international in flavor and epicurean in quality. Beard would learn to transform these experiences into the basis of a long and successful career writing cookbooks, teaching at his own cooking school and, later, on his own television shows, and helping establish notable New York restaurants.