James Beard, Dean of U.S. Cookery, Dies

James Beard--author, food authority, chef and columnist--and the acknowledged dean of American cooking who long ago declared this country’s culinary independence from decades of European influence and pretension, died Wednesday.

Beard was 81 and had a history of medical problems when he was admitted to New York Hospital in New York City on Jan. 8, suffering from internal bleeding and heart complications. He died there of cardiac arrest. His body will be cremated.

The author of more than 20 highly regarded cookbooks who would wax ecstatic over the simplest vegetable, Beard was working on his latest recipe collection until he was hospitalized. If there was a singular theme running through that work, which spanned half a century, it was to focus Americans’ attention on this nation’s own distinctive style of food preparation.

“He was the first to feel a genuine sense of pride over what we have as Americans,” said Judith Jones, vice president at Alfred A. Knopf Inc., and a close friend of Beard’s who edited a number of his later books. “He would say, ‘We are Americans and we could do what we liked (with foods).’ He inspired people to develop their own instincts and tastes without laying down rules.”

Beard looked the role of food expert, standing at 6 feet, 3 inches and weighing nearly 300 pounds. As much as his size, Beard’s bald head was a trademark. It was so well known that the back of his hairless pate was once featured on a cooking magazine’s cover.

Despite his size, there was nothing menacing about him. Associates have described Beard, a lifelong bachelor, as being kind, caring, understanding and, according to one colleague, forgiving of those who may have used him to further their own careers.

Genuine Love of Food Those who knew and worked with Beard said he had a genuine love for food and his enthusiasm for the subject was always an inspiration.

One of the qualities that made Beard a major figure in American cuisine was his prodigious memory.

“He could remember all the special things he had eaten during his life; his memory was incredible,” one former associate said. “He was also able to judge things on their own merits, whether it was a lowly bean or a lofty truffle. He was not troubled with elitism.”

Through his two dozen cookbooks, Beard developed an international following that led to his unofficial coronation as America’s foremost food authority. Some of his most celebrated works were “The Fireside Cookbook” published in 1949, “James Beard’s American Cookery” published in 1972, and “The New James Beard” published in 1981.

Fellow cookbook author and television personality Julia Child said Beard’s contribution to the food world was immense.

“When one thinks of American cooking, well, he started it all,” Child said. “He popularized cooking and made people feel comfortable at the stove. People often say, ‘In the beginning there was James Beard.’ He’s had a tremendous influence and we should all be grateful to him.”

Child added that Beard was a popular man with a welcoming and friendly attitude.

“Everyone seemed to know him, at least in New York,” she said.

As a tribute to both his universality and popularity, virtually all of Beard’s recipe collections are still in print, with combined sales exceeding a million copies.

Beard was already a successful author for three decades when he began a newspaper column in 1971 on food essays and events. The column usually included a recipe. At the time of his death, “Beard on Food,” written with Jacqueline Mallorca--the latest of several collaborators--was being distributed to 75 newspapers throughout the country, including The Times.

What distinguished Beard’s writing from other food columnists was his ability to make simple dishes sound memorable, even glorious.

Lyrical Style His descriptions of various foods drew the most tantalizing of mental pictures. An example of his lyrical style was a recollection of his first encounter with new potatoes.

“They were heavenly--I can taste them still: freshly dug, washed, then cooked quickly and served with good, unsalted butter and pepper.”

Beard’s palate was recognized as excellent and he could detect the slightest nuance a world-class chef might add to a traditional entree. A recent column discussed lunch at New York’s Lutece restaurant.

“We started with a great Burgundian specialty of ham cooked to a luscious tenderness, then broken up and molded with lots of parsley and jellied rich stock and a touch of wine vinegar. This is then cut in thin slices that are so beautifully varied they resemble pink marble.”

Mustard Tasting Mallorca recalled a recent incident which illustrated both Beard’s sophisticated palate and his food knowledge.

“On one occasion Jim had to make an evaluation of 30 different mustards for a magazine article. So, he assembled three colleagues for lunch and served some ham and bread. After about six or so tastes of the mustards the others were fatigued with hot mouth. And he was still going strong after 30. Remarkably, he could keep all these flavors in his mind,” she said.

He was a man who has both created and been served some of the world’s finest meals and colleagues could not pinpoint a particular food that he had called a favorite. Rather, they said he was fond of such diverse foods as rare baby lamb, single malt Scotch and pineapple upside-down cake. Majorca did say that Beard hated chicken livers.

The inspiration for Beard’s lifetime interest in food was his English-born mother, Elizabeth, who once owned and operated the Gladstone Hotel in Portland, Ore. Fine dining was a high priority for Elizabeth Beard and she had a sharp knowledge of foods and international cuisines that was impressed upon her son. Shortly before Beard was born on May 5, 1903, his mother sold the Gladstone to, in part, concentrate on raising the future food prodigy.

In “Delights and Prejudices,” a 1964 autobiography that included recipes, Beard said that he was born plump with “enough meat on the bones for two.” In the book, Beard claimed that some of his first memories were of freshly baked rolls.

Although the gregarious Beard became the leading player on the American food scene, he originally wanted to take to the stage. He was a lifelong opera lover and as a young man, in the mid-1920s, appeared in “Othello” and “Cyrano de Bergerac” in New York.

Booming Baritone In a 1982 food magazine interview, Beard, who had a booming baritone voice, reflected on his early theatrical career.

“I began by studying opera for two years in Europe and fell into theater when I came back here,” he said. “The theater is a marvelous place, I think, if you happen to have an auxiliary income, or if you happen to make a big smash.”

Having fallen short of stardom, Beard then decided, at 32, to begin pursuing a career in cooking and food. Shortly thereafter, in 1938, he and two partners opened a food store on Manhattan’s East Side called Hors d’Oeuvre Inc. The store was to be the inspiration for his first book, “Hors d’Oeuvre Canapes,” in 1940.

While operating the catering business, Beard claimed in a recent interview, he pioneered such appetizers as “cornucopias with salami, hors d’oeuvres with smoked salmon (and) with eel.”

It was during this period that he was also credited with developing such appetizers as baby artichokes stuffed with foie gras or caviar, cucumber slices with spiced lobster and onion rings topped with an onion and parsley brioche sandwich.

Disagreements with partners and World War II interrupted his business venture. After a brief stint in the Army, Beard served a tour of duty with the Merchant Marine United Seamen’s Service (a USO-type of organization) as a menu planner and kitchen supervisor at various international locations.

After the war, Beard returned to New York and landed a job as host of television’s first cooking show, “I Love to Cook,” which was sponsored by Borden’s and often featured the company’s cow, Elsie.

Among Beard’s many accomplishments was his popularization of the outdoor barbecue through three books he authored on the subject, with helping to create the popular Four Seasons and Windows on the World restaurants in New York and with being the first “to notice we had wonderful food in this country long before it became fashionable.”

Betsy Balsley, food editor of The Times, who knew Beard for years, said his death would leave a huge void in the American food scene--that there were no candidates readily qualified to assume the deanship of American cooking.

“Jim Beard’s arrival was the beginning of an era. And his death marks the end of that era,” she said.