On the road with Julia Child: SOUTH ASIA

16th October 2024

ON THE ROAD WITH JULIA CHILD

Diana R. Chambers, author of The Secret War of Julia Child sets off on her travels…

I’ve always been a traveler. My first explorations were in the library, and on my world globe. I studied Asian art history at university, worked at a Paris translation agency, then began an export business in Delhi. Later I found myself in Hollywood writing scripts—until my characters demanded their own novels. My latest is The Secret War of Julia Child, a People magazine Best Book of Fall 2024.

Ten years ago I read that during World War Two the famed chef, Julia Child, had served with America’s first espionage agency, the Office of Strategic Services—OSS. In India, Ceylon, and China.

The Julia Child? In the OSS. And Asia!

Period map of vast Asian front, by Fanita Lanier

BAM. I was hooked. I have deep roots in South Asia. I’d based a recent novel on a real-life WWII war-hero maharaja and a rising young actress, set in Hollywood and end-of-the-Raj India. I was eager to return. I also love spy stories!

The third element that drew me was Julia Child. Surprisingly, as I’m not a cook. But my first international trip was to Paris, and I keep returning. So I felt a “French connection” with Julia, the feeling we’d walked the same Paris streets, possibly shopped at the same outdoor markets, marveled at the silvery light, walked across the bridges and along the Seine.

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Monastery back room, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Like Julia, I grew up reading Nancy Drew, then mysteries and spy novels. My earlier books have had espionage subplots, so I was intrigued to pull back the curtains on her classified years with the OSS, where she’d worked her way up to head of the secret files in Washington. Then she was promoted to set up the secret files in Kandy, Ceylon, where she met Paul Child—and couldn’t stand him! Gradually, things changed. As I learned more of their moving love affair, my heart opened to them both.

To write about Julia, I needed to walk in her (12A) shoes. First came the research books—often old, often out-of-print. Anything relating to the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of WWII—memoirs, biographies, novels, military accounts, histories of espionage, cryptography. Studies on colonialism and empire.

Before long, I discovered this horrendous conflict is known as the “Forgotten War.” Although the West has focused mainly on the European and Pacific fronts, the Asians contributed immensely to the final victory over fascism. They suffered and sacrificed greatly. They, too, yearned for freedom.

Julia’s journey began in Bombay, India where her troopship docked in April 1944. Mine began in Delhi many years later. As I followed her path, she helped me discover her story. And mine. The locales in her wartime journey were also my own touchstones.

Now my research took me to new sites, new adventures—narrow-gauge steam trains…

Steam train to Ooty (Udhagamandalam), India

An ashram’s icy, cavernous baths, Hindu and Buddhist temples dense with worshippers and art. Or isolated shrines…everywhere.

Shrine, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan elephant reserves that stirred my heart.

With Wild Elephants at Kaudulla National Park, Sri Lanka

Melancholy ruins of the long-lost kingdom of Polonnaruwa.

The veggie-based curries and dosas of southern India and Sri Lanka.

I also revisited Kunming in China’s southwest Yunnan Province—terminus of the Burma Road with its paved-over history, lakes, and French colonial buildings, one of which housed the OSS. We explored Lijiang, a World Heritage river town surrounded by the jagged, snowy peaks Julia flies over from India, and, downhill, Dali’s Old Town, whose mushrooms flavor the sautéed, hand-pulled noodles Julia tastes in Kunming. We took a bus up to the thunderous waterfalls marking the border between southeast China and Vietnam. It was 100% humidity, everything with a scrim of mist, dream-like.

Ban Gioc-Detian Falls, Border Vietnam/China

Julia must have experienced a similar bombardment of the senses. How had it felt, finding herself in this distant corner of the world, this crossroads of place and time, thisdramatic moment in history? References to Casablanca are apt.

I’d never heard the thunder of bombs, but we’d both known monsoons, mud, and dust, dripping humidity and frizzing hair, sweat dripping down our legs. Also naan, mangoes, spicy curries, fragrant rice, and warm beer. Spice markets, their burlap sacks bursting with color and fragrance.

Kerala spice market

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