Jacques Pépin had already been teaching at Boston University for many years when, in 1989, he and Julia Child helped establish a semester-long certificate program in the culinary arts at BU’s Metropolitan College. But they also envisioned a program with courses both in the kitchen and the classroom, in which students could study food through lenses of history, sociology, anthropology, literature, and the arts.
“Julia had said to me, ‘We should start a program in gastronomy. That doesn’t really exist in colleges,’” says Pépin. They wrote to BU President John Silber (Hon.’95), who gave the okay to launch a master’s degree in 1991. Pépin and Child taught the program’s first course. “It is still one of the only programs of its kind in the country,” Pépin says. “It’s been very gratifying.”
“Jacques’ impact on the program is clear-we engage our hands and intellects together in the kitchen,” says Megan Elias, a MET associate professor of the practice and director of the Gastronomy Program. “His visits every semester are really magical times, because he brings joy with him when he enters our kitchens. He’s approachable and supportive. He is interested in the students, and it’s clear that he loves to cook with people, not just for them.”
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