Editing James Beard (section)

==Career==
Beard moved to [[New York City]] in 1937. Unlucky in the theater, he and friend Bill Rhodes capitalized on the [[cocktail party]] craze by opening Hors d'Oeuvre, Inc., a [[catering]] company. This led to lecturing, teaching, writing, and the realization "that part of his mission [as a food connoisseur] was to defend the pleasure of real cooking and fresh ingredients against the assault of the Jell-O-mold people and the domestic scientists."<ref>Kamp, pg. 20</ref> He published his first cookbook in 1940: ''Hors D'Oeuvre and Canapés'', a compilation of his catering recipes. According to fellow cooking enthusiast [[Julia Child]], this book put him on the culinary map.<ref name="childsvi">Beard, ''James Beard Beard on Food'', pg. vi</ref>

[[World War II]] rationing ended Beard's catering business. He enlisted in the Army and was trained as a cryptographic specialist. Because he had hoped to serve in the hotel management division of the Army Quartermaster Corps, he sought and obtained release from the Army in 1943 based on a regulation applying to men over age 38.<ref name=":1" />

From August 1946 to May 1947, he hosted ''[[I Love to Eat]]'', a live television cooking show on [[NBC]], beginning his ascent as an American food authority.<ref name="childsvi" />

In 1952, when [[Helen Evans Brown]] published her ''Helen Brown's West Coast Cook Book'', Beard wrote her a letter igniting a friendship that lasted until Brown's death. The two, along with her husband Phillip, developed a friendship which was both professional and personal. Beard and Brown became like siblings, admonishing and encouraging each other, as well as collaborating.<ref name="Ferrone (1995)">{{cite book|last1=Ferrone|first1=John|chapter=Introduction|editor-last1=Beard|editor-first1=James|title=Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles: Letters from Helen Evans Brown|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32nR9wP2wpoC&pg=PR8|edition=1|year=1995|publisher=Arcade Publishing|location=New York, New York|isbn=978-1-55970-318-5|pages=vii-xiv}}</ref>
According to the James Beard Foundation website, "In 1955, he established The James Beard Cooking School. He continued to teach cooking to men and women for the next thirty years, both at his own schools (in New York City and Seaside, Oregon), and around the country at women's clubs, other cooking schools, and civic groups. He was a tireless traveler, bringing his message of good food, honestly prepared with fresh, wholesome, American ingredients, to a country just becoming aware of its own culinary heritage."<ref>"[https://www.jamesbeard.org/about James Beard Foundation Website]". James Beard Foundation. Retrieved on November 13, 2023.</ref>
Beard brought French cooking to the American middle and upper classes during the 1950s, appearing on TV as a cooking personality. David Kamp (who discusses Beard at length in his book, ''The United States of Arugula'') noted that Beard's was the first cooking show on TV.<ref>Kamp, pg. 55</ref> He compares [[Dione Lucas]]' cooking show and school with Beard's, noting that their prominence during the 1950s marked the emergence of a sophisticated, New York-based, nationally  and internationally known food culture.<ref>Kamp, pg. 57</ref> Kamp wrote, "It was in this decade [the 1950s] that Beard made his name as ''James Beard'', the brand name, the face and belly of American gastronomy."<ref>Kamp, pg. 58</ref> He noted that Beard met [[Alice B. Toklas]] on a trip to Paris,<ref>Kamp, pg. 60</ref> indicative of the network of fellow food celebrities who would follow him during his life and carry on his legacy after his death.

Beard made endorsement deals to promote products that he might not have otherwise used or suggested in his own cuisine, including [[Omaha Steaks]], [[French's]] Mustard, [[Green Giant]] Corn Niblets, [[Old Crow]] bourbon, [[Planters|Planters Peanuts]], [[Shasta (soft drink)|Shasta]] soft drinks, [[DuPont]] chemicals, and [[Lawry's and Adolph's|Adolph's Meat Tenderizer]]. According to Kamp, Beard later felt himself a "gastronomic whore" for doing so. Although he felt that mass-produced food that was neither fresh, local nor seasonal was a betrayal of his gastronomic beliefs, he needed the money for his cooking schools.<ref>Kamp, pg. 62</ref> According to Thomas McNamee, "Beard, a man of stupendous appetites—for food, sex, money, you name it—stunned his subtler colleagues."<ref>{{cite book|last=McNamee|first=Thomas|title=The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat|url=https://archive.org/details/manwhochangedway0000mcna|url-access=registration|year=2012|publisher=Free Press, Div of Simon & Schuster|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-1-4391-9150-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/manwhochangedway0000mcna/page/339 339]}}</ref> In 1981, Beard and friend [[Gael Greene]] founded [[Citymeals-on-Wheels]], which continues to help feed the homebound elderly in New York City.