France honors culinary legend Julia Child

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Julia Child, whose exploits on a television cooking show nearly 40 years ago helped revolutionize U.S. eating habits, on Sunday was awarded the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest honor.

Child, 88, achieved fame and won the hearts of average Americans starting in the early 1960s with cookbooks and television shows based on the premise that, as she once said, "any literate person with a reasonable amount of manual dexterity can concoct praiseworthy French meals."

She received the award at a ceremony in Boston's Le Meridien hotel attended by many of the city's most prominent gastronomic figures. Famed French chef Jacques Pepin served as master of ceremonies.

"I can't think of anyone in the United States who deserves it more than Julia does, and she should have had it years and years ago," Pepin told an audience of several hundred.

Child, wearing a sequined jacket over black pants, was greeted by cheers and applause as the award was pinned to her jacket.

"I am very, very proud," she said. "I adore France."

Beginning with her best-selling cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," which she published with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle in 1961, Child embarked on a 40-year career that has made her name synonymous with fine food.

She followed the book's huge success in 1963 with her first television show "The French Chef." It quickly became a hit as Child endeared herself to viewers with irreverence and insouciance as she introduced them to French cooking.

On Sunday Child presided over her own "dream meal" that included foie gras, roast duck with chanterelle mushrooms and pearl onions, fresh sole with cucumber and profiteroles with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Wines included a 1990 Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes, a 1998 Louis Latour Pouilly Fuisse and a 1997 E. Guigal Cotes Roties.

The Legion d'Honneur was created in 1802 by Napoleon to reward outstanding military and civil services to France. Other American recipients include wine critic Robert Parker, actor Gregory Peck and retired U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf.

American slapstick comedian Jerry Lewis received the award in 1984.

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