Julia Child And Jacques Pépin Couldn't Agree On One Thing About Chicken

Both Julia Child and Jacques Pépin made massive contributions to the culinary world, making French cooking more accessible to home cooks by sharing their knowledge and techniques with home viewers. Pépin is still alive, and although Child passed in 2004, she left us with amazing cooking tips for home chefs that still stand true to this day. However there is one piece of Child's advice that doesn't comply with modern food safety standards, and that was her firm stance on washing chicken. 

In a 1971 episode of "The French Chef" titled "To Roast A Chicken," Child explains that she prefers to wash the chicken directly in the sink, with the water running both inside and outside the inner cavity, then shakes the excess water off the chicken directly onto the countertop next to the sink (we do not advise this process). Child says "I just think it's a safer thing to do," following up with the caveat that in some states, USDA inspections might declare that your state's chickens are fine, but some states may not have "good chicken laws passed," so you should wash and pay special attention to the chicken. Keep in mind that this was 1971, and poultry laws in the United States have been updated to modern standards since then. To be clear, modern safety guidelines advise against washing raw chicken due to the risk of contaminating other areas of the kitchen, and it's generally agreed that, in the United States at least, washing a chicken before cooking it is a bad idea.

But almost 30 years later, in a a 1999 episode of "Julia & Jacques: Cooking at Home" titled "Roast Chicken — Three Ways to Perfectly Roasted Chickens," it seems that Julia Child hadn't changed her mind on washing chicken. In the episode, Child does rightfully stress the importance of making sure not to contaminate any surfaces with the raw chicken due to the risk of salmonella, but she still comments that she's washed her chicken with hot water. Jacques Pépin (rightfully) disagrees, and responds by looking into the camera, shaking his head, and saying "I don't wash my chicken." Child suggests that maybe the French aren't as worried about washing chicken in France, as Pépin is French, but he replies saying that he lives in Connecticut, "pretty far from France."

Pépin doubles down on his (correct) stance on not washing chicken, and follows up by saying "it's going to go in a 425 degree [Fahrenheit] oven for like an hour or so, and at that point, if the bacteria are still living, they deserve to live." Pépin is correct, and as long as you cook chicken to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, dangerous bacteria like salmonella will not survive. Follow the French chef's advice and learn make Jacques Pépin's braised chicken with vegetables, where no washing of chicken is required.