96 DECEMBER 2018
PROFILE
who up to that point had mostly contributed art and
recipe testing, was a full partner in the enterprise,
bringing her methodical approach to the book to balance
her mother’s flights of fancy. She and her husband, John
William Becker, took up the mantle as her mother’s health
failed, and their son Ethan took it up after them.
And then there was Ethan’s son, John. Despite having
grown up in the Joy family, the youngest Becker was not steeped
in its lore or obligation the way his father was—and he didn’t
know the full story of its origins. John had lived with his mother
in Portland, saw his father during vacations to Cincinnati, and
only learned of his great-grandfather’s suicide when a former
girlfriend asked about it. It wasn’t a secret; it just wasn’t a topic
of discussion. (Megan says she cannot bear to watch the film
Julie & Julia, in which a fictionalized Irma makes an
uncharacteristically crass gun-to-head gesture at the mention
of her late husband.)
he revelation made a grim sort of sense to John, especially
after the death of an uncle who had been diagnosed with bipolar
disorder—perhaps it ran in the family, he thought. “I obviously
had a lot of questions,” John says. He’d moved back to Asheville
to work as an editorial assistant, toiling away on straight-to-
library literary criticism. Saddled by severe social anxiety that
he’d begun to control with medication, he entertained notions
of a career in academia, but something wasn’t gelling.
“I’d been to a few conferences, and I saw pretty much
everybody that was in the position I was planning to be in
dressed in Armani suits. I thought, ‘Oh my God, how am I going
to make it?’” John remembers. “I didn’t have what it took, and
I knew it. I was really at a crossroads as to what to do next.”
And then a ghost spoke. Sitting in his father’s basement with
a glass of whiskey, John noticed a book that had no business
being there—a volume of contemporary literary criticism. He
opened it. here was an entry for his grandmother, Marion, an
interview where she expressed her hopes for the future of Joy:
that her sons would carry it on, and their children after them.
“I’d been told my entire life that the book was something that
would be there for me if I desired it, but there was no obligation,”
John says. “It was like the veil got pulled back, and I knew that
was bullshit. I not only felt obligated; I knew I was the only one
who could do it. I look at that Goethe quote now and I think of
it almost like an incantation, like a spell was cast.”
He met Megan soon after, and the “I” became “we.” he two
moved to Tennessee to work with Ethan. hey converted a
double-wide trailer into a test kitchen and photography studio
and started cooking through the book with an eye toward the
next edition as well as the Joy of Cooking app.
he couple worked closely with the publisher, by then Simon
& Schuster, throughout the whole process, learning the book
inside and out. “We really went to Joy of Cooking graduate
school,” John says. “And we formed some serious opinions onESSAY
how things should have been or
how they should be.” hey started
developing a detailed outline of their
ideal structure for the cookbook.
They also got married, bringing
Megan into the family officially. By
2014, it was clear: John and Megan
were going to take on the next edition of Joy themselves.
It is an enormous task. In the nearly 90 years since its original
publication, Joy has had hundreds of recipe cuts and additions.
Entire sections have come and gone throughout the years.
Several revisions were controversial, roiling the cookbook’s fan
base. (he 1997 and 2006 editions in particular are subjects of
great contention.) And then there are matters of the heart to
reckon with. In 2010, John and Megan took over Joy’s social
media and email address and began hearing directly from the
book’s readers.
“Nothing really prepares you for being on the receiving end
of that stuff,” John explains. “‘Why did you change the recipe?’
turns into ‘My edition was my mother’s, and it’s the last thing
I have to remember her by.’ hat’s a lot.”
On the day I visited the Becker-Scott home, both were slightly
emotional, having heard from a young fan whose mother they’d
corresponded with. he girl, Isabella, was housebound from an
illness, and cooking from the book kept her engaged with the
world. hey’d sent her a card, and she was overjoyed.
Now and then, old copies of Joy make their way back to the
couple. I choked back tears for an embarrassingly long time as
they showed me a deeply worn, obviously loved paperback copy
of the 1964 edition, accompanied by a letter. he 74-year-old
owner had been about to move into a nursing home, where
she’d no longer have a need for the book, and wanted Irma and
Marion’s family to know what it meant to her. Her Joy had
survived two marriages, three children, seven grandchildren,
a flood, and 13 moves.
She wrote, in part, “Mine is not unique, but I feel ridiculous
to hold onto it any longer, and by sending it to you, it might
produce a smile. If I were to suddenly go to my ‘great reward’
it surely would be thrown into the trash by someone not
knowing the value and the ‘Joy’ that the yellowed pages have
created over the years. ... My gratitude and thanks to your mother
and grandmother, what a wonderful contribution they have
made. hey made our lives a bit easier, and cooking a ‘Joy’ rather
than a chore.”
hat’s a hell of a legacy to shoulder, and while they fully
accept the weight of it (Megan admits a negative email can throw
off her whole day; they both agree that John is the voice of
reason—and occasional snark), there are many hands holding
them up along the way. hey also both genuinely love to cook,
and find calm and pleasure in the kitchen—something truer to
the book’s title than their forebears felt. “I feel like the cooking“‘Why did you
change the recipe?’
turns into ‘My edi-
tion was my moth-
er’s, and it’s the
last thing I have to
remember her by.’”