Today France celebrates the first birth of its republic, a birth that our own struggle for Independence actually inspired.

Our relationship with this old friend and ally is complicated and often uneasy, and we sometimes forget that the Independence that inspired the French Revolution was won in large part with their active aid—an aid that did not come cheap for them.

We also tend to forget that our deep and often complicated connection with France is much broader than political. We also have a strong, long-standing fascination with French culture, most especially with its cookery, from founding father Thomas Jefferson right through to Julia Child.

While by no means the first American to know about and be captivated by the French table, Jefferson was certainly one of its earliest champions. A lot has been written about his passion for this cuisine—most of it mythic and much of it just plain wrong.

Though often credited with introducing French cooking to America after serving as our young nation’s ambassador to France, the truth is he was already well acquainted with it long before he went to Paris. Probably his first real exposure came while dining at the Colonial Governor’s mansion in Williamsburg when he was an undergraduate at William and Mary College.

For a time, he even employed a French cook that he almost certainly could not afford. Hmm: a college student living beyond his means—some things don’t change. But I digress. The point is Jefferson didn’t introduce French cookery to America, but he did popularize it as the first president to employ a French chef at the executive mansion, and later, through his celebrated entertaining at Monticello.

Jefferson was an oddity: while not the only man of his class who was passionate about a good table, he was one of the very few to take any interest in the actual cooking that made a good table possible. He often scribbled out recipes on scraps of paper and sent them home to Monticello. Because he was not a cook, and his understanding of French culinary terms was practically non-existent, he sometimes got those recipes hopelessly wrong, but that’s beside the point. That he was writing them down at all was in itself pretty remarkable.

Fortunately for us his cousin, Mary Randolph, was equally as brilliant as Jefferson and had the culinary equivalent of perfect pitch. Enjoying an intimate relationship with Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, and with the kitchen at Monticello, she was able to untangle most of those recipes in her landmark 1824 cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife. Through this influential book, the French cookery that Jefferson so loved spread from Monticello into the mainstream and became a part of the American table.

Nearly two centuries later, Julia Child burst into the public eye just as another president (or rather, his wife) brought a French chef to the White House. It was a dark time in American cooking, when convenience food reigned supreme, fed by a social revolution that was liberating both the American housewife and her underpaid domestic help. The quality of our table was sinking faster than the Titanic.

Armed with an infectious enthusiasm and fearless curiosity, Mrs. Child didn’t introduce America to French cooking any more than Jefferson or Jackie Kennedy had, but what she did do was demystify it and make cooking in general seem like great fun. With her trademark fluty voice and carefree (and often careless) abandon, she reminded us that good cooking was not an expendable luxury, but a necessity of our well-being.

On this day of French Independence, then, it seems especially appropriate to salute our old friend by indulging our own patriotism in commemorating two great Americans who loved France and the French table, rekindling their passion for this timeless cuisine in our own kitchens.

Haricots Verts (Green Beans, French Style)

Nowhere is the deep interconnection between America and France more apparent than in this classic way of preparing green beans. The beans that today go by a French name, even in our markets, are actually native to America, completely unknown in France (or anywhere else in Europe) before the sixteenth century. However, the method for cooking and serving the slender, under-developed pods as a green vegetable, drizzled with a silken, over-the-top butter sauce, is pure French culinary genius.

Serves 4

1 pound of very thin, young green beans (preferably haricot verts)

Salt

Beurre Blanc (recipe follows)

1. Fill a basin of cold water. Snap off the stem end of the beans, pulling off the strings (if there are any) as you go.  Then snap off the pointed tips, making make sure that all the string has been removed (if the beans are very young and tender, you will not need to snap off the tips, and they’re nicer that way). Drop each bean as it is trimmed into the cold water. If not perfectly fresh, let them soak for 15-to-30 minutes.

2. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a 3-quart tin or stainless steel-lined pot over high heat. Add a small handful of salt. Drain the beans and slip them into the boiling water. Let it come back to a boil and cook until they are just tender, but still firm and bright green, about 8 to 10 minutes, depending on size and freshness.

3. Drain quickly but thoroughly, and pour them into a warm serving bowl or arrange in even rows on a small platter. Pour a little beurre blanc over them and serve hot, with the remaining sauce passed separately.

Classic Beurre Blanc

This sauce is wonderful on just about any vegetable, from carrots to cauliflower to turnips (even okra), but it is also delicious with poached eggs, sautéed chicken, and fish.

Makes about ½ cup, serving 4 to 6

1 tablespoon minced shallots

¼ cup dry white wine or vermouth

4 ounces (8 tablespoons or 1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into bits

Salt

Whole white pepper in a mill

1. Put the shallot and wine in a heavy-bottomed saucier (sloped-or-curved-sided sauce pan sometimes called a “reduction” pan). Simmer over medium low heat until the shallot is softened and the wine is reduced by half.

2. Gradually whisk in the butter, a little at a time, until it is melted but still thick and the texture of thick heavy cream. Take it off the heat, season to taste with salt and white pepper, and whisk it in. Serve immediately.