“Julia was never actually a spy, but she very much hoped to become one when she joined the agency in December 1942,” explained Jennet Conant in 2011 on C-SPAN’s “Book TV,” where she was discussing her book “A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS.”
By 1943, shark attacks had become a major concern for the military. Though they were rare — only 20 had occurred in the first three years of the war — the media had become focused on these bloody events. Families were worried about what would happen to their loved ones struggling for survival in the water.
The Army and Navy turned to the OSS for assistance in finding a way to protect personnel by keeping sharks at bay. Scientists had been searching for years for a method or chemical that repelled the man-eaters, but nothing they tried seemed to work.
Tasked with finding a solution were Coolidge, a scientist from the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, and division co-director Henry Field, curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Coolidge asked Child and other researchers to come up with something that would keep sharks away.
At the time, Child had yet to make her first coq au vin — or any French dish. She would not acquire her legendary culinary skills until after World War II and her marriage to Paul Child, who also served in the OSS. The couple later moved to Paris, where he served in the U.S. Foreign Service. It was there, in 1951, that she began studying at the Cordon Bleu cooking school.
But that was all in the future. In 1943, Child and her co-workers needed to cook up something that sharks found distasteful. They tested more than 100 substances, including common poisons, as well as extracts from decayed shark meat, organic acids and various chemical compositions.
After a year of research, they hit upon an idea that showed promise: “cakes” of copper acetate, mixed with black dye. The concoction was said to smell like dead sharks to other sharks. Field testing showed that it was 60 percent effective as a shark repellent.