Julia Child used to cook up more intriguing things than apple tarte and beurre noir.

Before one of the world’s most renowned chefs began her culinary career, Child was a spy for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services, the first CIA.

The Associated Press reports that details about Child’s background as a government agent came to light Thursday when the National Archives released more than 35,000 top-secret personnel files — 750,000 documents — of World War II-era spies, both military and civilian. The papers identify the vast spy network managed by the OSS, created by President Franklin Roosevelt as the nation’s first centralized intelligence operation.

These spies, part of a surveillance network at a time when the Nazi threat loomed larger than all others, studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops.

The AP report says the OSS files offer details about other agents, including Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, major league catcher Moe Berg, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., film actor Sterling Hayden, John Hemingway (son of author Ernest Hemingway), Kermit Roosevelt (son of President Theodore Roosevelt) and Miles Copeland (father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police).

The operatives’ identities were so secret, that information about their involvement with the OSS was often kept from even their family members.

"I think it’s terrific," Elizabeth McIntosh, 93, a former OSS agent now living in Woodbridge, VA, told AP. "They’ve finally, after all these years, they’ve gotten the names out. All of these people had been told never to mention they were with the OSS."

Julia played a key role in the communication of top secret documents between U.S. government officials and their intelligence officers. In 1945, she was sent to China, where she met future husband and fellow OSS employee Paul Child. The pair moved to France in 1984 after Paul was assigned to the U.S. Information Service at the American Embassy there. It was in France that Julia developed a love for French cuisine.

In 2002, Linda McCarthy, curator of a National Women’s History Museum exhibition on female spies throughout history, told NPR that Child was an operative. Even then, her cooking skills came in handy.

Child was assigned to solve a problem for U.S. naval forces during World War II: Sharks would bump into underwater explosives, setting them off and warning the German U-boats they were intended to sink.

"So … Julia Child and a few of her male compatriots got together and literally cooked up a shark repellent," used to coat the explosives, McCarthy said.