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The Renaissance of Cookery: Fouquet

Madame de Montespan, with her temper, naturally proved a good cook, and did not disdain an occasional séance with the stew-pans. She is credited with having invented a sauce and encouraging every art that ministered to the service of the table, even to expending a sum of nine thousand livres for a wine-cooler. Fouquet's table, over which Vatel presided, and subsequently that of Condé under the same artist, to say nothing of the splendidly equipped establishment of Fouquet's successor Colbert, were scarcely less renowned than the kitchens of Versailles. The grand fête in honour of the king given by Fouquet, Marquis of Belle-Isle, at Vaux, will be remembered, as also the jealousy of his Majesty at the lavish hospitality of his superintendent of finance. Equally sumptuous were the entertainments of the Prince de Condé, in whose cuisine during certain seasons there were regularly consumed as many as a hundred and fifty pheasants a week. - Meanwhile, Molière and Boileau had sung the praises of gastronomy, but not to that degree which was to charm France during the consulate and the empire, when its harp had been touched by the facile fingers of Berchoux.