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The Renaissance of Cookery: Paris

About the beginning of the century the table of the great Cambacères was the most renowned in Paris, and M. d'Aigrefeuille was considered the most eminent epicure. The Prince de Talleyrand was also a most distinguished amateur, having been termed "the first fork of his time." At the advanced age of eighty, it was his custom to spend nearly an hour every morning with his cook, discussing the dishes which were to compose the dinner, his only repast. It had long been one of his tenets that a careful and healthful cuisine, presided over by the best artist he could procure, would tend to preserve his health and forefend serious maladies far better than a staff of physicians. For a period of twelve years Carême was his culinary director, with carte blanche to exercise his subtlest skill. Two things, Talleyrand used to say, are essential in life-to give good dinners and keep well with women, a precept he always followed. An axiom of diplomatists and statesmen goes still farther that poor dinners are conducive to poor diplomacy, and bad ministerial dinners are equivalent to bad laws and bad negotiations.

The first volume of the "Almanach des Gourmands" (1804) is dedicated to M. d'Aigrefeuille, whom the author adjudged most worthy of such preeminence"a connoisseur who is the most erudite arbiter of refined alimentary combinations, and who understands most thoroughly the difficult and little known art of extracting the greatest possible part from an excellent repast." Besides referring to him as setting daily the finest table in Paris, he is extolled as "the guest best adapted to honour an opulent table by his delightful manners, his profound knowledge of the world, and the constantly varied charm of his inexhaustible appetite and conversation."

Beauvilliers, once chef of Monsieur, brother of the king, was also the author of a cook-book which achieved marked success,¹ the writer carrying out in cookery the precept that Délille had applied to gardening: "Mais ce grand art exige un artiste qui pense, Prodigue de génie et non pas de dépense." (But this grand art demands an artist of taste- Prodigal of genius and devoid of all waste.) In his fluent dedication to the Marquis de Voppalière, the writer says: • I have "I have not been unmindful of economy, either in the manipulation or the preservation of foods. sought to teach how, with little outlay, one may have exquisite viands, and at the same time derive both health and pleasure. Good living is at once the luxury which costs the least; and perhaps of all pleasures it is the most innocent. You have always held, monsieur, that Wisdom itself should strew flowers in the midst of the thorns that are inseparable from existence. Often at a banquet Wisdom may renew its moral forces. The bonds of society become narrowed, and rivals or enemies are merged into friends or guests. Persons who are entire strangers to each other share in the intimacy of the family, differences of rank become obliterated, weakness is united to power, manners are polished, and the mind takes a fresh flight (l'esprit électrisé prend un nouvel essor). It is perchance in the midst of banquets in the best society of Paris and Versailles that you have acquired that urbanity which characterises you, that familiarity with the grand monde which is enabled to pronounce on everything at a glance." 1 L'Art du Cuisinier, par A. Beauvilliers, Ancien Officier de Monsieur, comte de Provence, Attaché aux Extraordinaires des Maisons Royales et actuellement Restaurateur, rue de Richelieu, No. 26 à la grande Taverne de Londres. A Paris, chez Pillet Aîné, 1814, 2 vols.

Every great cook should be able to say with him, "I have inaugurated reforms, improvements, in order to advance from what is good to what is better." Already, "l'Art du Cuisinier" draws attention to the fact that "new dishes," to a large extent, are not new dishes -a chef supplies some new decoration to a plat, adds to or leaves off some ingredient, and christens it with a different name.

The treatise of Beauvilliers has been pronounced by authorities one of the best on the subject. The style is direct, his menu varied and yet not over-ornate, and his formularies, founded on long experience, even yet denote a superior hand. There can be comparatively little trouble in following many of his recipes, they are so precise-save some of his sauces and certain grand dishes, these calling for preparatory Espagnoles, veloutés, Béchamels, and Allemandes, and a larder beyond the reach of the ordinary cook. There are numerous dishes, of course, that one may not procure at home, however deft the presiding genius. One cannot have a constant stock of elaborate preparatory sauces, truffles, cockscombs, Chablis, or champagne to draw from for a single dish, when desired, without very considerable outlay or waste. A grand sauce, a salmon à la Chambord, or an elaborate entrée requires the appurtenances of a restaurant or a club where cookery is conducted on an extensive scale by a professional, though this by no means implies that a dinner beyond criticism may not be served at one's own home.