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The Renaissance of Cookery: Vatel

The tragic death of Vatel by his own hand, owing to the non-arrival of the sea-fish at Chantilly, is too well known to need narrating. Vatel, the victim of his art, was also an author, having contributed an illustrated treatise on carving entitled "l'Escuyer Tranchant," an accomplishment which he states could scarcely be acquired without the ministration and the precepts of the master-sans la voye et les preceptes du maistre. A paragraph will serve to show the nature and scope of his contribution to culinary literature: 1 Les Delices de la Campagne.

Suitte du Jardinier francois ov est enseigne a preparer pour l'vsage de la vie tout ce qui croist sur la Terre & dans les Eaux. Dedie avx dames Mesnageres. A Paris, chez Pierre Des-Hayes, 1654. "A carver should be well bred, inasmuch as he should maintain a first rank among the servants of his master. Pleasing, civil, amiable, and well disposed, he should present himself at table with his sword at his side, his mantle on his shoulder, and his napkin on his left arm, though some are in the habit of placing it on the guard of their sword in an unobjectionable manner. He should make his obeisance when approaching the table, proceed to carve the viands, and divide them understandingly according to the number of the guests. Ordinarily he should station himself by the side of his master, carving with knives suitable to the size of the meats. A carver should be very scrupulous in his deportment, his carriage should be grave and dignified, his appearance cheerful, his eye serene, his head erect and well combed, abstaining as much as possible from sneezing, yawning, or twisting his mouth, speaking very little and directly, without being too near or too far from the table."

Assuredly, one who observed such nicety in his carving must have been extremely painstaking in compounding his liaisons. Indeed, the conscientiousness manifest throughout the pages of his manual easily enables one to foresee how his chagrin at the absence of the roast at two of the tables and his not having received the fish at the fête of Condé so preyed upon his mind as to lead him, during a moment of despair, to fall upon his own sword. With his sense of the proprieties so highly keyed, one can also fancy how he must have been shocked on hearing of the prince's awkwardness at a tavern where Condé, after proclaim- 1 The cause assigned to Vatel's death has been disputed, some having maintained it was not owing to the non-arrival of the fish, but because on cooking the fish they were found "not to be so fresh as they might be." ing his ability as a cook before a number of companions, ignominiously overturned an omelette into the fire, and was compelled to return the spider to the more skilful hands of the hostess. A similar gaucherie is related of Napoleon I when, one day at the Tuileries, insisting on taking the place of the Empress Marie-Louise, who was making an omelette herself in her own apartments, he awkwardly flipped it on the floor, and was obliged to confess his inaptitude and allow the empress to proceed with her cooking.

During the regency of Philippe d'Orléans, attention became directed to the chemistry of cooking, the dinners of the regent being celebrated for their combination of refinement and art-"for splendidly larded viands, matelotes of the most tempting quality, and turkeys superbly stuffed."