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Auguste Escoffier and his French Cooking
Escoffier was born in France in the village of Villeneuve (now Villeneuve-Loubet) near Nice, 152 years ago on this very date, the son of a blacksmith, and grew up to be the first cook in French history to receive the cross of the Legion of Honor. Along the way he transformed our ideas about fine dining and revolutionized the professional kitchen. One of his biographers, Timothy Shaw, says, "He was the presiding genius of a whole gastronomic epoch." Though Escoffier had originally intended to be a sculptor, he had always been interested in food, even as a young boy. His grandmother was an excellent cook and at the age of 10 Escoffier would spend hours in the kitchen observing her cooking techniques. Sometimes he would experiment on his own. But it was not until his uncle Francois agreed to take him on as a kitchen apprentice at his successful restaurant in Nice that Escoffier became serious about cooking as a profession. (He was too small to work in the family trade as a blacksmith. In fact, as a youth he had to wear elevator shoes in the kitchen to avoid getting burned or being overcome by the intense heat.) He would recall later, "They just told me I was going to be a cook, and that was that!" And that he did. As Shaw notes, his career was "one of the most illustrious in food history.” After a six-month stint at his uncle's restaurant he went to work at other local establishments and in his spare time learned the art of pastry making at a nearby patisserie. During this time he so impressed a visiting restaurateur from Paris that he recommended Escoffier for a job in that city, a significant career move. From there he served as a cook in the army (where he learned that "horse meat is delicious when you are in the condition to appreciate it"), joined with Cesar Ritz to open great hotel restaurants in Monte Carlo, Rome, Paris and London. At the Savoy he invented the revolutionary concept of background music by bringing in Johann Strauss, became the Edwardians' favorite chef (catering to the likes of the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde). He wrote books (his "Le Guide Culinaire," containing some 5,000 recipes, is still a standard reference work), and eventually, after 62 years (perhaps the longest professional career in cooking in history, his rival Prosper Montagne notes in the Larousse Gastronomique), retired.
The copyright of the article History of Quantity Cooking, Part 5: in Food Management is owned by Andrew A. Orr. Permission to republish History of Quantity Cooking, Part 5: in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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