January 12, 2024 • 41 mins
At the turn of the 20th century, this French chef, writer, and restauranteur shaped the way that modern restaurants work, from the way kitchens are run to the experience of dining. Anney and Lauren explore the life and impact of Auguste Escoffier.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Annie Reese, an unlearned vocal bum and today we
have an episode for you about august Escoffier.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, another biography and deliciousness. Yes. Was there any particular
reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Again, I was just feeling real ambitious towards the end
of last year and I was planning out some episodes
and I was trying, we hadn't done a biography episode
in a minute, and I was like, who who have
I been thinking about? Who have I been putting off
talking about? And Escaffie was kind on top of the list.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It is indeed very ambitious. He was very ambitious. This
episode is very ambitious. A lot of people have a
lot to say about this person, and we have talked
about him before in several episodes. I would say you
could see our episode on French cuisine specifically, I believe
(01:07):
we talked about him Gelatine.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, related Canning maybe or or the can opener I
suppose is our big episode Canning?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, yeah, an open.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Still still struggle, still traumatized.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yes, you can also see our past biography episodes, but yeah,
this one is a lot and very fun, it goes places,
it does, it does. But I suppose that brings us
to our question. No, I suppose, so Scoffier, what or
(01:49):
who is it? Uh?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, and forgive my French y'all George Auguste Escer, Sure,
let's well, let's say that great. He was a chef,
restauranteur and writer from France who came up in the
late eighteen hundreds and really changed the way that restaurants work,
from the experience of dining to kitchen management, and furthermore
(02:15):
popularized French cuisine as an international standard of luxury. He
was running some of the most influential high end kitchens
of the turn of the century, and he made them hierarchical, efficient,
clean and organized. He was just like the right person
at the right places at the right time to change
(02:38):
the commercial culinary world and threw a trickle down effect
change the way that people eat, or perhaps the way
that people aspire to eat in Europe and the rest
of the West. He was so passionate about good food,
and for as much as he was a shellman, he
was also meticulously practical and seemed to really want everyone
(02:59):
to eat well. He also inspired a lot of loyalty
in his kitchen staffs because he was firm, but calm
and and really took care of his people. He is
the grandfather of fine dining. It's it's like if you've
if you've ever been frustrated going to a nice restaurant
and having no idea how to pronounce half the many
because you don't speak French.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's his fault. I feel like this is coming from
a personal place, Laura.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I'm always like, I know what that is, but I
know I'm gonna say it's wrong and it's going to
be embarrassing. Oh jeez, you.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Know half the dining experience is being embarrassed. I don't
think that should be the case. Yeah, okay, well what
about the nutrition? And don't eat dead people.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Or I mean, I guess, don't eat living peoplener. You know,
I can't tell you what to.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Do, interesting, Lauren, I shall file that away for later thought. Goodness. Okay,
so we don't have too many numbers for you, but
I have to say when I first started researching this,
the first note I typed was how many societies can
(04:22):
there possibly be? Because there are so many organizations and
societies dedicated or inspired by.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
A scoff named after Yeah, yes, it's a bunch, And
most of the Google results when you're just kind of
getting into it before you really start refining your search terms,
are about all of those organizations. And yes, yeah, I
love a good fun with search terms episode and this
was definitely one of those, indeed. But yeah, a couple
(04:57):
of numbers for you. Scoffier trained over to thousand chefs
during the course of his career, which was about sixty
ish sixty ish years. One of them wound up opening
a museum in the home where Escaffie was born, and
it serves as a as a history of the culinary
technologies of a Scaffie's time and also a research center
on the greater world of astronomy. It has a collection
(05:20):
of over three thousand menus from the eighteen twenties through today.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Who okay, that's pretty cool. Yeah, well we do have
quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh yes, oh absolutely, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from a
quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Error back, thank you sponsor.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, thank you, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So Auguste Escaffier was born in eighteen forty six in
the Provence region of what's now. I don't know why
put what's never because that was kind of recent. But anyway, France,
when he was twelve or thirteen, I saw a couple
different ages. He began apprenticing at a restaurant that his
uncle owned in nearby Nice. Over the next seven years
(06:16):
he really honed his skills and people took notice, and
he was taken on at the restaurant over at the
Patit Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
He was their assistant roaster. Apparently assistant roaster.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Okay, yes again, you can see our episode on French cuisine.
But at this time, being a chef wasn't really seen
as anything to write home about. It wasn't necessarily respected.
Whote cuisine didn't exist yet. Most people ate at home
unless they were traveling. There weren't the standards around the
industry yet. So it could be dirty, it could be chaotic,
(06:52):
it could be unorganized, often dangerous and very brutal places
to work in Escoffier was instrumental in changing that whole thing.
He was in part inspired to insert some organization in
his kitchens after briefly serving as an army chef. After
the start of the Franco Prussian War in eighteen seventy.
(07:14):
During this time, he learned about the importance of canning
in terms of preserving foods and keeping those foods fresh.
He started experimenting with different methods of canning with meats
and sauces, and innovated a way to store tomato sauce
so that it would stay fresh in champagne bottles.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
This was when canning was still a relatively new technology.
It had only come about around eighteen ten.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Or so, right, and he also observed how effective military
organization was in terms of a kitchen of coordinating and
working together to get things done. So what he eventually
came up with is often called the brigade system. Yes, so,
once the war ended, Ascafier returned to the kitchen and
(07:59):
started to implement the things he observed during his time
with the military. Chefs were assigned roles, locations, responsibilities, and
answered to supervisors, people who ensured that all the pieces
were working together in harmony, and through this a Scaffier
came up with the titles and roles that we still
used today in a lot of places like Sioux Chefs
Saussier and chef de cuisine. Apparently He had very specific
(08:26):
rules that were meant to lower stress, including no yelling
and no alcohol. From a couple sources, I read a
lot of times people would just drink throughout So his
staff allegedly called him Papa, and he really fought for
their rights when it came to things like benefits. After
(08:46):
members of his staff died on the Titanic, he had
designed the menus for the Titanic. He campaigned for widows
and children of them to be taken care of.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So yes. By the mid eighteen seventy he was back
at the Petito mo La Rouge, and he also bought
a food company and opened a restaurant in the very
posh can. He left the Petite Molong Rouge to run
other kitchens around Paris in eighteen seventy eight, which is
also the year that he married Delphine Dafis.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Dafis I don't know Lauren well either way. The story
goes that he won his wife's hand in a game
of pool, and she was a poet, and she left
him after the birth of their third childs lots of drama,
(09:37):
I see, yes, yes, Well, after this he started collaborating
with the founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotels cesar Ritz.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Ritz was managing the Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo and
hired Scaffie on in eighteen eighty four under the advice
of the head chef there.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
In eighteen ninety, Ritz became the manager of London Savoy
Hotel and he named Scott the head chef of the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
The Savoy was and still is a kind of like
ridiculously luxury hotel. Both Ritz and Escoffier had worked in
other high end hotels around Europe, but the Savoy was
this brand new, like gleaming beacon of end of century modernity,
and they were brought there with salaries in the equivalent
(10:23):
of millions of dollars. Ritz's motto was the best is
not too good?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Well, yes, the Savoy. Perhaps because of that, add a
lot of high profile, famous patrons, and to build up
the profile of the hotel and his own, Escafaier started
coming up with his own dishes to make the hotel's
restaurant unique. According to popular lore, he created the Peach
Melba in honor of guest Nelly Melba, an opera singer.
(10:53):
I feel like we've talked about this story before.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I think it was somehow in the Pavlovie. I
don't know, listeners. I feel like we've talked about it
before the story goes. He also came up with Cherry's
Jubilee for Queen Victoria's Jubilee, which is one of those
funny things I read where it's like, oh, okay, yeah,
(11:16):
and Dauphine Potatoes for the French Court of Dauphine. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
This was the kind of place where like, if you
had the money, old or new money, you could be
treated like royalty. Like want to throw a Roulette themed
dinner party for thirty of your closest friends for a
little under two grand ahead because you just want a
bunch of money playing Roulette and betting on red. Yeah,
they can do that for you. They draped a private
(11:45):
dining room in red. They put red shades on the lamps,
set the tables with giant bouquets of red geraniums, dressed
to the waiters and red ties and gloves, and put
red buttons on their shirts. The dinner menu included consumme
of red partridge and paprika jila and lamb with red
bean puree.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, and I really like want to emphasize here that
this was a very new thing. You know, up until
this time, the only people who had access to this
kind of food were probably royalty. But the Industrial Revolution
was changing the way that money worked, and so for
(12:27):
the first time you had these like international celebrities and
moguls who who had the money, and what they wanted
to do was kind of replicate the wild feasts of
medieval Europe. And people like Escafaier were such history nerds
and and so excited to put on parties like this
(12:51):
at Rits as well.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, that it was.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
And both of them had come from from working class
families too, So it's I don't know, it's it's really
it was what a time.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
To be alive. Yes, and we're going to make this
point throughout, but definitely left an impact Escoffier and his influence.
But we must mention both the Scaffier and Ritz were
fired from the Savoy on charges of extortion, and it
(13:22):
caught international attention.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
It eventually caught international attention. It was so scandalous that
they kept it quiet. The hotel kept it quiet for
almost a century. Okay, in eighteen ninety seven, the hotel's
profits dropped by like forty percent. The kitchen was running
at a loss despite being busier than it ever had been,
(13:46):
and so the hotel ran an audit and turned up
around the equivalent of a million dollars in wine and
booze having been comped to guests, including some potential investors
in a new competitor to the Savoy that Ritz and
Escaffier were planning, London's Carlton Hotel. Furthermore, Escaffier had worked
(14:07):
out an embezzlement scheme with some of the Savoy suppliers,
and he wound up making like the modern equivalent of
over two million dollars in commissions over the course of
about ten years. None of this came out publicly until
I guess an intern at the hotel came across signed
confessions from Ritz and Escoffier in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
The intern was an anonymous informant who left the confessions
on the desk of this reporter working at The Observer,
And when the reporter wrote about it, he gave he
gave the informant the name Deep Palette.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Oh my gosh, why is this not a movie?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I absolutely want the movie about this. Apparently, apparently the
pair were forced to sign these confessions when they tried
to sue for unfair termination.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Wow wow what love it? Love it?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But yeah, basically that the pair got away with it,
like socially speaking, because the Savoy's board and shareholders were
so dang embarrassed that it had happened that they didn't
want anybody to know about it. Also, apparently Ritz had
dirt on the Prince of Wales and the Savoy didn't
(15:33):
want that coming out. Again, this was right around Victoria's
jubilee and they didn't want to like cause scandal for royalty.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Again, where's this movie telling you? It is very funny.
A lot of the sources you look up for Scaffie
don't mention this at all.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And the ones that do mention it are whooh, juicy juicy.
But yeah. Hotel management was in a tizzy over the
whole thing, Like they were afraid that the kitchen staff
were so loyal to a Scaffier that they would riot
when they learned that he had been fired, Like they
had police on hand to help keep the peace. A
(16:14):
bunch of the staff did wind up following a Scoffier
when he went.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Wow wow, Well from there, Scaffier continued to work with Ritz,
including at the Ritz Paris. In eighteen ninety nine, they
opened the Girlton Hotel in London. He continued to exert influence,
and not just in the kitchen but in the front
of house too, including the now common practice of ordering
(16:41):
a la carte because previously all the food items came
out at once, So this instituted a new thing where
the dishes started coming out as they were ordered, and
guests ordered off a menu. It's strange to think about
these things we take for granted so much these days,
but totally Yeah. Yeah, during lunch service he could serve
(17:04):
five hundred plates an hour.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I read, Yeah, he had a team of sixty cooks there.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I also read he lobbied to make it legal for
women to dine in public. I couldn't find too much
about it, but I would love to dig into that. Yeah, oh,
or at a later date.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Sure, sure, right, because the practice of women dining in
public was Yeah, it was certainly socially and sometimes legally
not allowed at.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
This, especially in certain places.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeahah, yeah, but yeah. He was always looking to promote
French products, and at the Carlton he imported like French asparagus,
and duck and peaches and butter some forty five hundred
pounds a month. That's two thousand kilos of butter a month. WOA,
(17:52):
and tinned tomatoes. He hecking loved a tomato sauce. Legend
has it that he sort of tricked a ball room
of six hundred diners into eating frog's legs, which were
like not a popular protein in London, by calling them
nymph's legs. And apparently the aforementioned Prince of Wales was
(18:14):
kind of in on it because he really liked frog's legs.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I'm going to have to look up this Prince of
Whales guy I going on.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I think I think the dirt was that he had
been having this affair and Ritz, as the hotel manager,
knew about it, and the reason that the Prince of
Wales followed them from the Savoy to the Carlton was
that he didn't want to open himself up to blackmail
from Ritz Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So maybe he was in on this nymph leg scheme
because of blackmail.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I think I think it was. I don't know. I'm
not entirely speculations. All speculation here, I do, I do
want to say, speaking of speculation, We've read in like
one source that I'm not sure the quality of the
Discolfier refused to ever learn English, even though he was
(19:11):
working so much in London and later in the United States,
because he didn't want it to negatively influence his cooking. Yep,
he was like, if I start learning English, I'll start
to think like the English and I.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Cannot have that.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yes, the most French thing I've ever heard of in
my life, and I love it. I also, from reading
about his work during this time, got the idea that
he was an absolute micromanager, Like he designed every menu,
oversaw every service, like racked the kitchen every night to
(19:47):
take stock and prevent waste. And it is really difficult
to express like exactly how posh and popular and influential
all this was Ritz and Escoffier. We're building a new
idea or ideal maybe of luxury and service in hospitality.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, and that was an all that Scaffaier helped innovate,
especially in that area. He was key in designing how
kitchens worked on twentieth century Transatlantic cruises.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
He would apparently usually go on every new ship's first
voyage to make sure that the kitchens were up to standards,
So I guess it's lucky that he wasn't on the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Cool yukes. He ran the kitchen on enormous ocean liner
designed for guest of Kaiser Wilhelm the second of Germany,
called the ss Imperator Imperator inheritor. I don't know, it's
probably very grand sounding. Well, speaking of Wilhelm apparently called
(20:55):
Escoffier the King of chefs and the Chef of kings,
and allegedly said of him, I am the Emperor of Germany,
but you are the Emperor of the chefs.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, Also, no big deal. He helped modernize the Five
mother sauces. We've definitely talked about this before, but briefly,
Escafier's predecessor, Antonin Karim had outlined four grand sauces of
French cuisine, and these were bechamel Espanol, belute, and Alamande.
(21:31):
Escafier went on to drop the Alamant from this whole
thing since it was related to belote, and added tomato
sauce yes, and hollandais Yes. During World War One he
kept running kitchens and he was a prolific author as well.
He published the guide Coulonaire in nineteen oh three, the
(21:51):
Livre des Menux in nineteen twelve, a monthly chefs magazine
that ran from nineteen twelve to nineteen fourteen, and leis
Memoir Colonaire in nineteen nineteen and Laguide Culinaria in particular
was hugely influential. Of his alleged six hundred egg recipes,
it had two hundred and fifty six of them. In
(22:12):
my mind when I saw six hundred egg recipes, couldn't
fab Yeah, couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, I think I've got four, So I'm like, yep,
oh wait, maybe five, Okay, anyway, but cool, cool, yeah,
And this is still considered an essential like Chef's cookbook today.
Also during the war, he organized aid for the families
of his cooks who were enlisted.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yes, and he was the first chef to receive a
French Legion of Honor distinction in nineteen eighteen and was
promoted raised I'm not sure of the terminology. He was
raised from a Knight in the Legion of Honor to
an officer in nineteen twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
He was a big proponent of several charitable causes. During
the eighteen nineties, he donated unserved food to the little
sisters of the poor. He ran all kinds of fundraisers,
including those centered around aiding retired chefs. In nineteen twenty eight,
he helped found the World Association of Chef's Societies and
served as the first organization president.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
He retired heavy Scare Quotes to Money Carlo in nineteen
twenty but Yeah, continued to travel for another ten years
or so to attend hotel openings, cooking competitions, and other events,
and he continued writing, aiming three cookbooks toward home cooks
of more modest means, which at that point in his.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Life he was.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Apparently he was really bad at managing money and never
really had that much towards towards the end of his life.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
He died on February twelfth, nineteen thirty five, at the
age of eighty eight, and his wife had died just
days prior, and the parent only just recently reunited.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, I think she had been living in Monte Carlo
pretty much that whole time, and he, Yeah, he joined
her there when he retired. But yeah, it's it's a
it seems like an interesting story. A novelist recently wrote
(24:28):
a semi fictional romance about their last decade there together
called White Truffles in Winter.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Good name. Yeah, but Ascaffier's legacy does live on. A
fraternity of male chefs, restauranteurs and hotel owners formed in
nineteen thirty six what they called Les Amise Descoffier Society,
which still exists. A sister society made of women formed
(24:54):
in nineteen fifty nine called Lais Dames des Amis Discoffier.
Seventy three they do Discoffier New York opened again. This
is something I would love to come back to because
kind of the history of at first, like there weren't
women that much in this industry, or if they were,
they weren't recognized and couldn't be in these things. And
(25:17):
so the steps of what separated these two groups is interesting. Yeah, y, yes,
but there's a lot of them now oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah. Oh and I and I and I wanted to
put in about the money situation. He apparently supported and
paid for the education of like a really large extended
family and of his and so so that was part
of why it wasn't just like oops, I was gambling
or something like that, but like it was more yeah,
(25:50):
like he was just giving a lot of money away
to people.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, I mean part of his legacy too. He was
really invested in people being able to have lives in
this industry. Yeah yeah, and it is very It took
me aback how much he has had influence that last.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's just how I thought,
like restaurants always were.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah. No, it was basically created during his time. I
mean we've talked about this before in some of our
holiday related episodes about Thanksgiving and like Christmas dishes, but
a lot of our concept of traditional dining comes from
(26:47):
this era and he was so influential during this era
that yep, that's just what it is.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, And it kind of cracks me up how many
times when we'll travel together for savor otherwise and I
do my anything where I'm like, where do we go,
and it'll like a hotel will pop up and it
will be like this experience that we described and here essentially,
(27:15):
so I feel like that was also he had a
big hand in that. Oh yeah, and it's still around.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yeah. Yeah. He was also a co director maybe of
the ritz Like Corporation around the time.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So yep, yep, you know this is a very selfish thing.
But one of my one of my regrets about the pandemic, Lauren,
is that I had a free room to the Ritz Carlton.
It's a long story as to how but I have
(27:51):
a free room and the pandemic comes in and I
lost it. But apparently I was going to get like
free drinks and free food and all stuff. I was
so excited. Well maybe one day. Ah well, I think
that's what we have to say about Escaffier for now.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I think it is we do. We would love to
hear from you if if you, I don't know how
many of y'all listeners are are in the industry, but
but but if you have any kind of experience with
the brigade style of kitchen management or or anything like that,
we would love to hear about it. And we do
have some listener mail already prepared for you. But first
(28:34):
we've got one more quick break for word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listeners sauce. Yeah, yeah, I didn't want
to shout at you.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Oh yeah, we try to make these nice. Yeah. Yes,
we were just having a conversation I'm sure we'll revisit
about shouting in kitchens.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because a scaffier write, you know, like
like like meticulous, militaristic a little bit, but also quiet.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
No shouting, Yeah yeah, I don't need to shout at
people unless you can't. They need to hear you, but
not like in anger. Sure no, anyway, all right, all right,
Barbie wrote, as always, your episode about special holiday food
marketing cracked me up. I don't buy those things, and
since I haven't shopped in a grocery store in three years,
I haven't seen them on the shelves. You asked about
(29:46):
holiday meal stories, and I remembered a favorite of mine.
I got married the year after my father died, and
the first Thanksgiving I hosted with my mother, my husband,
and his two teenage children was important to me. I
wanted it to be a great occasion for all of
us in this blended family, so I asked each one
to tell me what they wanted most to be included
(30:07):
in the holiday meal. I wanted to include special foods
that my husband and his children treasured from the family
they had before me, and that they would be disappointed
to not find on the table. The answers included some
things I might not have included. Black olives to stick
on their fingers was the one that was new to me.
(30:29):
Sweet potatoes with marshmallows was one that was one that
one of them loved and didn't appeal to me at all. Finally,
I asked my mother, with whom I had celebrated Thanksgiving
for forty years. Her answer was, you have to have
a green vegetable, you have to have a yellow vegetable,
and you have to have a salad. I never did
(30:51):
find out what she really wanted, only what she thought
was obligatory. This year, my husband and I celebrated together
with no family or friends. To complicate things. Since we're
not eating in restaurants, our choices were takeout or cook
at home. Restaurant take out for Thanksgiving was full meals,
(31:11):
including a lot of food we don't like, so we
chose cooking at home. Our dinner was a twelve pound
roast turkey put in the oven early am and ready
to eat by noon. Pre made mashed potatoes, just put
them in the microwave. Homemade gravy. Dessert was bin in
Jerry's ice cream and luscious flavors. We had one meal
of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, one meal of leftovers,
(31:33):
one meal of turkey sandwiches, and turned everything else into
turkey soup with vegetables for the freezer for later. It
took a lot of years, but we finally figured out
how to make the holidays exactly what we want. May
twenty twenty four be a great year for you? Oh,
I mean honestly, like, Okay, first of all, I do
(31:55):
love you asking what people want responses you aren't anticipating.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I mean, I mean, ay, that's so sweet and totally
totally understandable, Like of course, like like holidays can be
so like like stressful and it's all new and you're
trying to, you know, to to write to make it
so good.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
But yeah, like black alves to stick on fingers is excellent.
That is such a specific age.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's an amazing teenage kid response. Yeah, I mean, but
also like like your your mother's equally cantankerous kind of
or like cantankris is the wrong word?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
What am I looking for?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Like confounding? I yeah, just like it's green vege yellow
vege salad, which hats off.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
To her because my usually my holiday traditions have one
they have like a potato based thing maybe, but one vegetable.
I would say, So, there you go. That's pretty good.
But yes, confusing for sure, but it's very nice.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Like I love that you've found you know, this is
what you do. That sounds great, that's what you want? Yeah, no, exactly,
no need, no need to muck it up with anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I love it.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
No, Now now I just want mashed potatoes and gravy.
But I mean, I guess I usually want that, Okay,
Kate wrote, I'd been planning to write to you for
a while after listening to your Fanny Farmer episode. Then
yesterday I heard your call for non Western perspectives on
three meals a day in the listener mail at the
end of the Rosewater episode, which nudged me to actually
sit down and write. I'm Canadian and grew up with
(33:51):
the idea of three meals a day, a breakfast, lunch,
and supper, with the last meal of the day usually
being the heaviest, except when visiting grandparents for the weekend,
when we would have dinner at on Sunday before all
of the aunts, uncles, and cousins would drive home in
the afternoon. My thinking about meals shifted though, when I
lived in Tanzania in East Africa for three years. A
heavy meal is eaten by Tanzanian families right before bedtime,
(34:13):
so when you wake up in the morning, you're still
feeling full from the night before and not in need
of breakfast right away. This is a good thing, especially
if you're living in an area with no electricity or
running water. It takes a lot of energy to fetch water,
build a fire or light a charcoal stove, clean the
dishes from the night before, and boil water. Tea is
often taken mid morning, consisting of strong tea with lots
(34:34):
of sugar and milk when available, along with some sort
of snack chop. Patti Mandazi never heard of that one.
It's deep fried bread dough. They add a roasted peanuts
or an egg, and then a heavy meal is eaten
in the early afternoon, like one to three pm to
keep you going until the bedtime meal. I tended to
keep my North American eating habits of breakfast, lunch, and
(34:55):
dinner when I was at home, but when I was
visiting Tanzanian friends, I adapted to the Tanzanian meal cycle,
and I also learned that I was considered to be
a better hostess when I had Tanzanian house guests if
I served a large meal mid afternoon and shifted supper
hour much closer to bedtime. In terms of Fanny Farmer,
this is the cookbook in my family on my mother's side,
(35:17):
and I loved learning more about it in your episode.
I wasn't even aware of joy of cooking until I
was a fully fledged adult. My granddad always said that
he liked Fanny Farmer because it assumed no kitchen knowledge,
so if you needed to look up how to boil beans,
he could look it up in Fanny Farmer and she
would tell him. The first time I ever roasted a chicken,
I looked it up in Fanny Farmer, then called my
mother to confirm that Fanny Farmer was correct. The only stipulation, though,
(35:41):
is that it has to be a pre nineteen seventy
nine edition, that is, before Marian Cunningham came on as editor.
Apparently some of the best recipes were left out of
newer editions. Though since this is received wisdom from my elders,
I couldn't tell you which recipes they were referring to.
Granddad loved second hand, and anytime he came across an
(36:02):
older addition of Fanny Farmer, he picked it up to
give to one of his grandchildren. I have a nineteen
sixty five Bantam paperback edition, now held together with an
elastic band. I still referred to it a couple times
a year that I've roasted chicken, and I love owning
a cookbook that includes the following instructions. Modern markets sell
poultry ready to cook, so that the old, an tedious
(36:22):
task of plucking and cleaning a bird is over for
most of us. However, the United States Department of Agriculture
and State Extension Services have bulletins describing the process and
also telling how to cut up a bird for fricka
seeing or broiling. If all the feathers have not been removed,
pull them out with tweezers or a small sharp knife,
and burn off the fine hairs over the gas flame
or with burning paper. Though related to the previous topic,
(36:46):
I will say that getting a chicken from the chicken
coop to the dinner table is one skill that I
acquired in Tanzania. Even if I don't have occasion to
practice it here in Canada.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Oh well, so much to say. I love I am
loving hearing about these different these alternatives to our typical
three meals a day that we talked about. I think
it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, and this makes so much sense, right,
you know, just like yeah, like like like breakfast, big
midday meal and then heavy dinner. That sounds terrific.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Yes it does. Although I will say I recently have
been having a big lunch and I've noticed that it
tires me out. I wasn't anticipating, but it could be
because I'm new to it this. I just find this
so so interesting, So please listeners keep these coming. Hearing
(37:47):
about this and about kind of the foods that are
typical for these meals. Also, yes, all of the stuff
about cookbooks that you've written in is amazing. H I
love that. I you know, I'm almost on board with
your grandfather. I love a book. But it'll just be like, look,
(38:08):
I don't know anything, tell.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Me explain it to me like I'm five. Yeah, just
just just front to back, assume I know nothing and
let me know what's up. Yeah, totally totally, yes, right,
I didn't need to know the thing about chicken feathers
or the fine hairs. But because I am so completely
(38:33):
divorced from the reality of proteins.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
But uh, true though, like that is part of the
charm of reading a cookbook from before, like where we've
become so modernized. Yeah, yeah, industrialized it it is I
think I think I talked about it Enjoyed Cooking episode.
(38:59):
But my mom will just flip through and read cookbooks.
Oh she's not necessarily looking for a recipe. If she
finds one, then share, yes, but she's kind of just
reading that.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Oh yeah, no, I do that too.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I'm setting up my new home and uh and kind
of figuring out where everything goes. And uh, one of
my bookcases, like a kind of big one, the one
that used to live in producer Jerry's office in our
old offices, uh, wound up in my dining room and
(39:34):
it is I'm not going to say, like like brimming over,
but it's full up with my collection of cookbooks, which
is wild. I didn't I didn't know that I had
that many.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
That is the thing about moving is you're like, oh,
it puts things into a bit of perspective. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's fun. That's fun. I've actually been thinking about doing
maybe a shorter episode, maybe not about just the kind
(40:13):
of those award winning recipes that we look back on
now and are like, what is it talking about? But
it totally makes sense when you put it in context
of the time and everything. But cookbooks and companies publishing
those cookbooks or publishing pamphlets or stuff or stuff like that.
That was very a big part of that, and I'm
really interested in it. So maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
But in the meantime, thanks to both of these listeners
for writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can our emails Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram. That's the other one at saver Pod, and
we do hope to hear from you. Save is production
off I Heart Radio. Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio. You
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
(41:11):
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Annie Reese, an unlearned vocal bum and today we
have an episode for you about august Escoffier.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, another biography and deliciousness. Yes. Was there any particular
reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Again, I was just feeling real ambitious towards the end
of last year and I was planning out some episodes
and I was trying, we hadn't done a biography episode
in a minute, and I was like, who who have
I been thinking about? Who have I been putting off
talking about? And Escaffie was kind on top of the list.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It is indeed very ambitious. He was very ambitious. This
episode is very ambitious. A lot of people have a
lot to say about this person, and we have talked
about him before in several episodes. I would say you
could see our episode on French cuisine specifically, I believe
(01:07):
we talked about him Gelatine.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, related Canning maybe or or the can opener I
suppose is our big episode Canning?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, yeah, an open.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Still still struggle, still traumatized.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yes, you can also see our past biography episodes, but yeah,
this one is a lot and very fun, it goes places,
it does, it does. But I suppose that brings us
to our question. No, I suppose, so Scoffier, what or
(01:49):
who is it? Uh?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, and forgive my French y'all George Auguste Escer, Sure,
let's well, let's say that great. He was a chef,
restauranteur and writer from France who came up in the
late eighteen hundreds and really changed the way that restaurants work,
from the experience of dining to kitchen management, and furthermore
(02:15):
popularized French cuisine as an international standard of luxury. He
was running some of the most influential high end kitchens
of the turn of the century, and he made them hierarchical, efficient,
clean and organized. He was just like the right person
at the right places at the right time to change
(02:38):
the commercial culinary world and threw a trickle down effect
change the way that people eat, or perhaps the way
that people aspire to eat in Europe and the rest
of the West. He was so passionate about good food,
and for as much as he was a shellman, he
was also meticulously practical and seemed to really want everyone
(02:59):
to eat well. He also inspired a lot of loyalty
in his kitchen staffs because he was firm, but calm
and and really took care of his people. He is
the grandfather of fine dining. It's it's like if you've
if you've ever been frustrated going to a nice restaurant
and having no idea how to pronounce half the many
because you don't speak French.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's his fault. I feel like this is coming from
a personal place, Laura.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I'm always like, I know what that is, but I
know I'm gonna say it's wrong and it's going to
be embarrassing. Oh jeez, you.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Know half the dining experience is being embarrassed. I don't
think that should be the case. Yeah, okay, well what
about the nutrition? And don't eat dead people.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Or I mean, I guess, don't eat living peoplener. You know,
I can't tell you what to.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Do, interesting, Lauren, I shall file that away for later thought. Goodness. Okay,
so we don't have too many numbers for you, but
I have to say when I first started researching this,
the first note I typed was how many societies can
(04:22):
there possibly be? Because there are so many organizations and
societies dedicated or inspired by.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
A scoff named after Yeah, yes, it's a bunch, And
most of the Google results when you're just kind of
getting into it before you really start refining your search terms,
are about all of those organizations. And yes, yeah, I
love a good fun with search terms episode and this
was definitely one of those, indeed. But yeah, a couple
(04:57):
of numbers for you. Scoffier trained over to thousand chefs
during the course of his career, which was about sixty
ish sixty ish years. One of them wound up opening
a museum in the home where Escaffie was born, and
it serves as a as a history of the culinary
technologies of a Scaffie's time and also a research center
on the greater world of astronomy. It has a collection
(05:20):
of over three thousand menus from the eighteen twenties through today.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Who okay, that's pretty cool. Yeah, well we do have
quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh yes, oh absolutely, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from a
quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Error back, thank you sponsor.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, thank you, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So Auguste Escaffier was born in eighteen forty six in
the Provence region of what's now. I don't know why
put what's never because that was kind of recent. But anyway, France,
when he was twelve or thirteen, I saw a couple
different ages. He began apprenticing at a restaurant that his
uncle owned in nearby Nice. Over the next seven years
(06:16):
he really honed his skills and people took notice, and
he was taken on at the restaurant over at the
Patit Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
He was their assistant roaster. Apparently assistant roaster.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Okay, yes again, you can see our episode on French cuisine.
But at this time, being a chef wasn't really seen
as anything to write home about. It wasn't necessarily respected.
Whote cuisine didn't exist yet. Most people ate at home
unless they were traveling. There weren't the standards around the
industry yet. So it could be dirty, it could be chaotic,
(06:52):
it could be unorganized, often dangerous and very brutal places
to work in Escoffier was instrumental in changing that whole thing.
He was in part inspired to insert some organization in
his kitchens after briefly serving as an army chef. After
the start of the Franco Prussian War in eighteen seventy.
(07:14):
During this time, he learned about the importance of canning
in terms of preserving foods and keeping those foods fresh.
He started experimenting with different methods of canning with meats
and sauces, and innovated a way to store tomato sauce
so that it would stay fresh in champagne bottles.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
This was when canning was still a relatively new technology.
It had only come about around eighteen ten.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Or so, right, and he also observed how effective military
organization was in terms of a kitchen of coordinating and
working together to get things done. So what he eventually
came up with is often called the brigade system. Yes, so,
once the war ended, Ascafier returned to the kitchen and
(07:59):
started to implement the things he observed during his time
with the military. Chefs were assigned roles, locations, responsibilities, and
answered to supervisors, people who ensured that all the pieces
were working together in harmony, and through this a Scaffier
came up with the titles and roles that we still
used today in a lot of places like Sioux Chefs
Saussier and chef de cuisine. Apparently He had very specific
(08:26):
rules that were meant to lower stress, including no yelling
and no alcohol. From a couple sources, I read a
lot of times people would just drink throughout So his
staff allegedly called him Papa, and he really fought for
their rights when it came to things like benefits. After
(08:46):
members of his staff died on the Titanic, he had
designed the menus for the Titanic. He campaigned for widows
and children of them to be taken care of.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So yes. By the mid eighteen seventy he was back
at the Petito mo La Rouge, and he also bought
a food company and opened a restaurant in the very
posh can. He left the Petite Molong Rouge to run
other kitchens around Paris in eighteen seventy eight, which is
also the year that he married Delphine Dafis.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Dafis I don't know Lauren well either way. The story
goes that he won his wife's hand in a game
of pool, and she was a poet, and she left
him after the birth of their third childs lots of drama,
(09:37):
I see, yes, yes, Well, after this he started collaborating
with the founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotels cesar Ritz.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Ritz was managing the Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo and
hired Scaffie on in eighteen eighty four under the advice
of the head chef there.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
In eighteen ninety, Ritz became the manager of London Savoy
Hotel and he named Scott the head chef of the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
The Savoy was and still is a kind of like
ridiculously luxury hotel. Both Ritz and Escoffier had worked in
other high end hotels around Europe, but the Savoy was
this brand new, like gleaming beacon of end of century modernity,
and they were brought there with salaries in the equivalent
(10:23):
of millions of dollars. Ritz's motto was the best is
not too good?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Well, yes, the Savoy. Perhaps because of that, add a
lot of high profile, famous patrons, and to build up
the profile of the hotel and his own, Escafaier started
coming up with his own dishes to make the hotel's
restaurant unique. According to popular lore, he created the Peach
Melba in honor of guest Nelly Melba, an opera singer.
(10:53):
I feel like we've talked about this story before.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I think it was somehow in the Pavlovie. I
don't know, listeners. I feel like we've talked about it
before the story goes. He also came up with Cherry's
Jubilee for Queen Victoria's Jubilee, which is one of those
funny things I read where it's like, oh, okay, yeah,
(11:16):
and Dauphine Potatoes for the French Court of Dauphine. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
This was the kind of place where like, if you
had the money, old or new money, you could be
treated like royalty. Like want to throw a Roulette themed
dinner party for thirty of your closest friends for a
little under two grand ahead because you just want a
bunch of money playing Roulette and betting on red. Yeah,
they can do that for you. They draped a private
(11:45):
dining room in red. They put red shades on the lamps,
set the tables with giant bouquets of red geraniums, dressed
to the waiters and red ties and gloves, and put
red buttons on their shirts. The dinner menu included consumme
of red partridge and paprika jila and lamb with red
bean puree.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, and I really like want to emphasize here that
this was a very new thing. You know, up until
this time, the only people who had access to this
kind of food were probably royalty. But the Industrial Revolution
was changing the way that money worked, and so for
(12:27):
the first time you had these like international celebrities and
moguls who who had the money, and what they wanted
to do was kind of replicate the wild feasts of
medieval Europe. And people like Escafaier were such history nerds
and and so excited to put on parties like this
(12:51):
at Rits as well.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, that it was.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
And both of them had come from from working class
families too, So it's I don't know, it's it's really
it was what a time.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
To be alive. Yes, and we're going to make this
point throughout, but definitely left an impact Escoffier and his influence.
But we must mention both the Scaffier and Ritz were
fired from the Savoy on charges of extortion, and it
(13:22):
caught international attention.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
It eventually caught international attention. It was so scandalous that
they kept it quiet. The hotel kept it quiet for
almost a century. Okay, in eighteen ninety seven, the hotel's
profits dropped by like forty percent. The kitchen was running
at a loss despite being busier than it ever had been,
(13:46):
and so the hotel ran an audit and turned up
around the equivalent of a million dollars in wine and
booze having been comped to guests, including some potential investors
in a new competitor to the Savoy that Ritz and
Escaffier were planning, London's Carlton Hotel. Furthermore, Escaffier had worked
(14:07):
out an embezzlement scheme with some of the Savoy suppliers,
and he wound up making like the modern equivalent of
over two million dollars in commissions over the course of
about ten years. None of this came out publicly until
I guess an intern at the hotel came across signed
confessions from Ritz and Escoffier in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
The intern was an anonymous informant who left the confessions
on the desk of this reporter working at The Observer,
And when the reporter wrote about it, he gave he
gave the informant the name Deep Palette.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Oh my gosh, why is this not a movie?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I absolutely want the movie about this. Apparently, apparently the
pair were forced to sign these confessions when they tried
to sue for unfair termination.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Wow wow what love it? Love it?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But yeah, basically that the pair got away with it,
like socially speaking, because the Savoy's board and shareholders were
so dang embarrassed that it had happened that they didn't
want anybody to know about it. Also, apparently Ritz had
dirt on the Prince of Wales and the Savoy didn't
(15:33):
want that coming out. Again, this was right around Victoria's
jubilee and they didn't want to like cause scandal for royalty.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Again, where's this movie telling you? It is very funny.
A lot of the sources you look up for Scaffie
don't mention this at all.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And the ones that do mention it are whooh, juicy juicy.
But yeah. Hotel management was in a tizzy over the
whole thing, Like they were afraid that the kitchen staff
were so loyal to a Scaffier that they would riot
when they learned that he had been fired, Like they
had police on hand to help keep the peace. A
(16:14):
bunch of the staff did wind up following a Scoffier
when he went.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Wow wow, Well from there, Scaffier continued to work with Ritz,
including at the Ritz Paris. In eighteen ninety nine, they
opened the Girlton Hotel in London. He continued to exert influence,
and not just in the kitchen but in the front
of house too, including the now common practice of ordering
(16:41):
a la carte because previously all the food items came
out at once, So this instituted a new thing where
the dishes started coming out as they were ordered, and
guests ordered off a menu. It's strange to think about
these things we take for granted so much these days,
but totally Yeah. Yeah, during lunch service he could serve
(17:04):
five hundred plates an hour.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I read, Yeah, he had a team of sixty cooks there.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I also read he lobbied to make it legal for
women to dine in public. I couldn't find too much
about it, but I would love to dig into that. Yeah, oh,
or at a later date.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Sure, sure, right, because the practice of women dining in
public was Yeah, it was certainly socially and sometimes legally
not allowed at.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
This, especially in certain places.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeahah, yeah, but yeah. He was always looking to promote
French products, and at the Carlton he imported like French asparagus,
and duck and peaches and butter some forty five hundred
pounds a month. That's two thousand kilos of butter a month. WOA,
(17:52):
and tinned tomatoes. He hecking loved a tomato sauce. Legend
has it that he sort of tricked a ball room
of six hundred diners into eating frog's legs, which were
like not a popular protein in London, by calling them
nymph's legs. And apparently the aforementioned Prince of Wales was
(18:14):
kind of in on it because he really liked frog's legs.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I'm going to have to look up this Prince of
Whales guy I going on.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I think I think the dirt was that he had
been having this affair and Ritz, as the hotel manager,
knew about it, and the reason that the Prince of
Wales followed them from the Savoy to the Carlton was
that he didn't want to open himself up to blackmail
from Ritz Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So maybe he was in on this nymph leg scheme
because of blackmail.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I think I think it was. I don't know. I'm
not entirely speculations. All speculation here, I do, I do
want to say, speaking of speculation, We've read in like
one source that I'm not sure the quality of the
Discolfier refused to ever learn English, even though he was
(19:11):
working so much in London and later in the United States,
because he didn't want it to negatively influence his cooking. Yep,
he was like, if I start learning English, I'll start
to think like the English and I.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Cannot have that.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yes, the most French thing I've ever heard of in
my life, and I love it. I also, from reading
about his work during this time, got the idea that
he was an absolute micromanager, Like he designed every menu,
oversaw every service, like racked the kitchen every night to
(19:47):
take stock and prevent waste. And it is really difficult
to express like exactly how posh and popular and influential
all this was Ritz and Escoffier. We're building a new
idea or ideal maybe of luxury and service in hospitality.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, and that was an all that Scaffaier helped innovate,
especially in that area. He was key in designing how
kitchens worked on twentieth century Transatlantic cruises.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
He would apparently usually go on every new ship's first
voyage to make sure that the kitchens were up to standards,
So I guess it's lucky that he wasn't on the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Cool yukes. He ran the kitchen on enormous ocean liner
designed for guest of Kaiser Wilhelm the second of Germany,
called the ss Imperator Imperator inheritor. I don't know, it's
probably very grand sounding. Well, speaking of Wilhelm apparently called
(20:55):
Escoffier the King of chefs and the Chef of kings,
and allegedly said of him, I am the Emperor of Germany,
but you are the Emperor of the chefs.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, Also, no big deal. He helped modernize the Five
mother sauces. We've definitely talked about this before, but briefly,
Escafier's predecessor, Antonin Karim had outlined four grand sauces of
French cuisine, and these were bechamel Espanol, belute, and Alamande.
(21:31):
Escafier went on to drop the Alamant from this whole
thing since it was related to belote, and added tomato
sauce yes, and hollandais Yes. During World War One he
kept running kitchens and he was a prolific author as well.
He published the guide Coulonaire in nineteen oh three, the
(21:51):
Livre des Menux in nineteen twelve, a monthly chefs magazine
that ran from nineteen twelve to nineteen fourteen, and leis
Memoir Colonaire in nineteen nineteen and Laguide Culinaria in particular
was hugely influential. Of his alleged six hundred egg recipes,
it had two hundred and fifty six of them. In
(22:12):
my mind when I saw six hundred egg recipes, couldn't
fab Yeah, couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, I think I've got four, So I'm like, yep,
oh wait, maybe five, Okay, anyway, but cool, cool, yeah,
And this is still considered an essential like Chef's cookbook today.
Also during the war, he organized aid for the families
of his cooks who were enlisted.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yes, and he was the first chef to receive a
French Legion of Honor distinction in nineteen eighteen and was
promoted raised I'm not sure of the terminology. He was
raised from a Knight in the Legion of Honor to
an officer in nineteen twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
He was a big proponent of several charitable causes. During
the eighteen nineties, he donated unserved food to the little
sisters of the poor. He ran all kinds of fundraisers,
including those centered around aiding retired chefs. In nineteen twenty eight,
he helped found the World Association of Chef's Societies and
served as the first organization president.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
He retired heavy Scare Quotes to Money Carlo in nineteen
twenty but Yeah, continued to travel for another ten years
or so to attend hotel openings, cooking competitions, and other events,
and he continued writing, aiming three cookbooks toward home cooks
of more modest means, which at that point in his.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Life he was.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Apparently he was really bad at managing money and never
really had that much towards towards the end of his life.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
He died on February twelfth, nineteen thirty five, at the
age of eighty eight, and his wife had died just
days prior, and the parent only just recently reunited.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, I think she had been living in Monte Carlo
pretty much that whole time, and he, Yeah, he joined
her there when he retired. But yeah, it's it's a
it seems like an interesting story. A novelist recently wrote
(24:28):
a semi fictional romance about their last decade there together
called White Truffles in Winter.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Good name. Yeah, but Ascaffier's legacy does live on. A
fraternity of male chefs, restauranteurs and hotel owners formed in
nineteen thirty six what they called Les Amise Descoffier Society,
which still exists. A sister society made of women formed
(24:54):
in nineteen fifty nine called Lais Dames des Amis Discoffier.
Seventy three they do Discoffier New York opened again. This
is something I would love to come back to because
kind of the history of at first, like there weren't
women that much in this industry, or if they were,
they weren't recognized and couldn't be in these things. And
(25:17):
so the steps of what separated these two groups is interesting. Yeah, y, yes,
but there's a lot of them now oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah. Oh and I and I and I wanted to
put in about the money situation. He apparently supported and
paid for the education of like a really large extended
family and of his and so so that was part
of why it wasn't just like oops, I was gambling
or something like that, but like it was more yeah,
(25:50):
like he was just giving a lot of money away
to people.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, I mean part of his legacy too. He was
really invested in people being able to have lives in
this industry. Yeah yeah, and it is very It took
me aback how much he has had influence that last.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's just how I thought,
like restaurants always were.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah. No, it was basically created during his time. I
mean we've talked about this before in some of our
holiday related episodes about Thanksgiving and like Christmas dishes, but
a lot of our concept of traditional dining comes from
(26:47):
this era and he was so influential during this era
that yep, that's just what it is.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, And it kind of cracks me up how many
times when we'll travel together for savor otherwise and I
do my anything where I'm like, where do we go,
and it'll like a hotel will pop up and it
will be like this experience that we described and here essentially,
(27:15):
so I feel like that was also he had a
big hand in that. Oh yeah, and it's still around.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yeah. Yeah. He was also a co director maybe of
the ritz Like Corporation around the time.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So yep, yep, you know this is a very selfish thing.
But one of my one of my regrets about the pandemic, Lauren,
is that I had a free room to the Ritz Carlton.
It's a long story as to how but I have
(27:51):
a free room and the pandemic comes in and I
lost it. But apparently I was going to get like
free drinks and free food and all stuff. I was
so excited. Well maybe one day. Ah well, I think
that's what we have to say about Escaffier for now.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I think it is we do. We would love to
hear from you if if you, I don't know how
many of y'all listeners are are in the industry, but
but but if you have any kind of experience with
the brigade style of kitchen management or or anything like that,
we would love to hear about it. And we do
have some listener mail already prepared for you. But first
(28:34):
we've got one more quick break for word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listeners sauce. Yeah, yeah, I didn't want
to shout at you.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Oh yeah, we try to make these nice. Yeah. Yes,
we were just having a conversation I'm sure we'll revisit
about shouting in kitchens.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because a scaffier write, you know, like
like like meticulous, militaristic a little bit, but also quiet.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
No shouting, Yeah yeah, I don't need to shout at
people unless you can't. They need to hear you, but
not like in anger. Sure no, anyway, all right, all right,
Barbie wrote, as always, your episode about special holiday food
marketing cracked me up. I don't buy those things, and
since I haven't shopped in a grocery store in three years,
I haven't seen them on the shelves. You asked about
(29:46):
holiday meal stories, and I remembered a favorite of mine.
I got married the year after my father died, and
the first Thanksgiving I hosted with my mother, my husband,
and his two teenage children was important to me. I
wanted it to be a great occasion for all of
us in this blended family, so I asked each one
to tell me what they wanted most to be included
(30:07):
in the holiday meal. I wanted to include special foods
that my husband and his children treasured from the family
they had before me, and that they would be disappointed
to not find on the table. The answers included some
things I might not have included. Black olives to stick
on their fingers was the one that was new to me.
(30:29):
Sweet potatoes with marshmallows was one that was one that
one of them loved and didn't appeal to me at all. Finally,
I asked my mother, with whom I had celebrated Thanksgiving
for forty years. Her answer was, you have to have
a green vegetable, you have to have a yellow vegetable,
and you have to have a salad. I never did
(30:51):
find out what she really wanted, only what she thought
was obligatory. This year, my husband and I celebrated together
with no family or friends. To complicate things. Since we're
not eating in restaurants, our choices were takeout or cook
at home. Restaurant take out for Thanksgiving was full meals,
(31:11):
including a lot of food we don't like, so we
chose cooking at home. Our dinner was a twelve pound
roast turkey put in the oven early am and ready
to eat by noon. Pre made mashed potatoes, just put
them in the microwave. Homemade gravy. Dessert was bin in
Jerry's ice cream and luscious flavors. We had one meal
of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, one meal of leftovers,
(31:33):
one meal of turkey sandwiches, and turned everything else into
turkey soup with vegetables for the freezer for later. It
took a lot of years, but we finally figured out
how to make the holidays exactly what we want. May
twenty twenty four be a great year for you? Oh,
I mean honestly, like, Okay, first of all, I do
(31:55):
love you asking what people want responses you aren't anticipating.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I mean, I mean, ay, that's so sweet and totally
totally understandable, Like of course, like like holidays can be
so like like stressful and it's all new and you're
trying to, you know, to to write to make it
so good.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
But yeah, like black alves to stick on fingers is excellent.
That is such a specific age.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's an amazing teenage kid response. Yeah, I mean, but
also like like your your mother's equally cantankerous kind of
or like cantankris is the wrong word?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
What am I looking for?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Like confounding? I yeah, just like it's green vege yellow
vege salad, which hats off.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
To her because my usually my holiday traditions have one
they have like a potato based thing maybe, but one vegetable.
I would say, So, there you go. That's pretty good.
But yes, confusing for sure, but it's very nice.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Like I love that you've found you know, this is
what you do. That sounds great, that's what you want? Yeah, no, exactly,
no need, no need to muck it up with anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I love it.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
No, Now now I just want mashed potatoes and gravy.
But I mean, I guess I usually want that, Okay,
Kate wrote, I'd been planning to write to you for
a while after listening to your Fanny Farmer episode. Then
yesterday I heard your call for non Western perspectives on
three meals a day in the listener mail at the
end of the Rosewater episode, which nudged me to actually
sit down and write. I'm Canadian and grew up with
(33:51):
the idea of three meals a day, a breakfast, lunch,
and supper, with the last meal of the day usually
being the heaviest, except when visiting grandparents for the weekend,
when we would have dinner at on Sunday before all
of the aunts, uncles, and cousins would drive home in
the afternoon. My thinking about meals shifted though, when I
lived in Tanzania in East Africa for three years. A
heavy meal is eaten by Tanzanian families right before bedtime,
(34:13):
so when you wake up in the morning, you're still
feeling full from the night before and not in need
of breakfast right away. This is a good thing, especially
if you're living in an area with no electricity or
running water. It takes a lot of energy to fetch water,
build a fire or light a charcoal stove, clean the
dishes from the night before, and boil water. Tea is
often taken mid morning, consisting of strong tea with lots
(34:34):
of sugar and milk when available, along with some sort
of snack chop. Patti Mandazi never heard of that one.
It's deep fried bread dough. They add a roasted peanuts
or an egg, and then a heavy meal is eaten
in the early afternoon, like one to three pm to
keep you going until the bedtime meal. I tended to
keep my North American eating habits of breakfast, lunch, and
(34:55):
dinner when I was at home, but when I was
visiting Tanzanian friends, I adapted to the Tanzanian meal cycle,
and I also learned that I was considered to be
a better hostess when I had Tanzanian house guests if
I served a large meal mid afternoon and shifted supper
hour much closer to bedtime. In terms of Fanny Farmer,
this is the cookbook in my family on my mother's side,
(35:17):
and I loved learning more about it in your episode.
I wasn't even aware of joy of cooking until I
was a fully fledged adult. My granddad always said that
he liked Fanny Farmer because it assumed no kitchen knowledge,
so if you needed to look up how to boil beans,
he could look it up in Fanny Farmer and she
would tell him. The first time I ever roasted a chicken,
I looked it up in Fanny Farmer, then called my
mother to confirm that Fanny Farmer was correct. The only stipulation, though,
(35:41):
is that it has to be a pre nineteen seventy
nine edition, that is, before Marian Cunningham came on as editor.
Apparently some of the best recipes were left out of
newer editions. Though since this is received wisdom from my elders,
I couldn't tell you which recipes they were referring to.
Granddad loved second hand, and anytime he came across an
(36:02):
older addition of Fanny Farmer, he picked it up to
give to one of his grandchildren. I have a nineteen
sixty five Bantam paperback edition, now held together with an
elastic band. I still referred to it a couple times
a year that I've roasted chicken, and I love owning
a cookbook that includes the following instructions. Modern markets sell
poultry ready to cook, so that the old, an tedious
(36:22):
task of plucking and cleaning a bird is over for
most of us. However, the United States Department of Agriculture
and State Extension Services have bulletins describing the process and
also telling how to cut up a bird for fricka
seeing or broiling. If all the feathers have not been removed,
pull them out with tweezers or a small sharp knife,
and burn off the fine hairs over the gas flame
or with burning paper. Though related to the previous topic,
(36:46):
I will say that getting a chicken from the chicken
coop to the dinner table is one skill that I
acquired in Tanzania. Even if I don't have occasion to
practice it here in Canada.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Oh well, so much to say. I love I am
loving hearing about these different these alternatives to our typical
three meals a day that we talked about. I think
it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, and this makes so much sense, right,
you know, just like yeah, like like like breakfast, big
midday meal and then heavy dinner. That sounds terrific.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Yes it does. Although I will say I recently have
been having a big lunch and I've noticed that it
tires me out. I wasn't anticipating, but it could be
because I'm new to it this. I just find this
so so interesting, So please listeners keep these coming. Hearing
(37:47):
about this and about kind of the foods that are
typical for these meals. Also, yes, all of the stuff
about cookbooks that you've written in is amazing. H I
love that. I you know, I'm almost on board with
your grandfather. I love a book. But it'll just be like, look,
(38:08):
I don't know anything, tell.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Me explain it to me like I'm five. Yeah, just
just just front to back, assume I know nothing and
let me know what's up. Yeah, totally totally, yes, right,
I didn't need to know the thing about chicken feathers
or the fine hairs. But because I am so completely
(38:33):
divorced from the reality of proteins.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
But uh, true though, like that is part of the
charm of reading a cookbook from before, like where we've
become so modernized. Yeah, yeah, industrialized it it is I
think I think I talked about it Enjoyed Cooking episode.
(38:59):
But my mom will just flip through and read cookbooks.
Oh she's not necessarily looking for a recipe. If she
finds one, then share, yes, but she's kind of just
reading that.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Oh yeah, no, I do that too.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I'm setting up my new home and uh and kind
of figuring out where everything goes. And uh, one of
my bookcases, like a kind of big one, the one
that used to live in producer Jerry's office in our
old offices, uh, wound up in my dining room and
(39:34):
it is I'm not going to say, like like brimming over,
but it's full up with my collection of cookbooks, which
is wild. I didn't I didn't know that I had
that many.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
That is the thing about moving is you're like, oh,
it puts things into a bit of perspective. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's fun. That's fun. I've actually been thinking about doing
maybe a shorter episode, maybe not about just the kind
(40:13):
of those award winning recipes that we look back on
now and are like, what is it talking about? But
it totally makes sense when you put it in context
of the time and everything. But cookbooks and companies publishing
those cookbooks or publishing pamphlets or stuff or stuff like that.
That was very a big part of that, and I'm
really interested in it. So maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
But in the meantime, thanks to both of these listeners
for writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can our emails Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram. That's the other one at saver Pod, and
we do hope to hear from you. Save is production
off I Heart Radio. Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio. You
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
(41:11):
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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