June 6, 2022 • 39 mins
At a young age, Alexis Soyer became a very well-known chef in both France and England, as popular for his fun personality as for his cooking. But he also left a legacy of invention and charity.
Research:
- Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Jules-Armand, prince de Polignac". Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Feb. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jules-Armand-prince-de-Polignac
- Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "July Revolution". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Jul. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/July-Revolution
- Guest, Ivor. "Fanny Cerrito". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 May. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fanny-Cerrito
- “Soyer stove, sealed pattern, 1953.” National Army Museum. https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2002-12-6-1#:~:text=The%20Soyer%20stove%2C%20named%20after,modifications%20for%20over%20100%20years.
- Macmillan, Ann. “War Stories.” Simon and Schuster. 2018.
- Sandover, Cherry. “THE TRIUMPH OF FAME OVER DEATH: THE COMMEMORATIVE FUNERARY MONUMTHE ARTIST IN 19TH CENTURY BRITAIN AS SIGNIFIER OF IDENTITY.” University of Essex. Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/12192637/SUMMARY_OF_THE_DISSERTATION_THE_TRIUMPH_OF_FAME_OVER_DEATH_THE_COMMEMORATIVE_FUNERARY_MONUMTHE_ARTIST_IN_19TH_CENTURY_BRITAIN_AS_SIGNIFIER_OF_IDENTITY_
- Pickering, W. “Obituary – Madame Soyer.” The Gentleman’s Magazine. Volume 172. 1842. https://books.google.com/books?id=rCZIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA667#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Soyer, Alexis. “Memoirs of Alexis Soyer With Unpublished Receipts and Odds and Ends of Gastronomy.” Edited by F. Volant, et al. Cambridge University Press. 2014.
- Brandon, Ruth. “The People’s Chef.” Wiley. 2004.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And today's
topic came about because of our episode on pies. In
(00:22):
that episode, we talked about chef Alexei Soyer, who became
a very well known chef both in France and in England,
and the many recipes for pies that he included in
his cookbooks, and how he was always pretty happy to
embrace new methods for cooking if he thought they would
benefit his work. He was one of the first chefs
to be like, y'all pie tins, they're great. There was
(00:46):
also an incident in his life that I had seen
mentioned in one of the articles I used while I
was researching pie that made me certain I wanted to
learn more about him because it was a wild story,
hard to verify it, it it sure is told over and over.
So we're going to talk about it and some of
the things because his life is very fascinating, sometimes wild,
(01:09):
often innovative, and we're just going to talk about Alexei
say today. So Alexei ben was Saya's early life is
very cloudy. As we talk about it, keep in mind
that most of what we do know about his youth
is not from any records or even from Alexei's own recollections.
It's from several friends who published memoirs of Alexei Soyer
(01:32):
after his death, was based on notes from his life
and anecdotes that he had told them. So it's like
things they heard maybe from him. Yes, maybe His friend
and secretary friend Sis Voila, assembled most of this, although
they had a falling out before Souy's death, and today
(01:52):
historians recognize that this memoir includes a lot of tall tales,
a lot of inaccuracies. Some of these may have been
included out of spite by his friends over disagreements that
had come up among them during Sway's lifetime. I I
can't fault somebody for, you know, things that happen after
(02:13):
they die. But maybe don't have your freenemies right your memoir. Well,
I don't think he intended to, That's what I'm saying. Yeah,
he um. You know, he had secretaries that he employed
throughout his life, many of whom had been his friends,
and so you know he was They were keeping general
records of stuff but yeah, there's a definite shift that
(02:34):
happens in the larger part of the twentieth century. Any
accounts of his life are based on those memoirs, and
so there's a propagation of some of those falsehoods. And
then things start to shift when more biographers and historians
get better access to records and can cross check things.
But there's still some mysteries. So Alexei's birth certificate lists
(02:59):
his date of birth as February four, eighteen ten, although
that biography mentioned above states that it was October of
the preceding year. There is some theory that he may
not have known his own birthday, or he had just
picked a different day. He was born in Mombri and
his parents were Emery and Madeleine Soire, and the Swis
(03:19):
were quite poor. They had had a shop earlier in
their marriage, a little grocery that did okay for a while,
but it failed before Alexei was born, and Emory at
that point was earning money as a laborer. Alexei had
two older brothers, Philippe born in sevent and Louis born
in eighteen o one. Emery and Madeleine had had two
other children between Louis and Alexei, but those two babies
(03:43):
did not survive. According to the memoir, Emery and Madeleine
had a plan in mind for their youngest son's future,
and that was a life in the clergy. But he
was so ill behaved at his school that he got
kicked out. We do not know if that is true,
and there's also been speculation that the family may have
really been Protestant rather than Catholic, or possibly Jewish. That's
(04:05):
based on the rarity of the family name and the
fact that it matches only with that of Russian Jews
that have been identified by historians. The story of the
misbehaving choir boy being kicked out of the cathedral was
one that Sway himself told people, so this may have
been truth, may have been an invention, right. This is
(04:26):
also a time we've talked about on the show before
when like France, heavily Catholic, like that was the societal norm,
so that may have been part of why he kind
of concocted this story. Alexei's older brother Philip had become
a cook in in eighty one. Alexei moved to Paris
to learn that trade from him, something neither brother was
(04:46):
particularly enthused about Alexei, who was a kid at this time,
wanted to be an actor, not a cook. Philipp had
no desire to babysit his roombunctious little brother, but they
did manage to work through their initial issue us and
when Alexei became an apprentice at the restaurant where Philippe
worked in TV near Versailles. Apparently, once Alexei actually got
(05:09):
into the kitchen and focus a little bit, he was
really good at cooking. Keep in mind though he was
still very much a kid. He was only eleven at
the time that he moved to Paris, if we were
going by that February eighteen ten birthdate. After a five
year apprenticeship, Alexei was hired to work in Paris eatery
(05:29):
was called Dui, and obviously he was still just a
teenager of sixteen. Soon he was moved up to the
position of second cook and then was running the kitchen.
There was a staff of twelve under him. He stayed
at DWI for three years, fine tuning his abilities. Biographer
Ruth Brandon makes a point in her book The People's
(05:50):
Chef that say found in the structure of a restaurant
a stage where he the chef, could fulfill his dreams
of performing. It was just on a different stage than
what he had envisioned as a boy. He does seem
to have been the perfect match for the still relatively
new restaurant scene of Paris. The city's first restaurant, Champ
(06:11):
DUIs Out, had opened in the seventeen sixties, and the
idea of Paris as the global epicenter of culinary excellence
had quickly been established. Yeah, he got to, you know,
perform in front of guests, essentially performed for his staff.
He sort of loved the whole thing, and while he
was at duty, Alexey was trusted with more and more duties,
(06:32):
including making catering deliveries. Because he was, by all accounts,
very handsome, incredibly charming, and also really outgoing, he would
often end up becoming part of whatever party the restaurant
had cooked for as he waited for the dishes to
be emptied throughout the event so that he could carry
them back to be washed. One such incident allegedly ended
(06:54):
with sway A passing out on the way home. He
had had a lot to drink and waking up without
the restaurants serving tray and without his pants. This led
to the young chef being given a nickname in the
Paris papers, the Enfon Terrible of Montmartre. So it seems
to have had a really good time throughout the eighteen twenties.
(07:15):
He was a popular chef that clients loved to party with,
and he clearly enjoyed that life. There's a poem in
his memoirs which relays various images of Paris nightlife, and
that ends with the stanza, which is translated as quote,
but hark in the city of the morning, belt holes
and workmen grab coffee and hot buttered rolls. The hammer
(07:37):
and tongs have their work to pursue, But I hurried
to bed. There's sleeping to do. When Alexei was twenty,
he was hired away from Due by the kitchen of
the Prince de Polignac Jules Armand. Armand was an ultra royalist,
so his story get ready is pretty rocky. He was
exiled to England during the French Revolution and he was
(07:58):
imprisoned for nine years when he returned into France, those
years of imprisonment being eighteen o four to eighteen thirteen
for his participation in a plot to assassinate Napoleon. Once
Napoleon abdicated in eighteen fourteen and Louis the eighteenth was
restored to the throne, Jules Armand became a peer under
the re establishment of peerage in the Charter of eighteen fourteen,
(08:20):
and Jules Armand raised concerns at that time that the
constitutional oath that came with that peerage was disparaging the
Catholic Church and the papacy, and as a consequence, it
was the pope who granted him this title of prince.
When Louis the eighteenth died in eighteen twenty four, his
brother Charles the tenth took the throne of France, and
Charles the tenth loved Jules Armand. He had made an
(08:44):
ambassador to England for six years, and when the Prince
returned to Paris in eighteen twenty nine, the king named
him Prime Minister and as head of the French Foreign Office.
For Soyer, being hired as assistant to the head chef
for such an illustrious spigure must have seemed like a
really lucrative career move. Although it was no secret that
(09:05):
the Prince NAPOLEONAC was not popular with the people of France.
You can go ahead and prep you're sad trombone for
this one, although it is also kind of funny. Alexei
Sayer had been working for the Prime Minister for a
month when Jules Armand and Charles the Tenth made some
sweeping political moves that were incredibly unpopular. If you know
(09:27):
French history, you know what's coming. Remember, Jules Armand believed
firmly in the absolute power of the monarchy, and tensions
had been steadily rising in the French political sphere since
his appointment. On July thirty, he issued four incredibly repressive
ordinances designed by himself and Charles the Tenth to stop
(09:48):
the growth of what the two men felt were radical
elements in France's elected government. There had been no discussion
about these ordinances with the Chamber of Deputies. Charles the
Tenth believed that he had the right to govern via
ordinances as a means to entirely do away with bipartisan bickering.
This is again a very quick and dirty version of
(10:09):
all of the nuances that were going down. He'll sometimes
see these called the July Ordinances or the four Ordinances
of Saint clu because Jules Armand wrote them while at
Saint clu and then freedom of the press was revoked.
The elected legislature, which was the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved.
New elections were announced and it's changed the rules of
(10:31):
how the elections worked. These decrees were exactly as popular
as he might expect, and starting the very next day,
there were protests which led to the July Revolution. These
protests instantly impacted Alexei Soyer. His team in the kitchen
at the Prince de Polignac's home had been tasked with
cooking a massive banquet to celebrate Jules Armand and what
(10:54):
he expected was going to be the new era for France.
And while Soier and his team were prepared this feast,
a large group of enraged protesters had assembled outside of
Polignac's home and eventually they broke into the house, and
specifically they broke into the kitchen. Two of the kitchen
employees were shot. We've already mentioned the renowned charm that
(11:16):
Alexei was said to possess. This served him in this
tense situation. He started singing La Marcillas. According to Alexei's
recounting of the event. By the time this was over
the attackers were carrying him on their shoulders out into
the streets. Yeah, somehow he won them over, made it
out alive. His employer did not win over the people.
(11:40):
Protests and riots continued for several days, and on August two,
Charles the Tenth abdicated. Jules Armand was arrested, and Louis Philippe,
the Duc de Chat was installed on the throne as
Louis Philippe the First Polignac was imprisoned for several years
before being exiled, and Charles was exiled immediately. Both talk
about the transition and Swaye's life that this episode catalyzed.
(12:03):
But first you'll take a quick sponsor break. Although Alexei
Swaye seemed to come through the July Revolution still being
everybody's party pal, he also was smart enough to know
that he couldn't count on that good fortune forever. He had,
(12:26):
after all, taken a job with one of the most
hated men in France, so he took off for England.
His brother Philip had already moved there, working for one
of King George the third son, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge,
and just as had been the case when young Alexei
moved to Paris, Philippe got his baby brother a job
working alongside him. That was before Alexei started bouncing around
(12:49):
the finest houses of London as everyone clamored to hire
this fun, handsome French chef. In eighteen thirty seven, when
Alexey was twenty seven, he married an rtist from London
named Elizabeth Emma Jones, who went by Emma. She was
three years younger than Alexei, and although she was only
in her early twenties, she'd already really made a name
(13:10):
for herself. Emma's father had died when she was four.
Her mother hired a variety of teachers to handle her education,
including Belgian artist franzism New, who started giving Emma art lessons.
Emma was good at just about everything she did, but
she was exceptionally talented and drawing. According to an obituary
(13:30):
written about her many years later, her artistic talent was
so strong that her mother offered her teacher enough money
he would stop taking other pupils and focus exclusively on Emma.
She really flourished. Her art was exhibited at the Royal
Academy when she was still just a child. The two
meant when Alexei was looking for a portraitist. His inquiries
(13:52):
had led him to seek out friend Swiss Mineau, but
the Belgian said that his student could take the job instead.
He was kind of just pawning this guy off. Enter Emma,
and Alexei was pretty much instantly smitten with her. There
is a really quite darling story of their early relationship
in that Alexei had sent Emma tulips and received in return,
(14:15):
and note that she said that he had been extremely
forward in doing so. She had not asked him to
send a gift, and that the box and the flowers
were going to be returned to him the following week.
And she did send that box back, but when Alexei
opened it, expecting to see dead flowers, what he actually
saw was that she had sent him a painting of
her tulips. I love that. It's the sweetest thing I've
(14:37):
ever heard. I love it so much. The same year
that Alexei and Emma were married, Alexei started a job
at the newly formed Reform Club of London. The Reform Club,
which still exists today, was founded as a private club
for whigs and radicals who supported the Great Reform Act
of eighteen thirty two. So that act, and just the
(14:58):
quickest explainer possible, nearly doubled the number of men who
were eligible to vote in Britain, and it attempted to
address some of the corruption in the way various voting
districts were structured. It didn't do a whole lot to
help the working class, though, and it had its own problems.
That's a different show, though. I think this came up recently,
(15:20):
maybe on the Gin episode where we're talking about like
class differences and reforms that affected some people but not others.
The Reform Clubs permanent headquarters that one oh four Pall
Mall were still under renovation when Alexei was hired to
be the chef, so he gave a lot of input
to architect Charles Berry to design the kitchen to really
(15:42):
best suit his needs. And that kitchen is still famous
and it was toured almost from the moment of completion
by other chefs who wished to copy it. It had
a layout that, instead of just kind of being a
cramped area, enabled the entire staff to move about in
their duties without constantly knocking into each other. And it
(16:03):
essentially had every gadget any chef might want, because when
Soyer couldn't find something that would suit his needs, he
would just invent it. He was incredibly clever, and if
you have ever cooked on a gas stove, you can
thank Alexei Sayer. The building where the Reform Club was
housed had gas lines that have been used for gas
lighting for a number of years, and gas had already
(16:26):
been used by this point in history for roasting ovens,
but Sway had the gas lines run to the cook
top because he thought it would be beneficial to have
greater control over what he was cooking. He also ushered
in the transition from just cooking in an oven until
whatever you were working on was done to actually having
temperature gauges on stoves so that you could set up
(16:49):
a more precise food prep and know exactly how long
your food was going to take to cook. I think
we can also thank the gas industry for thanking king
on gas stoves, because they have been a big proponent
of doing that. We should also mention we're not talking
about one kitchen. We're talking about kitchens plural, because the
seller of the building where the kitchen we've been describing
(17:12):
was didn't only have food prep areas that also had
a seller wine, storage rooms for the various staff, rooms
for things could be roasted. That kept the staff from
having to stand in just a broiling kitchen. It was
really a marvel. When Queen Victoria had her coronation on
June eight, Alexei's brand new kitchen turned out breakfast for
(17:34):
two thousand club members in advance of the festivities. Yeah,
that's often pointed to is having been possible because he
had set up all of this like very structured, very
organized kitchen where he could go, no, it's gonna take
me ten minutes to make that, twenty minutes to make that,
and he could balance the whole thing perfectly. Although Alexei
(17:54):
was really having a banner time at this point in
his life, he had this new job that was great,
He had a kitchen of his dreams. He and Emma
were deeply in love. There were some tragedies ahead. His
brother Philip Sway died of consumption in eighteen forty and
two years later his beloved Emma died suddenly. She was
pregnant at the time, and the baby was also lost.
(18:17):
The story of this is a little uncertain. The lore
is that there was a particularly intense thunderstorm the night
of September one, eighteen forty two, and it had frightened
her to the point that she went into early labor
and that something went wrong. We don't actually know what
caused her death. There are certainly a lot of late
term complications. She was almost at her due date, but
(18:39):
we don't know. Alexei, to make matters worse, was away
at the time in Brussels. He thought he had time
to make this trip and get back before the baby came,
and he has described as having gone into shock when
he heard the news. Alexei chose to honor his wife's
memory through charity. Several years after her death, he staged
an exhibition called Says phil and Oropic Gallery. This was
(19:01):
filled with Emma's work. Soyer had made a habit of
purchasing any of Emma's works when they went up for sale,
so he would show them to people and talk about
her and her talent at every opportunity. The philanthropy of
the project was how the gallery profits were to be spent,
which was setting up a soup kitchen for the poor
of London. The project didn't make enough money to actually
(19:24):
get that off the ground, though no, but he did
really innovate in that area, and we'll talk about that
in just a moment. After Emma, though, Alexei did find
love again. Francesco Serrito, known more commonly by the name
Fanny Serrito, was an Italian ballerina who had trained with
Savatore Talioni and was the principal ballerina at Lascala from
(19:46):
eighteen thirty eight to eighteen forty. From eighteen forty to
eighteen forty eight, she was contracted to dance at Her
Majesty's Theater in London. In eighteen forty four she met
Alexei Soyer. The two of them were quite taken with
one another, although Alexei was not the only man who
was vying for Fanny's affections. And though Sway is famous
(20:08):
for his cookbooks, his first published work was a ballet
scene titled Laffie de Laurente, and that was very obviously
about Fanny. He also created a rather famous dessert for
her with a little mini version of his love dancing
a topic in confection. Alexei's major rival when it came
(20:28):
to Fanny's heart was Arthur san Leon, a dancer who
was her leading man. She chose the dancer when it
came to marriage. Although their relationship was rocky and they separated,
it appears that Fanny and Alexei may have rekindled their
relationship and it might have continued off and on for
the rest of his life. There are some pretty good
hints in there. There are various doings where they're in
(20:51):
the same places and whatnot, but we don't have anything
concrete to prove it. So while he was serving some
of the wealthiest people in Britain at the Reform Club,
Sway had also developed a very keen sense of duty
for feeding the needy, both in London and elsewhere. We
have talked on the show before about the Great Hunger
the Irish potato famine. While Alexei Swayer may not have
(21:12):
been aware of all the politics that had contributed to
the severity of the situation, he saw hungry people and
he felt compelled to help. After gaining attention by writing
letters to various news outlets about this issue, British Prime
Minister John Russell sent Sway to Ireland with an invitation
from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, John Ponsonby, fourth Earl
(21:33):
of Besborough. Once he got to Ireland and assessed the situation.
Thanks to a leave of absence from his job at
the Reform Club, Soyer decided to set up a soup
kitchen and to help get some nutrition to Ireland's starving population.
This is often described as the first proper soup kitchen,
not just a place where people gave away leftover food,
(21:55):
but an actual functioning kitchen where fresh food was prepared,
specifically for feeding the poor. He had concocted recipes for
the soup kitchen before he left London, and he had
tested his recipes on his wealthy and high placed friends
of England, making it clear that he thought everyone should
have food that please the palate, no matter their situation.
(22:18):
One of his recipes for famine soup includes drippings and
a pound of cubed beef sauteed with two sliced onions,
and then turnips, cell relieves and leaks are added, and
that's all sauteed a bit together, and then he adds flour,
pearl barley, salt and a little brown sugar and water
and he lets the whole thing simmer for several hours.
(22:38):
He carefully worked out the cost of making this soup
to ensure that he could in fact feed as many
people as possible, as healthily as he possibly could, for
as little money as possible. His goal had been to
feed five thousand people a day from this food counter,
but the actual reported number was closer to eight thousand,
seven hundred fifty. On the busy days, he set up
(23:01):
additional kitchens around Ireland, and once he had everything up
and running, he handed off the management of those soup
kitchens to local charity workers and returned to his job
in London in eighteen forty nine. That recipe sounds a
lot tastier than a lot of the recipes that we
talked about in our episode on home economics, and like
the the brochures and things that the government was putting
(23:24):
out in the US during the Great Depression to like
encourage people to eat cheaper foods. Yeah, this actually sounds
pretty tasty. And that when those sounded more like boil
some cabbage a lot of the times, eat your boiled cabbage.
If you like boiled cabbage, that's fine. The boiled cabbage
people are coming for you tube, they are so. Seeing
(23:48):
that additional fundings was needed for such projects, Alexei used
his fame as a chef to drum up some of
that funding. While he was still in Ireland, he wrote
and published a charity cook book that was titled Simply
Charitable Cookery. It was written entirely so that all proceeds
went to groups that aided the poor. The book's first
(24:08):
printing of ten thousand sold out so quickly that another
one hundred thousand were printed. Those were all sold within
four months. After that, new editions were printed as needed
for the next twenty years. I have in my head
this vision that the rich patrons of the Reform Club
were a lot of the people buying these books, and
(24:28):
they probably never cooked from them, but it doesn't matter
because the money went to good places. We are going
to talk about another transition in Alexei Sway's life in
just a moment, but first you will hear from the
sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going.
(24:53):
In eighteen fifty, there was a shake up at the
Reform Club. The decision was made by leadership that not
members could access the coffee room, and Alexei Swayer was incensed,
so incensed that he quit. This was not the first
time that he quit, but the head of the club,
Lord Marcus Hill had never accepted his resignation before this time.
(25:16):
The resignation was accepted, So if Alexei had been bluffing
to try to get his way get backfired. But that
is only one version of this story. The coffee room
was opened, it was really the dining room, and the
decision had been made that two days a week at lunch,
the public could come in for a meal. This may
(25:36):
well have affronted Sway his very posh private dining experience
was being turned into basically just a restaurant. But the
truth was he had been at the Reform Club for
thirteen years. During that time he'd had a variety of
clashes and reconciliations with leadership, and really it seems like
after his trip to Ireland he realized he wanted something
(25:59):
different than an his whole job. By all accounts, he
remained on great terms with Lord Marcus Hill and the
other members of the club's leadership committee. Yeah, there were
various problems. Some patrons didn't like that he acted like
they're equal and not like help, and there were complaints
about that he really did not care for social structure
(26:19):
very much at all, but also like he just didn't
put up with people being jerks, and he would tell
them off and didn't care how powerful are rich they were,
so uh, you know, not everyone can stay in service forever.
By this point, though, his notoriety is a chef and
his charitable works, his kitchen design, and his inventions had
given Alexei Soyer the leverage of pretty broad name recognition.
(26:44):
So he signed a deal with the Cross and Blackwealth
Food Company to produce a Soy, a branded line of products.
These were things like sauces and relishes, and the business
deal really benefited the food company more than Soyer, But
that doesn't seem to have been a particularly big issue
for the chef. He had done quite well for himself financially.
He got paid very well in the thirteen years that
(27:05):
he worked at the Reform Club. He didn't really ever
seem to worry about finances once he had become established
as a chef. He wasn't especially preoccupied with money unless
it was figuring out ways to finance food programs for
public assistance. And we should point out that's because he
was sitting in a place of privilege, where like he
he wasn't worried about where money was coming from. Sway
(27:27):
also capitalized on the London Exhibition of eighteen fifty one
by opening a restaurant across from Hyde Park called Sway's
Universal Symposium to All Nations. This is where he once
again invented something we probably think of as a twentieth
century novelty, and that's a restaurant where every room has
a different theme. The themes were all based on categories
(27:48):
from the expo, and Alexei developed a menu with dishes
that almost anyone could afford, as well as pricier fair
for the more well to do diners. This all sounds
kind of amazing, but it was a flop. The restaurant
had been really expensive to build, decorate, and staff, and
then after three months he had to close the doors
for good. Yeah, he really thought people were going to
(28:11):
come out of the expo, be all excited about things
and then want to eat food related to the stuff
they had just seen, which I one hundred percent am
his customer base, But apparently not everyone was, and although
the restaurant closed its books with an estimated debt of
seven thousand pounds. This is the very roughest of conversions.
(28:31):
But after looking at several different ones, I came up
with that being roughly equivalent to about seven dred and
fifty thousand dollars today, But Sway still had income. His
books and his branded foods had kept money coming in,
and he also started working as a consultant during this
time for events where large scale banquets were needed. He
only took jobs like that if the organizers of such
(28:53):
events agreed that all leftover food should be given to
the poor rather than go to waste. In eighteen fifty one,
alex He discovered that he had family he had not
known about, in the form of a son. Jean Alexey
Lama wrote to Soyer and told him that he was
the child of a woman named Adelaide Lamin, who Alexey
(29:14):
had a romance with before leaving France for England. So
I did not question this young man's word and accepted
him as his son. He visited Paris two years later
and gave Jean Alexey all of the legal rights of
an heir. La Man changed his last name to Soyer.
There's some evidence that Soyer had always known that he
(29:34):
had a son. The timing of his exit from Paris
suggests that Jean Alexey would have been born before the
chef left for London. Yeah, that's one of those. It
seems sort of mysterious, But then people are always like
he never once was like, I don't think I have
a son. Are you sure? He was like, oh, yeah,
that sounds true. So it seems like he might have known.
(29:55):
The Crimean War began in eighteen fifty three, and that
was of course a conflict with the Russian Empire on
one side, and the United Forces of Britain, France, Sardinia
and the Ottoman Empire on the other. This is another
one that's hard to parse quickly in a small paragraph
about someone's life, but there were multiple causes, including religion,
Russian expansion, and the occupation of Ottoman territories as that
(30:17):
dynasty declined. All of the combatants had their own various
reasons and motivations for participating. This is a huge topic
well outside the scope of this episode. What is Germane
to Alexei say a story is that thousands of British
troops had been sent to the Black Seat to fight,
and thousands of them landed in hospitals that were understaffed
(30:38):
and had woefully inadequate supplies. The British hospital at Scutari
had been the location where Florence Nightingale and her cadro
of nurses had gone at the end of eighteen fifty
four to try to improve conditions and medical treatment there.
But the situation they found was horrifying and dire. There
were rodent and insect infestations, and patients were sometimes sitting
(31:02):
on stretchers for days with no one to look after them.
As news of these horrific conditions were reported in the papers,
Alexei Sway read about the problems of the hospital and
he had the same desire that had led to his
time in Ireland. In early February eight fifty five, he
wrote a letter to The Times offering his services. It
(31:24):
read quote to the Editor of the Times, Sir, after
carefully perusing the letter of your correspondent, dated Scutari in
your impression of Wednesday last, I perceived that although the
kitchen under the superintendence of Miss Nightingale affords so much relief,
the system of management at the large one in the
Barrack hospital is far from being perfect. I propose offering
(31:47):
my services gratuitously and proceeding directly to Scutari at my
own personal expense to regulate that important department. If the
government will honor me with their confidence and grant me
the full power of acting according to my knowledge and
experience in such matters, I have the honor to remain, Sir,
your obedient servant. A si A, February second, eighteen fifty five.
(32:11):
And soon, with the help of influential and wealthy friends,
Alexei had gained permission and authority to do as he
asked to travel to Crimea and do whatever he felt
necessary to improve the hospital kitchens and the nutritional care
of British and French troops. When he arrived, it was
apparent to him almost instantly that they could cut back
(32:32):
on illness simply by having good food that was properly prepared,
because some of the soldiers were falling ill without ever
having been in combat, just due to malnutrition. Reports of
Sway's efforts in Crimea describe him in a number of
fascinating ways. One ambassador's wife wrote to Queen Victoria that
the chef quote has done much good in the kitchens.
(32:53):
He is a most ridiculous man, but quite perfect in
his way. He was well liked by the people. He
were twin Crimea, and he and Florence Mattingale collaborated as
they traveled from hospital to hospital, assessing each one and
improving things and whatever way they could manage. Swayer was
we should mention, and we kind of referenced this earlier
(33:15):
an inventor, and that was part of what made him
able to set up kitchens in places that began essentially
with nothing. Throughout his work, he had done things like
cook on a little mini stove that was powered by gas.
It was something he called a magic stove, and he
had been working on an apparatus that would come to
be known as the sway A Field stove, which existed
(33:35):
for a very long time. This was a portable stove
that was comprised of what looks like a large metal
drum that sat atop a burner, and on top of
it you could place a large cauldron to cook food
in mass quantities. This stove was incredibly durable. You could
use it indoors or out and it would work even
an inclement weather. So I had intended to bring some
(33:57):
of his stoves with him, and he did bring some,
but only ten. That was far short of the four
hundred he had hoped would be ready when he left London,
but he may do in some locations. He had to
design and build structures that could house cooking spaces and
keep the supplies safe from the elements. He arranged that
each regiment had a trained cook, not one of the
(34:19):
men on cooking duty, but someone whose sole responsibility was
beating everyone. He also invented two different types of field
rations that could keep for longer than standard rations and
were more nutritionally balanced than what the soldiers had been getting.
Blood was a dried and seasoned vegetable cake, and the
other was a biscuit made using pea flour that he
(34:41):
said could be quote soaked in tea, coffee or soup. And,
according to some accounts, including those of famous figure Mary Sekel,
the British Jamaican proprietor of the so called British Hotel
of the Crimean War, Alexei Sowayer retained that part of
himself that had always been the convivial life of the party.
Though se Coel was associated in the writings of Florence
(35:03):
Nightingale with kindness as well as quote drunkenness and improper conduct,
her business, which Sequel described as quote a mess table
and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers. Was kind
of the perfect place for Swaye to find some respite
in what was surely a stressful and harrowing trip. Sequel
(35:23):
called Alexei Quote the Great High Priest in the Mysteries
of Cookery, and described him as good natured and always
a source of fun. I think if you're gonna think
about Florence Nightingale's writing about anyone who was not white,
you're gonna get you need to take into consideration that
she had some racist views. Swaye came down with a
(35:46):
bacterial infection, which was debilitating. During this he spent weeks
in bed. He never fully recovered, but he did return
to the various camps where his stoves had been delivered
to make sure the cooks knew how to set them
up and use them. He almost certainly pushed himself too hard,
including serving dinner parties where he could. When the war
(36:06):
ended in eighteen fifty six, he of course wanted to
serve up a huge party After a stopping Constantinople, Swaye
finally returned to London in the late spring of eighteen
fifty seven, but though he tried to basically go back
to his usual lifestyle. After returning home, Saya was clearly
weakened by his illness, and he continued to decline. He
(36:27):
just never got better. He died on August five, eighteen
fifty eight, and he was buried next to his wife.
He left the artwork of Emma's that he had collected
over the years to the National Gallery, and a portrait
that she made of him is still on display at
the Reform Club. I'm glad you did this one, me too,
not somebody I knew about at all. Do you have
(36:49):
a listener mail? I do, and since we were talking
about someone who made his living making food, I thought
we would have a food related listener mail. This is
our listener, Rob, who says I was tempted to write
in based on the pie episode, but I didn't think
my comments were pie related enough, but the minnisode put
me over the top. I have a signature dessert that
(37:10):
is less a pie than a pumpkin pie inspired dump cake.
I learned it as something called the Great Pie Dessert.
I started calling it upside down pumpkin pie, and after
I started sharing with some friends on Broadway, it was
renamed pumpkin crack. The name is how it has been
known by at least four different shows as people have
moved from production to production before the shutdown. One show
(37:31):
almost had a standing order for it. Sadly, COVID protocols
means that they cannot accept homemade goods at the stage
door or shows that do require they be individually wrapped.
That is beyond my talent level anyway. Attached as the
recipe with my modifications, and also a picture I got
with Tracy when I recognized her at the off Broadway
production of Puffs while you were both in town for
(37:51):
New York Comic um. Also, he writes, oh, two Christmases ago,
my sister and I updated our only cookbook. Next time
I go visit, I will grab two to send you, folks.
It is clearly my family's cookbook, as our chapters do
not follow the progressions of a meal like many do. Instead,
we start with the important recipes and have chapters for cakes, cookies, puddings,
(38:14):
in candy and pies. Rob this is amazing um for
our listeners. I will also, just as I did back
when we got the amazing meat loaf recipe, I will
ask if he's okay with us sharing this on like
our social channels, Um, because I'm making it, haven't made
it yet, but um, this is going to be perhaps
(38:37):
my downfall. I don't know, We'll see it. Sounds amazing
and I can see why people want it all the time.
So thank you for answering my call of people to
send us recipes for deligious things. And it seemed like
exactly the right thing to discuss while we were discussing
Alexei Saye, who loved sharing food with people. If you
would like to write to us, you could do so
(38:58):
in History Podcast and I heart radio dot com, and
you can find us on social media, where, hopefully, with
Rob's permission, we will share that recipe. And if you
have not yet subscribed to the show, you can do
that on the I heart Radio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you missed in History
(39:19):
Class is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And today's
topic came about because of our episode on pies. In
(00:22):
that episode, we talked about chef Alexei Soyer, who became
a very well known chef both in France and in England,
and the many recipes for pies that he included in
his cookbooks, and how he was always pretty happy to
embrace new methods for cooking if he thought they would
benefit his work. He was one of the first chefs
to be like, y'all pie tins, they're great. There was
(00:46):
also an incident in his life that I had seen
mentioned in one of the articles I used while I
was researching pie that made me certain I wanted to
learn more about him because it was a wild story,
hard to verify it, it it sure is told over and over.
So we're going to talk about it and some of
the things because his life is very fascinating, sometimes wild,
(01:09):
often innovative, and we're just going to talk about Alexei
say today. So Alexei ben was Saya's early life is
very cloudy. As we talk about it, keep in mind
that most of what we do know about his youth
is not from any records or even from Alexei's own recollections.
It's from several friends who published memoirs of Alexei Soyer
(01:32):
after his death, was based on notes from his life
and anecdotes that he had told them. So it's like
things they heard maybe from him. Yes, maybe His friend
and secretary friend Sis Voila, assembled most of this, although
they had a falling out before Souy's death, and today
(01:52):
historians recognize that this memoir includes a lot of tall tales,
a lot of inaccuracies. Some of these may have been
included out of spite by his friends over disagreements that
had come up among them during Sway's lifetime. I I
can't fault somebody for, you know, things that happen after
(02:13):
they die. But maybe don't have your freenemies right your memoir. Well,
I don't think he intended to, That's what I'm saying. Yeah,
he um. You know, he had secretaries that he employed
throughout his life, many of whom had been his friends,
and so you know he was They were keeping general
records of stuff but yeah, there's a definite shift that
(02:34):
happens in the larger part of the twentieth century. Any
accounts of his life are based on those memoirs, and
so there's a propagation of some of those falsehoods. And
then things start to shift when more biographers and historians
get better access to records and can cross check things.
But there's still some mysteries. So Alexei's birth certificate lists
(02:59):
his date of birth as February four, eighteen ten, although
that biography mentioned above states that it was October of
the preceding year. There is some theory that he may
not have known his own birthday, or he had just
picked a different day. He was born in Mombri and
his parents were Emery and Madeleine Soire, and the Swis
(03:19):
were quite poor. They had had a shop earlier in
their marriage, a little grocery that did okay for a while,
but it failed before Alexei was born, and Emory at
that point was earning money as a laborer. Alexei had
two older brothers, Philippe born in sevent and Louis born
in eighteen o one. Emery and Madeleine had had two
other children between Louis and Alexei, but those two babies
(03:43):
did not survive. According to the memoir, Emery and Madeleine
had a plan in mind for their youngest son's future,
and that was a life in the clergy. But he
was so ill behaved at his school that he got
kicked out. We do not know if that is true,
and there's also been speculation that the family may have
really been Protestant rather than Catholic, or possibly Jewish. That's
(04:05):
based on the rarity of the family name and the
fact that it matches only with that of Russian Jews
that have been identified by historians. The story of the
misbehaving choir boy being kicked out of the cathedral was
one that Sway himself told people, so this may have
been truth, may have been an invention, right. This is
(04:26):
also a time we've talked about on the show before
when like France, heavily Catholic, like that was the societal norm,
so that may have been part of why he kind
of concocted this story. Alexei's older brother Philip had become
a cook in in eighty one. Alexei moved to Paris
to learn that trade from him, something neither brother was
(04:46):
particularly enthused about Alexei, who was a kid at this time,
wanted to be an actor, not a cook. Philipp had
no desire to babysit his roombunctious little brother, but they
did manage to work through their initial issue us and
when Alexei became an apprentice at the restaurant where Philippe
worked in TV near Versailles. Apparently, once Alexei actually got
(05:09):
into the kitchen and focus a little bit, he was
really good at cooking. Keep in mind though he was
still very much a kid. He was only eleven at
the time that he moved to Paris, if we were
going by that February eighteen ten birthdate. After a five
year apprenticeship, Alexei was hired to work in Paris eatery
(05:29):
was called Dui, and obviously he was still just a
teenager of sixteen. Soon he was moved up to the
position of second cook and then was running the kitchen.
There was a staff of twelve under him. He stayed
at DWI for three years, fine tuning his abilities. Biographer
Ruth Brandon makes a point in her book The People's
(05:50):
Chef that say found in the structure of a restaurant
a stage where he the chef, could fulfill his dreams
of performing. It was just on a different stage than
what he had envisioned as a boy. He does seem
to have been the perfect match for the still relatively
new restaurant scene of Paris. The city's first restaurant, Champ
(06:11):
DUIs Out, had opened in the seventeen sixties, and the
idea of Paris as the global epicenter of culinary excellence
had quickly been established. Yeah, he got to, you know,
perform in front of guests, essentially performed for his staff.
He sort of loved the whole thing, and while he
was at duty, Alexey was trusted with more and more duties,
(06:32):
including making catering deliveries. Because he was, by all accounts,
very handsome, incredibly charming, and also really outgoing, he would
often end up becoming part of whatever party the restaurant
had cooked for as he waited for the dishes to
be emptied throughout the event so that he could carry
them back to be washed. One such incident allegedly ended
(06:54):
with sway A passing out on the way home. He
had had a lot to drink and waking up without
the restaurants serving tray and without his pants. This led
to the young chef being given a nickname in the
Paris papers, the Enfon Terrible of Montmartre. So it seems
to have had a really good time throughout the eighteen twenties.
(07:15):
He was a popular chef that clients loved to party with,
and he clearly enjoyed that life. There's a poem in
his memoirs which relays various images of Paris nightlife, and
that ends with the stanza, which is translated as quote,
but hark in the city of the morning, belt holes
and workmen grab coffee and hot buttered rolls. The hammer
(07:37):
and tongs have their work to pursue, But I hurried
to bed. There's sleeping to do. When Alexei was twenty,
he was hired away from Due by the kitchen of
the Prince de Polignac Jules Armand. Armand was an ultra royalist,
so his story get ready is pretty rocky. He was
exiled to England during the French Revolution and he was
(07:58):
imprisoned for nine years when he returned into France, those
years of imprisonment being eighteen o four to eighteen thirteen
for his participation in a plot to assassinate Napoleon. Once
Napoleon abdicated in eighteen fourteen and Louis the eighteenth was
restored to the throne, Jules Armand became a peer under
the re establishment of peerage in the Charter of eighteen fourteen,
(08:20):
and Jules Armand raised concerns at that time that the
constitutional oath that came with that peerage was disparaging the
Catholic Church and the papacy, and as a consequence, it
was the pope who granted him this title of prince.
When Louis the eighteenth died in eighteen twenty four, his
brother Charles the tenth took the throne of France, and
Charles the tenth loved Jules Armand. He had made an
(08:44):
ambassador to England for six years, and when the Prince
returned to Paris in eighteen twenty nine, the king named
him Prime Minister and as head of the French Foreign Office.
For Soyer, being hired as assistant to the head chef
for such an illustrious spigure must have seemed like a
really lucrative career move. Although it was no secret that
(09:05):
the Prince NAPOLEONAC was not popular with the people of France.
You can go ahead and prep you're sad trombone for
this one, although it is also kind of funny. Alexei
Sayer had been working for the Prime Minister for a
month when Jules Armand and Charles the Tenth made some
sweeping political moves that were incredibly unpopular. If you know
(09:27):
French history, you know what's coming. Remember, Jules Armand believed
firmly in the absolute power of the monarchy, and tensions
had been steadily rising in the French political sphere since
his appointment. On July thirty, he issued four incredibly repressive
ordinances designed by himself and Charles the Tenth to stop
(09:48):
the growth of what the two men felt were radical
elements in France's elected government. There had been no discussion
about these ordinances with the Chamber of Deputies. Charles the
Tenth believed that he had the right to govern via
ordinances as a means to entirely do away with bipartisan bickering.
This is again a very quick and dirty version of
(10:09):
all of the nuances that were going down. He'll sometimes
see these called the July Ordinances or the four Ordinances
of Saint clu because Jules Armand wrote them while at
Saint clu and then freedom of the press was revoked.
The elected legislature, which was the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved.
New elections were announced and it's changed the rules of
(10:31):
how the elections worked. These decrees were exactly as popular
as he might expect, and starting the very next day,
there were protests which led to the July Revolution. These
protests instantly impacted Alexei Soyer. His team in the kitchen
at the Prince de Polignac's home had been tasked with
cooking a massive banquet to celebrate Jules Armand and what
(10:54):
he expected was going to be the new era for France.
And while Soier and his team were prepared this feast,
a large group of enraged protesters had assembled outside of
Polignac's home and eventually they broke into the house, and
specifically they broke into the kitchen. Two of the kitchen
employees were shot. We've already mentioned the renowned charm that
(11:16):
Alexei was said to possess. This served him in this
tense situation. He started singing La Marcillas. According to Alexei's
recounting of the event. By the time this was over
the attackers were carrying him on their shoulders out into
the streets. Yeah, somehow he won them over, made it
out alive. His employer did not win over the people.
(11:40):
Protests and riots continued for several days, and on August two,
Charles the Tenth abdicated. Jules Armand was arrested, and Louis Philippe,
the Duc de Chat was installed on the throne as
Louis Philippe the First Polignac was imprisoned for several years
before being exiled, and Charles was exiled immediately. Both talk
about the transition and Swaye's life that this episode catalyzed.
(12:03):
But first you'll take a quick sponsor break. Although Alexei
Swaye seemed to come through the July Revolution still being
everybody's party pal, he also was smart enough to know
that he couldn't count on that good fortune forever. He had,
(12:26):
after all, taken a job with one of the most
hated men in France, so he took off for England.
His brother Philip had already moved there, working for one
of King George the third son, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge,
and just as had been the case when young Alexei
moved to Paris, Philippe got his baby brother a job
working alongside him. That was before Alexei started bouncing around
(12:49):
the finest houses of London as everyone clamored to hire
this fun, handsome French chef. In eighteen thirty seven, when
Alexey was twenty seven, he married an rtist from London
named Elizabeth Emma Jones, who went by Emma. She was
three years younger than Alexei, and although she was only
in her early twenties, she'd already really made a name
(13:10):
for herself. Emma's father had died when she was four.
Her mother hired a variety of teachers to handle her education,
including Belgian artist franzism New, who started giving Emma art lessons.
Emma was good at just about everything she did, but
she was exceptionally talented and drawing. According to an obituary
(13:30):
written about her many years later, her artistic talent was
so strong that her mother offered her teacher enough money
he would stop taking other pupils and focus exclusively on Emma.
She really flourished. Her art was exhibited at the Royal
Academy when she was still just a child. The two
meant when Alexei was looking for a portraitist. His inquiries
(13:52):
had led him to seek out friend Swiss Mineau, but
the Belgian said that his student could take the job instead.
He was kind of just pawning this guy off. Enter Emma,
and Alexei was pretty much instantly smitten with her. There
is a really quite darling story of their early relationship
in that Alexei had sent Emma tulips and received in return,
(14:15):
and note that she said that he had been extremely
forward in doing so. She had not asked him to
send a gift, and that the box and the flowers
were going to be returned to him the following week.
And she did send that box back, but when Alexei
opened it, expecting to see dead flowers, what he actually
saw was that she had sent him a painting of
her tulips. I love that. It's the sweetest thing I've
(14:37):
ever heard. I love it so much. The same year
that Alexei and Emma were married, Alexei started a job
at the newly formed Reform Club of London. The Reform Club,
which still exists today, was founded as a private club
for whigs and radicals who supported the Great Reform Act
of eighteen thirty two. So that act, and just the
(14:58):
quickest explainer possible, nearly doubled the number of men who
were eligible to vote in Britain, and it attempted to
address some of the corruption in the way various voting
districts were structured. It didn't do a whole lot to
help the working class, though, and it had its own problems.
That's a different show, though. I think this came up recently,
(15:20):
maybe on the Gin episode where we're talking about like
class differences and reforms that affected some people but not others.
The Reform Clubs permanent headquarters that one oh four Pall
Mall were still under renovation when Alexei was hired to
be the chef, so he gave a lot of input
to architect Charles Berry to design the kitchen to really
(15:42):
best suit his needs. And that kitchen is still famous
and it was toured almost from the moment of completion
by other chefs who wished to copy it. It had
a layout that, instead of just kind of being a
cramped area, enabled the entire staff to move about in
their duties without constantly knocking into each other. And it
(16:03):
essentially had every gadget any chef might want, because when
Soyer couldn't find something that would suit his needs, he
would just invent it. He was incredibly clever, and if
you have ever cooked on a gas stove, you can
thank Alexei Sayer. The building where the Reform Club was
housed had gas lines that have been used for gas
lighting for a number of years, and gas had already
(16:26):
been used by this point in history for roasting ovens,
but Sway had the gas lines run to the cook
top because he thought it would be beneficial to have
greater control over what he was cooking. He also ushered
in the transition from just cooking in an oven until
whatever you were working on was done to actually having
temperature gauges on stoves so that you could set up
(16:49):
a more precise food prep and know exactly how long
your food was going to take to cook. I think
we can also thank the gas industry for thanking king
on gas stoves, because they have been a big proponent
of doing that. We should also mention we're not talking
about one kitchen. We're talking about kitchens plural, because the
seller of the building where the kitchen we've been describing
(17:12):
was didn't only have food prep areas that also had
a seller wine, storage rooms for the various staff, rooms
for things could be roasted. That kept the staff from
having to stand in just a broiling kitchen. It was
really a marvel. When Queen Victoria had her coronation on
June eight, Alexei's brand new kitchen turned out breakfast for
(17:34):
two thousand club members in advance of the festivities. Yeah,
that's often pointed to is having been possible because he
had set up all of this like very structured, very
organized kitchen where he could go, no, it's gonna take
me ten minutes to make that, twenty minutes to make that,
and he could balance the whole thing perfectly. Although Alexei
(17:54):
was really having a banner time at this point in
his life, he had this new job that was great,
He had a kitchen of his dreams. He and Emma
were deeply in love. There were some tragedies ahead. His
brother Philip Sway died of consumption in eighteen forty and
two years later his beloved Emma died suddenly. She was
pregnant at the time, and the baby was also lost.
(18:17):
The story of this is a little uncertain. The lore
is that there was a particularly intense thunderstorm the night
of September one, eighteen forty two, and it had frightened
her to the point that she went into early labor
and that something went wrong. We don't actually know what
caused her death. There are certainly a lot of late
term complications. She was almost at her due date, but
(18:39):
we don't know. Alexei, to make matters worse, was away
at the time in Brussels. He thought he had time
to make this trip and get back before the baby came,
and he has described as having gone into shock when
he heard the news. Alexei chose to honor his wife's
memory through charity. Several years after her death, he staged
an exhibition called Says phil and Oropic Gallery. This was
(19:01):
filled with Emma's work. Soyer had made a habit of
purchasing any of Emma's works when they went up for sale,
so he would show them to people and talk about
her and her talent at every opportunity. The philanthropy of
the project was how the gallery profits were to be spent,
which was setting up a soup kitchen for the poor
of London. The project didn't make enough money to actually
(19:24):
get that off the ground, though no, but he did
really innovate in that area, and we'll talk about that
in just a moment. After Emma, though, Alexei did find
love again. Francesco Serrito, known more commonly by the name
Fanny Serrito, was an Italian ballerina who had trained with
Savatore Talioni and was the principal ballerina at Lascala from
(19:46):
eighteen thirty eight to eighteen forty. From eighteen forty to
eighteen forty eight, she was contracted to dance at Her
Majesty's Theater in London. In eighteen forty four she met
Alexei Soyer. The two of them were quite taken with
one another, although Alexei was not the only man who
was vying for Fanny's affections. And though Sway is famous
(20:08):
for his cookbooks, his first published work was a ballet
scene titled Laffie de Laurente, and that was very obviously
about Fanny. He also created a rather famous dessert for
her with a little mini version of his love dancing
a topic in confection. Alexei's major rival when it came
(20:28):
to Fanny's heart was Arthur san Leon, a dancer who
was her leading man. She chose the dancer when it
came to marriage. Although their relationship was rocky and they separated,
it appears that Fanny and Alexei may have rekindled their
relationship and it might have continued off and on for
the rest of his life. There are some pretty good
hints in there. There are various doings where they're in
(20:51):
the same places and whatnot, but we don't have anything
concrete to prove it. So while he was serving some
of the wealthiest people in Britain at the Reform Club,
Sway had also developed a very keen sense of duty
for feeding the needy, both in London and elsewhere. We
have talked on the show before about the Great Hunger
the Irish potato famine. While Alexei Swayer may not have
(21:12):
been aware of all the politics that had contributed to
the severity of the situation, he saw hungry people and
he felt compelled to help. After gaining attention by writing
letters to various news outlets about this issue, British Prime
Minister John Russell sent Sway to Ireland with an invitation
from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, John Ponsonby, fourth Earl
(21:33):
of Besborough. Once he got to Ireland and assessed the situation.
Thanks to a leave of absence from his job at
the Reform Club, Soyer decided to set up a soup
kitchen and to help get some nutrition to Ireland's starving population.
This is often described as the first proper soup kitchen,
not just a place where people gave away leftover food,
(21:55):
but an actual functioning kitchen where fresh food was prepared,
specifically for feeding the poor. He had concocted recipes for
the soup kitchen before he left London, and he had
tested his recipes on his wealthy and high placed friends
of England, making it clear that he thought everyone should
have food that please the palate, no matter their situation.
(22:18):
One of his recipes for famine soup includes drippings and
a pound of cubed beef sauteed with two sliced onions,
and then turnips, cell relieves and leaks are added, and
that's all sauteed a bit together, and then he adds flour,
pearl barley, salt and a little brown sugar and water
and he lets the whole thing simmer for several hours.
(22:38):
He carefully worked out the cost of making this soup
to ensure that he could in fact feed as many
people as possible, as healthily as he possibly could, for
as little money as possible. His goal had been to
feed five thousand people a day from this food counter,
but the actual reported number was closer to eight thousand,
seven hundred fifty. On the busy days, he set up
(23:01):
additional kitchens around Ireland, and once he had everything up
and running, he handed off the management of those soup
kitchens to local charity workers and returned to his job
in London in eighteen forty nine. That recipe sounds a
lot tastier than a lot of the recipes that we
talked about in our episode on home economics, and like
the the brochures and things that the government was putting
(23:24):
out in the US during the Great Depression to like
encourage people to eat cheaper foods. Yeah, this actually sounds
pretty tasty. And that when those sounded more like boil
some cabbage a lot of the times, eat your boiled cabbage.
If you like boiled cabbage, that's fine. The boiled cabbage
people are coming for you tube, they are so. Seeing
(23:48):
that additional fundings was needed for such projects, Alexei used
his fame as a chef to drum up some of
that funding. While he was still in Ireland, he wrote
and published a charity cook book that was titled Simply
Charitable Cookery. It was written entirely so that all proceeds
went to groups that aided the poor. The book's first
(24:08):
printing of ten thousand sold out so quickly that another
one hundred thousand were printed. Those were all sold within
four months. After that, new editions were printed as needed
for the next twenty years. I have in my head
this vision that the rich patrons of the Reform Club
were a lot of the people buying these books, and
(24:28):
they probably never cooked from them, but it doesn't matter
because the money went to good places. We are going
to talk about another transition in Alexei Sway's life in
just a moment, but first you will hear from the
sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going.
(24:53):
In eighteen fifty, there was a shake up at the
Reform Club. The decision was made by leadership that not
members could access the coffee room, and Alexei Swayer was incensed,
so incensed that he quit. This was not the first
time that he quit, but the head of the club,
Lord Marcus Hill had never accepted his resignation before this time.
(25:16):
The resignation was accepted, So if Alexei had been bluffing
to try to get his way get backfired. But that
is only one version of this story. The coffee room
was opened, it was really the dining room, and the
decision had been made that two days a week at lunch,
the public could come in for a meal. This may
(25:36):
well have affronted Sway his very posh private dining experience
was being turned into basically just a restaurant. But the
truth was he had been at the Reform Club for
thirteen years. During that time he'd had a variety of
clashes and reconciliations with leadership, and really it seems like
after his trip to Ireland he realized he wanted something
(25:59):
different than an his whole job. By all accounts, he
remained on great terms with Lord Marcus Hill and the
other members of the club's leadership committee. Yeah, there were
various problems. Some patrons didn't like that he acted like
they're equal and not like help, and there were complaints
about that he really did not care for social structure
(26:19):
very much at all, but also like he just didn't
put up with people being jerks, and he would tell
them off and didn't care how powerful are rich they were,
so uh, you know, not everyone can stay in service forever.
By this point, though, his notoriety is a chef and
his charitable works, his kitchen design, and his inventions had
given Alexei Soyer the leverage of pretty broad name recognition.
(26:44):
So he signed a deal with the Cross and Blackwealth
Food Company to produce a Soy, a branded line of products.
These were things like sauces and relishes, and the business
deal really benefited the food company more than Soyer, But
that doesn't seem to have been a particularly big issue
for the chef. He had done quite well for himself financially.
He got paid very well in the thirteen years that
(27:05):
he worked at the Reform Club. He didn't really ever
seem to worry about finances once he had become established
as a chef. He wasn't especially preoccupied with money unless
it was figuring out ways to finance food programs for
public assistance. And we should point out that's because he
was sitting in a place of privilege, where like he
he wasn't worried about where money was coming from. Sway
(27:27):
also capitalized on the London Exhibition of eighteen fifty one
by opening a restaurant across from Hyde Park called Sway's
Universal Symposium to All Nations. This is where he once
again invented something we probably think of as a twentieth
century novelty, and that's a restaurant where every room has
a different theme. The themes were all based on categories
(27:48):
from the expo, and Alexei developed a menu with dishes
that almost anyone could afford, as well as pricier fair
for the more well to do diners. This all sounds
kind of amazing, but it was a flop. The restaurant
had been really expensive to build, decorate, and staff, and
then after three months he had to close the doors
for good. Yeah, he really thought people were going to
(28:11):
come out of the expo, be all excited about things
and then want to eat food related to the stuff
they had just seen, which I one hundred percent am
his customer base, But apparently not everyone was, and although
the restaurant closed its books with an estimated debt of
seven thousand pounds. This is the very roughest of conversions.
(28:31):
But after looking at several different ones, I came up
with that being roughly equivalent to about seven dred and
fifty thousand dollars today, But Sway still had income. His
books and his branded foods had kept money coming in,
and he also started working as a consultant during this
time for events where large scale banquets were needed. He
only took jobs like that if the organizers of such
(28:53):
events agreed that all leftover food should be given to
the poor rather than go to waste. In eighteen fifty one,
alex He discovered that he had family he had not
known about, in the form of a son. Jean Alexey
Lama wrote to Soyer and told him that he was
the child of a woman named Adelaide Lamin, who Alexey
(29:14):
had a romance with before leaving France for England. So
I did not question this young man's word and accepted
him as his son. He visited Paris two years later
and gave Jean Alexey all of the legal rights of
an heir. La Man changed his last name to Soyer.
There's some evidence that Soyer had always known that he
(29:34):
had a son. The timing of his exit from Paris
suggests that Jean Alexey would have been born before the
chef left for London. Yeah, that's one of those. It
seems sort of mysterious, But then people are always like
he never once was like, I don't think I have
a son. Are you sure? He was like, oh, yeah,
that sounds true. So it seems like he might have known.
(29:55):
The Crimean War began in eighteen fifty three, and that
was of course a conflict with the Russian Empire on
one side, and the United Forces of Britain, France, Sardinia
and the Ottoman Empire on the other. This is another
one that's hard to parse quickly in a small paragraph
about someone's life, but there were multiple causes, including religion,
Russian expansion, and the occupation of Ottoman territories as that
(30:17):
dynasty declined. All of the combatants had their own various
reasons and motivations for participating. This is a huge topic
well outside the scope of this episode. What is Germane
to Alexei say a story is that thousands of British
troops had been sent to the Black Seat to fight,
and thousands of them landed in hospitals that were understaffed
(30:38):
and had woefully inadequate supplies. The British hospital at Scutari
had been the location where Florence Nightingale and her cadro
of nurses had gone at the end of eighteen fifty
four to try to improve conditions and medical treatment there.
But the situation they found was horrifying and dire. There
were rodent and insect infestations, and patients were sometimes sitting
(31:02):
on stretchers for days with no one to look after them.
As news of these horrific conditions were reported in the papers,
Alexei Sway read about the problems of the hospital and
he had the same desire that had led to his
time in Ireland. In early February eight fifty five, he
wrote a letter to The Times offering his services. It
(31:24):
read quote to the Editor of the Times, Sir, after
carefully perusing the letter of your correspondent, dated Scutari in
your impression of Wednesday last, I perceived that although the
kitchen under the superintendence of Miss Nightingale affords so much relief,
the system of management at the large one in the
Barrack hospital is far from being perfect. I propose offering
(31:47):
my services gratuitously and proceeding directly to Scutari at my
own personal expense to regulate that important department. If the
government will honor me with their confidence and grant me
the full power of acting according to my knowledge and
experience in such matters, I have the honor to remain, Sir,
your obedient servant. A si A, February second, eighteen fifty five.
(32:11):
And soon, with the help of influential and wealthy friends,
Alexei had gained permission and authority to do as he
asked to travel to Crimea and do whatever he felt
necessary to improve the hospital kitchens and the nutritional care
of British and French troops. When he arrived, it was
apparent to him almost instantly that they could cut back
(32:32):
on illness simply by having good food that was properly prepared,
because some of the soldiers were falling ill without ever
having been in combat, just due to malnutrition. Reports of
Sway's efforts in Crimea describe him in a number of
fascinating ways. One ambassador's wife wrote to Queen Victoria that
the chef quote has done much good in the kitchens.
(32:53):
He is a most ridiculous man, but quite perfect in
his way. He was well liked by the people. He
were twin Crimea, and he and Florence Mattingale collaborated as
they traveled from hospital to hospital, assessing each one and
improving things and whatever way they could manage. Swayer was
we should mention, and we kind of referenced this earlier
(33:15):
an inventor, and that was part of what made him
able to set up kitchens in places that began essentially
with nothing. Throughout his work, he had done things like
cook on a little mini stove that was powered by gas.
It was something he called a magic stove, and he
had been working on an apparatus that would come to
be known as the sway A Field stove, which existed
(33:35):
for a very long time. This was a portable stove
that was comprised of what looks like a large metal
drum that sat atop a burner, and on top of
it you could place a large cauldron to cook food
in mass quantities. This stove was incredibly durable. You could
use it indoors or out and it would work even
an inclement weather. So I had intended to bring some
(33:57):
of his stoves with him, and he did bring some,
but only ten. That was far short of the four
hundred he had hoped would be ready when he left London,
but he may do in some locations. He had to
design and build structures that could house cooking spaces and
keep the supplies safe from the elements. He arranged that
each regiment had a trained cook, not one of the
(34:19):
men on cooking duty, but someone whose sole responsibility was
beating everyone. He also invented two different types of field
rations that could keep for longer than standard rations and
were more nutritionally balanced than what the soldiers had been getting.
Blood was a dried and seasoned vegetable cake, and the
other was a biscuit made using pea flour that he
(34:41):
said could be quote soaked in tea, coffee or soup. And,
according to some accounts, including those of famous figure Mary Sekel,
the British Jamaican proprietor of the so called British Hotel
of the Crimean War, Alexei Sowayer retained that part of
himself that had always been the convivial life of the party.
Though se Coel was associated in the writings of Florence
(35:03):
Nightingale with kindness as well as quote drunkenness and improper conduct,
her business, which Sequel described as quote a mess table
and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers. Was kind
of the perfect place for Swaye to find some respite
in what was surely a stressful and harrowing trip. Sequel
(35:23):
called Alexei Quote the Great High Priest in the Mysteries
of Cookery, and described him as good natured and always
a source of fun. I think if you're gonna think
about Florence Nightingale's writing about anyone who was not white,
you're gonna get you need to take into consideration that
she had some racist views. Swaye came down with a
(35:46):
bacterial infection, which was debilitating. During this he spent weeks
in bed. He never fully recovered, but he did return
to the various camps where his stoves had been delivered
to make sure the cooks knew how to set them
up and use them. He almost certainly pushed himself too hard,
including serving dinner parties where he could. When the war
(36:06):
ended in eighteen fifty six, he of course wanted to
serve up a huge party After a stopping Constantinople, Swaye
finally returned to London in the late spring of eighteen
fifty seven, but though he tried to basically go back
to his usual lifestyle. After returning home, Saya was clearly
weakened by his illness, and he continued to decline. He
(36:27):
just never got better. He died on August five, eighteen
fifty eight, and he was buried next to his wife.
He left the artwork of Emma's that he had collected
over the years to the National Gallery, and a portrait
that she made of him is still on display at
the Reform Club. I'm glad you did this one, me too,
not somebody I knew about at all. Do you have
(36:49):
a listener mail? I do, and since we were talking
about someone who made his living making food, I thought
we would have a food related listener mail. This is
our listener, Rob, who says I was tempted to write
in based on the pie episode, but I didn't think
my comments were pie related enough, but the minnisode put
me over the top. I have a signature dessert that
(37:10):
is less a pie than a pumpkin pie inspired dump cake.
I learned it as something called the Great Pie Dessert.
I started calling it upside down pumpkin pie, and after
I started sharing with some friends on Broadway, it was
renamed pumpkin crack. The name is how it has been
known by at least four different shows as people have
moved from production to production before the shutdown. One show
(37:31):
almost had a standing order for it. Sadly, COVID protocols
means that they cannot accept homemade goods at the stage
door or shows that do require they be individually wrapped.
That is beyond my talent level anyway. Attached as the
recipe with my modifications, and also a picture I got
with Tracy when I recognized her at the off Broadway
production of Puffs while you were both in town for
(37:51):
New York Comic um. Also, he writes, oh, two Christmases ago,
my sister and I updated our only cookbook. Next time
I go visit, I will grab two to send you, folks.
It is clearly my family's cookbook, as our chapters do
not follow the progressions of a meal like many do. Instead,
we start with the important recipes and have chapters for cakes, cookies, puddings,
(38:14):
in candy and pies. Rob this is amazing um for
our listeners. I will also, just as I did back
when we got the amazing meat loaf recipe, I will
ask if he's okay with us sharing this on like
our social channels, Um, because I'm making it, haven't made
it yet, but um, this is going to be perhaps
(38:37):
my downfall. I don't know, We'll see it. Sounds amazing
and I can see why people want it all the time.
So thank you for answering my call of people to
send us recipes for deligious things. And it seemed like
exactly the right thing to discuss while we were discussing
Alexei Saye, who loved sharing food with people. If you
would like to write to us, you could do so
(38:58):
in History Podcast and I heart radio dot com, and
you can find us on social media, where, hopefully, with
Rob's permission, we will share that recipe. And if you
have not yet subscribed to the show, you can do
that on the I heart Radio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you missed in History
(39:19):
Class is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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