Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we are officially into fall and winter at least in
Speaker 1: our hemisphere. Yep. Uh, and it for a lot of cultures.
Speaker 1: This is this season where there are a lot of
Speaker 1: holidays and celebrations that often involve super delicious things. So
Speaker 1: this seemed like a good time to finally do the
Speaker 1: episode that I had more or less promised that I
Speaker 1: was going to do back when we talked about Chef
Speaker 1: Marie Antoine Karem. So we are delving into the man
Speaker 1: who followed right after Karam and became known as the
Speaker 1: King of Chef, Chef of Kings, Augusta Scoffier. And if
Speaker 1: there are any chefs in our listening audience, they already
Speaker 1: know about a Scoffier. Uh. He is that important to
Speaker 1: basically everything involving professional cooking at this point. But people
Speaker 1: who haven't studied cuisine may not realize that this one
Speaker 1: man really revolutionized food preparation and restaurant dining in ways
Speaker 1: that are still part of just about any meal that
Speaker 1: you would be served today. George Auguste Escoffier was born
Speaker 1: on October eighteen forty six and Villeneuve, Lube, France, and
Speaker 1: that's in the country's southeastern shore. His parents were Jean
Speaker 1: Baptiste Escoffier, was a blacksmith, and Madeleine Savat. Although Jean
Speaker 1: Baptiste had no formal education, he and the other children
Speaker 1: of the village had been taught to read and write
Speaker 1: from a priest, and then in turn, Jean Baptiste shared
Speaker 1: that knowledge with the children of the community and his
Speaker 1: own children once he became an adult. Yeah, I sort
Speaker 1: of love that tradition of teaching that they had in
Speaker 1: their family, even if it wasn't formal education. The young
Speaker 1: august Escouvier did not initially want to cook. His dreams
Speaker 1: as a kid where that he was going to be
Speaker 1: an artist and specifically a sculptor, but there was sum
Speaker 1: early indication that he was curious about things that happened
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. The happened when he watched his grandmother
Speaker 1: make herself coffee. This is at a time when coffee
Speaker 1: was not guzzled at the rate for example, that I
Speaker 1: guzzle it today. It was more of like a a
Speaker 1: special drink you would have from time to time. But
Speaker 1: after he watched her, he waited until everyone had left
Speaker 1: the house so he could try making it himself, which
Speaker 1: he did, and he was just ten at the time.
Speaker 1: At the age of thirteen, Scoffee began working for his
Speaker 1: uncle as an apprentice at a restaurant in Nice, which
Speaker 1: was just northeast of where they were living. So basically
Speaker 1: his career choice had been made for him. He would
Speaker 1: go into cooking, and so he headed into the restaurant
Speaker 1: Francais to begin learning in eighteen fifty nine, and he
Speaker 1: stayed at his apprenticeship there until eighteen sixty three, and
Speaker 1: early on he realized that while cooks weren't especially highly regarded,
Speaker 1: he also saw the potential of the job and he
Speaker 1: decided also very early on, that he was going to
Speaker 1: work as hard as he could to quote improve the
Speaker 1: standing of the kitchen chef. I will also point out
Speaker 1: that this is a time when the word chef did
Speaker 1: not have the connotations it had today. It meant chief
Speaker 1: like the person that runs the kitchen, although he wrote
Speaker 1: that particular line much later on, when it also had
Speaker 1: the connotation of being in the kitchen I just want
Speaker 1: to make clarity for that. Uh. He started writing menus
Speaker 1: very very early on in his apprenticeship. He took a
Speaker 1: great interest in menu writing specifically, and he carefully selected
Speaker 1: words to name and describe dishes that he thought would
Speaker 1: sound quote, gentle and pleasing, and when it came to
Speaker 1: menus for special occasions, he described them as a sort
Speaker 1: of poem recalling the happy hours spent. After his apprenticeship,
Speaker 1: August was very busy with the whole series of jobs. First,
Speaker 1: he was hired as first assistant at a restaurant called
Speaker 1: Circle Massanna in November of eighteen sixty three. When that
Speaker 1: kitchen closed for the summer in April of eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: he moved on to Le Frere Provenceau and Nice as
Speaker 1: kitchen chef. He trained there for six months before being
Speaker 1: hired at Sa Philip, and then in the spring of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, he moved to Paris to work as
Speaker 1: a kitchen aid at a restaurant called Le Petit Mulin Rouge,
Speaker 1: which catered to the high society, including the royal families
Speaker 1: of Europe. Yeah, he basically was always kind of jumping up,
Speaker 1: even though the rankings of those positions as we know
Speaker 1: them today may sound lower in some cases. When he
Speaker 1: went from one to another, he was going to a
Speaker 1: bigger restaurant, so it was still a move up. And
Speaker 1: a little more than a year into his Paris job,
Speaker 1: Escoffier was called up for mandatory military service. So from
Speaker 1: September eighteen sixty six until the following spring he served
Speaker 1: in the active Army reserves at vinfran chamer and as
Speaker 1: soon as his military service was complete, he returned to
Speaker 1: Lepertine Mulan Rouge. A few years later, military service called again.
Speaker 1: The Franco Prussian War had begun, and in July of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy August was selected to be chef de cuisine
Speaker 1: at the Ryan Army headquarters. He was feeding the chief officers,
Speaker 1: and his accounts of providing meals during this time show
Speaker 1: how really committed he was to his ideals as a
Speaker 1: f Even while he was camping in mud with the
Speaker 1: rest of the men, he wrote out menus for every
Speaker 1: day the night before. Sometimes he would start food prep
Speaker 1: at night. He became really adept at improvising to create
Speaker 1: these multi course meals, even in very rough circumstances. The
Speaker 1: men who he served a roast, beef, potato salad, soft
Speaker 1: boiled eggs, and sauteed rabbit, along with fresh sausage that
Speaker 1: he and his assistant made themselves. In camp. He would
Speaker 1: catch wild animals, sometimes procure things like eggs from nearby farms,
Speaker 1: always with a mind towards creating very filling, balanced meals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he really was quite nutritionally minded at a time when
Speaker 1: people weren't really thinking about nutrition necessarily and how they
Speaker 1: put together meal menus and literally when you're in the military,
Speaker 1: that's probably not always your first priority. But he really
Speaker 1: took great care and great pride and how he handled things,
Speaker 1: and Escoffier saw this work as making room in the
Speaker 1: minds of officers so that they could worry about more
Speaker 1: important things than what they would He was like, I
Speaker 1: will take care of your nutritional needs, you worry about
Speaker 1: the other stuff. But he also saw the horrors of
Speaker 1: war during this time. He for example, watched the injured
Speaker 1: being carried into a makeshift hospital that was set up
Speaker 1: on the same farm where he and his regiment camped
Speaker 1: during the Battle of Gravelotte, and he hurried to bring
Speaker 1: what he could to the men who needed treatment. Well.
Speaker 1: Continue talking about his experiences during the war. But first
Speaker 1: we're going to pause for a little sponsor break. As
Speaker 1: the war stretched into months, rationing began to impact the
Speaker 1: men used that Escoffier prepared. Horse Meat was used to
Speaker 1: supplement because beef was unavailable, but even so the chef
Speaker 1: was keenly aware of the drop in his ability to
Speaker 1: provide for the nutritional needs of the men that he
Speaker 1: cooked for. On October eighteen seventy, which was his twenty
Speaker 1: four birthday, august A Scoffier became a prisoner of war
Speaker 1: when the French surround undered after the Siege of Metz.
Speaker 1: He remained a pow until the end of the war,
Speaker 1: although his skills let him move out of the camp
Speaker 1: proper and into a kitchen role. Yeah, there's a great
Speaker 1: story in his memoir about how even though he was
Speaker 1: kind of in like a better situation than the men
Speaker 1: he had left behind in Camp uh, at Christmas that year,
Speaker 1: he made a point to take as many things as
Speaker 1: he could from the kitchen that he was allowed to
Speaker 1: take and bring them back to them so they could
Speaker 1: have sort of their own little celebration and he could
Speaker 1: try to help them have a better Christmas than they
Speaker 1: would otherwise have had, and after the war ended, A
Speaker 1: Scoffier moved into the role of chef de cuisine at
Speaker 1: the Hotel Luxembourg in Nice. But in spring of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three he was back at Le Petit Boulan Rouge
Speaker 1: as Chef de cuisine, and he parlayed his success there
Speaker 1: into a side business for himself when he bought a
Speaker 1: small grocery in can called Andre that means golden pheasant,
Speaker 1: and he bought that in eighteen seventy six and over
Speaker 1: the next two years while he continued to work at
Speaker 1: Timulin Rouge, he renovated the store and added a winter
Speaker 1: dining room to it. He moved into running his new
Speaker 1: business full time in eighty eight after the end of
Speaker 1: the summer season at Leptine Mulin Rouge. That August was
Speaker 1: really busy for him. He got married to his fiancee,
Speaker 1: Delphine Daffist, and he did that in between the two jobs.
Speaker 1: But after only two months and his new venue and
Speaker 1: his new marriage, his father in law suddenly died. That
Speaker 1: meant that he took on a lot of responsibility and
Speaker 1: to help the family get through the strain of this period.
Speaker 1: A Goost gave up his little fledgling shop and can
Speaker 1: to take more stable work in Paris. He became the
Speaker 1: general manager of Le Maison Cheves, but he worked there
Speaker 1: only eight months before a new opportunity presented itself, and
Speaker 1: that was Chef de cuisine at the new Cafe Restaurant
Speaker 1: du Casino, which was, as the name suggests, part of
Speaker 1: a larger luxury casino property, and the scoffier had been
Speaker 1: hired simply to get the restaurant up and running, and
Speaker 1: he did this job admirably. This is something he did
Speaker 1: throughout his career after this, where he would kind of
Speaker 1: come in and set up a new restaurant and then
Speaker 1: he would go back to his regular thing and the
Speaker 1: restaurant would continue on its own. But he did this
Speaker 1: so well with the casino and restaurant that when they
Speaker 1: had a press event to promote this new luxury entertainment complex,
Speaker 1: all of the reporters there were way more interested in
Speaker 1: a scoffier's food than any other aspect of the business
Speaker 1: that they were trying to talk about. After the casino,
Speaker 1: while working as the restaurant manager of the Grand Hotel
Speaker 1: in My Carlo, August Escoffier met Swiss business in Caesar.
Speaker 1: Ritz was four and Ritz was already a successful hotelier,
Speaker 1: but he didn't quite have the name recognition that he
Speaker 1: would have later. Ritz wanted an expert in the food
Speaker 1: service end of the hotel industry, and a scoffier really
Speaker 1: fit that bill. So when Ritz began managing the Hotel
Speaker 1: Nacional in lucer And Switzerland, he eventually hired a scoffier
Speaker 1: on there, but their partnership in business truly cement did
Speaker 1: when Ritz became the manager of London's Savoy Hotel, and
Speaker 1: he brought a goost right along with him, so in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety Escoffier took charge of the kitchens at the
Speaker 1: Savoy Hotel. Ritz was hired at the Savoy to fix
Speaker 1: its problems. It had only been opened since eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and while it was glamorous and beautiful, it was managed
Speaker 1: really terribly and was facing bankruptcy. The hotel offered an
Speaker 1: ola carte menu in the restaurant, but the chef that
Speaker 1: had been in charge had really only managed fixed price
Speaker 1: menus where all the courses were part of one order,
Speaker 1: handling the different supply and prep needs. Of a kitchen
Speaker 1: that had more items in play on the menu was
Speaker 1: a really different skill set and it just had not
Speaker 1: gone well. Escoffier, though, was excellent at this and he
Speaker 1: walked into a mess, but he straightened it all out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he claimed that the day that they got there and
Speaker 1: he was like, I can't imagine why anyone would do this,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, maybe angry on the way out that
Speaker 1: all of the kitchen equipment had been broken and all
Speaker 1: of the food stores had been damaged in some way.
Speaker 1: Like basically, someone was really angry on their way out
Speaker 1: the door. Um. And so he had to call around
Speaker 1: to chef friends and be like, do you have stuff
Speaker 1: I can borrow today? And so he got through that
Speaker 1: first day. Uh, he said he didn't even have salt
Speaker 1: to begin with, But he got through that first day
Speaker 1: with the help of of the chef community. And then
Speaker 1: the next day he kind of got all of his
Speaker 1: contacts with suppliers and got everything right and could move
Speaker 1: forward from there. And a Scoffier instituted a number of
Speaker 1: processes to get the hotel's restaurant running smoothly. So often
Speaker 1: when high profile London clients would want to book a
Speaker 1: dinner party, for example, they relied on the Metro d'hotel
Speaker 1: to make decisions on the food because the French menus
Speaker 1: were sometimes a little daunting for them, and A Scoffier
Speaker 1: began keeping copious records of what they served at each
Speaker 1: meal like this so that if the same person booked
Speaker 1: another high end dinner party with them at a later date,
Speaker 1: they could be sure that they would never serve them
Speaker 1: the same meal twice and they would always be getting
Speaker 1: different dishes. Everything about the restaurant was amond and optimized
Speaker 1: to attract the best possible clients. Hell, even the lighting
Speaker 1: was really carefully designed to be soft and glowing so
Speaker 1: that their customers would look their absolute best while they
Speaker 1: were eating their Royalty, heads of state, the wealthy, and
Speaker 1: the famous all flocked there as Ritz and A Scoffier
Speaker 1: put their mark on the place. It was during his
Speaker 1: early years at the Savoy. In eighteen ninety three that
Speaker 1: august Escoffier invented the dessert peach Melba in honor of
Speaker 1: prior podcast subject Dame Nellie Melba, although it didn't appear
Speaker 1: on a menu for a number of years. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about when it pops up, but he made it
Speaker 1: basically especially for her one night, and then he always
Speaker 1: remembered it uh and used it later. And it was
Speaker 1: also early on in his Savoy days that a scoffier
Speaker 1: made charity a priority for his kitchen. So when he
Speaker 1: first started working there, he was visited each morning by
Speaker 1: two nuns from a group called Little Sisters of the Poor,
Speaker 1: asking for things like coffee grounds or tea that could
Speaker 1: potentially be brewed a second time, or a crusts of bread,
Speaker 1: and these they would take back to what was essentially
Speaker 1: a poor retirement house, and the chef was inspired by
Speaker 1: them to incorporate giving into the kitchen's normal routine. So
Speaker 1: first he always made sure that he had some good,
Speaker 1: clean supplies to give to them. He would always make
Speaker 1: sure the food was as as high end as he
Speaker 1: could possibly manage, and always very clean, but he also
Speaker 1: instructed his staff to save any cuts of meat that
Speaker 1: they could during preparations for banquets and set it aside
Speaker 1: just for the Little Sisters. For example, when they served
Speaker 1: a dish like quail to a large group, they'd normally
Speaker 1: only be serving the breast, and that meant the legs
Speaker 1: could be given to the nuns, along with instructions on
Speaker 1: how to prepare it for the people they were feeding.
Speaker 1: Since the Savoys banquets were often really huge affairs, this
Speaker 1: was a substantial amount of food to donate, but it
Speaker 1: was also a substantial amount of food to otherwise be wasting. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was not a fan of that kind of waste.
Speaker 1: People were hungry, as Scoffy a continued to do this
Speaker 1: through his whole career. Yeah, he basically instructed his people
Speaker 1: like any cut of meat that was edible but was
Speaker 1: not considered like high end enough for some of their
Speaker 1: fancy meals he was. He would be like, okay, you
Speaker 1: know where to put it, and they just had a
Speaker 1: place in the kitchen where they would always put those things.
Speaker 1: At the end of every night, everything that was edible
Speaker 1: went to the poor and then they started each new
Speaker 1: day fresh. A. Scoffier also engaged in this wonderful little
Speaker 1: bit of devious ingredient renaming while he was at the Savoy,
Speaker 1: So he had prepared frog legs many times as a
Speaker 1: chef in France, but he also knew that the English
Speaker 1: thought this whole idea was gross and that they often
Speaker 1: mocked the French for eating frog, and he was adamant
Speaker 1: that frog meat was a very fresh and light tasting
Speaker 1: option and it was easy to digest. So during a
Speaker 1: large banquet again remember that often these people would just
Speaker 1: order a banquet and let them select the menu. One
Speaker 1: of the dishes that he served was called nymph a
Speaker 1: la rour or Nymphs at Dawn, and the nymphs were
Speaker 1: in fact frog and his English guests ate them up
Speaker 1: in a chaufroise sauce, with Paprika declaring the dish absolutely delicious.
Speaker 1: This sounds appalling to you. I encourage you. If you
Speaker 1: see things on your menu that you don't recognize, ask yes.
Speaker 1: It makes me laugh so hard. And there were cases
Speaker 1: where he particularly I think it was the Prince of
Speaker 1: Wales at the time, who was well traveled in New
Speaker 1: French food, recognized what it was and what was going on,
Speaker 1: and it was like their little shared secret of like
Speaker 1: we're kind of pulling one over on these people. While
Speaker 1: the Savoy years of A. Scoffey's career were overall really
Speaker 1: happy and they made him very well known, he didn't
Speaker 1: finish the nineteenth century there, and we will talk about
Speaker 1: his next career shift. After another quick sponsor break in.
Speaker 1: Things started to unravel at the Savoy for Rits and A. Scoffier.
Speaker 1: So throughout their time with the hotel, both men had
Speaker 1: worked side jobs opening new hotels and restaurants, and per
Speaker 1: Escoffier's memoir, a misunderstanding over the nature of these side
Speaker 1: businesses led to him and his partner Rits being fired.
Speaker 1: In recent years, journalist Paul Levy has made the case
Speaker 1: based on documents which he's come into the possession of,
Speaker 1: that in fact, the two men were taking kickbacks from
Speaker 1: suppliers and stealing from the hotel supplies to an exorbitant degree.
Speaker 1: Part of this was because Ritz was also working on
Speaker 1: some other projects and he would have potential business partners
Speaker 1: from those projects come to the Savoy and they would
Speaker 1: feed them sumptuous, very very expensive meals without charging of
Speaker 1: course for them. And so that was kind of considered
Speaker 1: part of this theft. Because Ritz was also signing agreements
Speaker 1: that made him in charge of like large development projects,
Speaker 1: some that would bear his name eventually. Uh So this
Speaker 1: is part of the problem. Uh Descendants of Escoffier have
Speaker 1: challenged these claims, but we wanted to make sure we
Speaker 1: mentioned it at least, and regardless of the reason for
Speaker 1: their sacking, A Scoffier and Rits moved into a new venue,
Speaker 1: the Ritz Hotel in Paris, named for Caesar Ritz, which
Speaker 1: opened on June five. This is all the same kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that if you work for a big company
Speaker 1: today when you have to take your business ethics and
Speaker 1: compliance training, absolutely similar to all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Once the Paris Ritz was up and running, A Scoffier
Speaker 1: and Rits both returned to London in eight to work
Speaker 1: at the brand new Carlton Hotel. While A Scoffier's career
Speaker 1: before this involved constant shifting around, either seasonally or just
Speaker 1: to take better jobs, he stayed at the Carlton for
Speaker 1: over twenty years, and on the menu for the opening
Speaker 1: of the new hotels restaurant was Peach Melba appearing Autumn
Speaker 1: You for the first time and for the record, a
Speaker 1: lot of the clientele from the Savoy chose to follow
Speaker 1: Ritz and A Scoffier over to the Carlton. In nineteen
Speaker 1: o three, Escoffier wrote what is probably his most famous book,
Speaker 1: lagid Cullinaire, which he co wrote with Phileas Julbert, and
Speaker 1: this book which is still in print, by the way,
Speaker 1: became the Bible of French cooking, but really cooking in
Speaker 1: general in terms of restaurant cooking, and it features recipes
Speaker 1: for all possible courses. It's laid out in the narrative
Speaker 1: form that shows dishes and the order that they should
Speaker 1: be prepared and served. And August saw the need for
Speaker 1: such a book because he saw that the restaurant industry
Speaker 1: was growing and that it was increasingly important for chefs
Speaker 1: to be able to manage kitchens that served huge numbers
Speaker 1: of guests, and there was not at this point formal
Speaker 1: training for it. He saw this writing as quote a
Speaker 1: work tool more than a book. He was adamant that
Speaker 1: even though it had more than five thousand recipes, it
Speaker 1: was incomplete. He knew that the industry would always be
Speaker 1: evolving and progressing, and that any new edition of the
Speaker 1: book would need to be updated to reflect all those changes.
Speaker 1: He also thought the basics would remain constant, and he
Speaker 1: thought he could write what would be in essence of
Speaker 1: foundation document that chefs could use for years and years
Speaker 1: to come. And he was correct, because most chefs that
Speaker 1: run restaurants today have a copy of this book. Somewhere.
Speaker 1: When the fiftieth anniversary of A. Scoffier's professional career loomed
Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine, his colleagues took up a collection
Speaker 1: with the intent that they would use the money to
Speaker 1: buy him a piece of art with it. But when Augusta.
Speaker 1: Scoffier was told how much money had come in and
Speaker 1: that they were planning to do this, it was about
Speaker 1: six thousand francs, he asked that it instead be donated
Speaker 1: to a retirement home that took care of elderly chefs
Speaker 1: who had little or no money, and on the night
Speaker 1: of the celebration of his career, he was gifted with
Speaker 1: a silver cup from the hotel rather than a lavish
Speaker 1: piece of art. In Escoffier published a pamphlet on suppressing poverty.
Speaker 1: He felt that if every person followed the adage to
Speaker 1: love your neighbor as yourself like really truly followed it,
Speaker 1: that poverty would be erased. He advocated for a universal
Speaker 1: old age pension system, particularly citing the people who had
Speaker 1: worked their whole lives and jobs that just hadn't allowed
Speaker 1: them to put money aside for retirement. Yeah because he
Speaker 1: had worked in the service industry, his entire life. He
Speaker 1: had been very keenly aware that the people that were
Speaker 1: kind of at the lowest levels in any organization, and
Speaker 1: we're getting paid the least, we're often working the hardest.
Speaker 1: And he thought their work was just as honorable as
Speaker 1: anyone else's, and that they should not have to rely
Speaker 1: on charity in their elder years to get by, and
Speaker 1: that there should be some sort of system put in
Speaker 1: place to make sure that all people had an equal
Speaker 1: shot at a lovely retirement. Starting in nineteen eleven, A
Speaker 1: Scoffee started publishing a magazine which came out monthly called
Speaker 1: Le cow ne depucu That's a Gourmet's Notebook. And he
Speaker 1: published that magazine for three years, and his hopes were
Speaker 1: that it would spread knowledge of French cooking to other
Speaker 1: countries and in turn would help French tourism. But when
Speaker 1: World War One began, the magazine which put aside. Also
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, a fire started in one of the
Speaker 1: elevators at the Carlton Hotel that had an estimated two
Speaker 1: million franc's worth of damage. There weren't any fatalities, but
Speaker 1: all of the rooms were damaged. A Scoffier rallied the staff,
Speaker 1: and the restaurant was immediately open and serving meals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the rooms that they could run out to guests
Speaker 1: could not be filled for a while while they fixed
Speaker 1: things up, but the restaurant at least could continue to
Speaker 1: bring in a little bit of money. In Escoffier participated
Speaker 1: in what I think is a fabulously interesting dinner with
Speaker 1: his friends from a club that he had formed called
Speaker 1: Lalage de gament, and Escoffier created a menu that was
Speaker 1: served simultaneously to club members in restaurants throughout Europe. So
Speaker 1: each kitchen prepared all of the dishes as outlined by
Speaker 1: the famous cook, and then, according to A. Scoffier's memoirs,
Speaker 1: throughout the continent at the same time, four thousand people
Speaker 1: were eating the same meal. And during this event called
Speaker 1: the DNA Depucu, Escoffier received telegrams from friends and fellows,
Speaker 1: some of whom were very famous, taking part in this
Speaker 1: celebration and marveling at what a wonderful thing it was.
Speaker 1: While his magazine was underway, Escoffier also published a book
Speaker 1: titled Lalvra de Menu or the Book of Menus in
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, and as we said, uh. Once the war
Speaker 1: began in nineteen fourteen, things changed. His magazine ceased publication,
Speaker 1: but Escoffier also faced ration ng and shortage issues, not
Speaker 1: unlike when he had been a cook in the military,
Speaker 1: but this time it was his job not two feed soldiers,
Speaker 1: but to keep a luxury restaurant running despite those shortages.
Speaker 1: And to that end, he once again got very creative
Speaker 1: with menus. So he increased the use of venison, eggs
Speaker 1: and bacon, among other non ration food ingredients, and he
Speaker 1: made contact directly with fisherman so that he could get
Speaker 1: fresh seafood without having to go through the rationed markets.
Speaker 1: And he substituted cocoa butter for dairy butter, which was
Speaker 1: not available at the time. He kind of through this
Speaker 1: really started getting a sense of what we would call
Speaker 1: today farm to table, where he was like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: fresh directly from the supplier is the best way to go. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he had always been excellent and improvising when faced
Speaker 1: with problems of supply, and it really served him well
Speaker 1: during these lean times because he created some very very
Speaker 1: beloved dishes. He also kept on with his philanthropic work
Speaker 1: during the war. He created a support committee to help
Speaker 1: raise the funds for the families of staff that had
Speaker 1: been sent to the front to fight, and he distributed
Speaker 1: the funds that were raised on a weekly basis. He
Speaker 1: also hired more staff than he really needed to try
Speaker 1: to keep families afloat, and he worked to make sure
Speaker 1: that when men returned from fighting they could once again
Speaker 1: find a position at the Carlton. On November eleventh, nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: when the armistice was announced, the hotel's restaurant was almost
Speaker 1: immediately booked to capacity with reservations for people who were
Speaker 1: eager to celebrate the end of the war. And so,
Speaker 1: with seven hundred and twelve seats booked for the night
Speaker 1: and food restrictions still emplace that limited his options, Escoffier
Speaker 1: got very very creative, indeed, so for the main dish
Speaker 1: that night, he combined all of the areas meats he
Speaker 1: had on hand in a mentser because he didn't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of any one meat, and then he
Speaker 1: mixed that result with a patte and bread and that
Speaker 1: had been soaked in cream so it was soft, and
Speaker 1: he made what he called little mignonetts, so they were
Speaker 1: almost like a French meatball on the one year anniversary
Speaker 1: of the armistice, Escoffier was orded the Legion of Honor
Speaker 1: and he became an officer of the Order in nineteen yeah.
Speaker 1: He described uh becoming part of the Legion of Honor
Speaker 1: as one of the greatest honors of his life and
Speaker 1: Augusta Scoffier, after the war was tired and he retired
Speaker 1: from running kitchens in nine He has this unique distinction
Speaker 1: of having never worked for a private household in his
Speaker 1: career as a cook or chef. But even after he
Speaker 1: and his wife, Delphine moved to Monte Carlo for their retirement,
Speaker 1: he continued to write books about cooking and running a
Speaker 1: kitchen professionally, and in his writing he codified a lot
Speaker 1: of the innovations that he had implemented during his long career.
Speaker 1: He wrote about the importance of sanitation and kitchen safety,
Speaker 1: and his brigade the cuisine system of kitchen management, which
Speaker 1: is organized military style, with the chef de cuisine, which
Speaker 1: is the chief of the kitchen, as the leader, and
Speaker 1: all the other positions ranked below that one. He also
Speaker 1: wrote about something that we mentioned earlier in UH his
Speaker 1: first book of serving meals one course at a time,
Speaker 1: because prior to that the standard practice had been everything
Speaker 1: hitting the table at once, and then people just knew
Speaker 1: to eat them in order. Uh. And he also outlined
Speaker 1: his method of canning vegetables, which was new that was
Speaker 1: something he had pioneered in response to rationing during his
Speaker 1: time in the military. And he also was entirely ahead
Speaker 1: of his time when it came to helpful cooking. I
Speaker 1: mentioned already that he thought about nutrition in a much
Speaker 1: broader way than most people did, and as you may
Speaker 1: recall from our Marie Antoine Carime episode, France had shifted
Speaker 1: to less decadent cooking trends over time after the French Revolution,
Speaker 1: and Escoffier took that idea even farther by extolling the
Speaker 1: virtues of the freshest possible ingredients obtained erectly from farms
Speaker 1: and fisherman. He felt and wrote that everyone should have
Speaker 1: access to good, healthy food and what he called a
Speaker 1: courteous style of living, meaning meals shared among friends and
Speaker 1: loved ones using fine cooking traditions and shared from one
Speaker 1: generation to the next. Yeah, he thought like fine cooking
Speaker 1: should not be something that only someone who ran a
Speaker 1: professional kitchen should know. But that families should know it
Speaker 1: and share it with one another, and that it should
Speaker 1: just be part of life. And when you went to
Speaker 1: a restaurant it was just so you didn't have to
Speaker 1: do that, but you had the knowledge. Uh. And of
Speaker 1: course Escoffier built on the four mother sauces established by
Speaker 1: Marie Antoine, and the result ended up being a little
Speaker 1: bit of a rework that landed at five mother sauces,
Speaker 1: which remains standard in French cooking. So those are Beshema, tomat, velute,
Speaker 1: espanol and hollidaise. Thank you, Missieur Scofier, because they have
Speaker 1: all given me great joy. Augusta Scoffier died in Monte Carlo,
Speaker 1: Monico and his home on February twelfth n just a
Speaker 1: few days after his wife died. He was eighty nine.
Speaker 1: His remains were buried in the town where he was born,
Speaker 1: in his family's vault. Escoffier's memoirs were published well after
Speaker 1: his death. When he died, his son Paul had assembled
Speaker 1: all of the notes and documents that he had gone
Speaker 1: and collected from the Monte Carlo house, as well as
Speaker 1: a Scoffee's apartment that he kept in Paris, and those
Speaker 1: notes included a memoir that the chef had written, and
Speaker 1: those works were finally published by A. Scoffey's grandson in
Speaker 1: Nive in French, and those were expanded and translated beginning
Speaker 1: in nineteen to mark Augusta Scoffier's hundred and fiftieth birthday. Today,
Speaker 1: the Augusta Scoffier Foundation runs the Escoffier Museum of Culinary
Speaker 1: Arts at his birthplace. The august Escoffier School of Culinary
Speaker 1: Arts offers training at several campuses and online courses as well,
Speaker 1: and Michel Escoffier, who was the great grandson of the
Speaker 1: Chef of King's, sets on the advisory board for the school.
Speaker 1: And in Escovis memoir, which is a great read, uh
Speaker 1: and really easy to read because it's the chapters are short,
Speaker 1: but it's also very fun because you really do get
Speaker 1: a sense that he could not stop talking about how
Speaker 1: to make food, because he'll be in the middle of
Speaker 1: telling a story and then be like, let me give
Speaker 1: you the recipe, uh, and it will just drop in
Speaker 1: like in the middle of sort of a paragraph of
Speaker 1: of a narrative. But there was a passage in that
Speaker 1: memoir that struck me that he wrote about when he
Speaker 1: first entered the cooking profession as a teenage apprentice and
Speaker 1: how he began to look at cooking, and it really
Speaker 1: nicely encapsulates his ideology about the importance of this career.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote at the time, high society held little
Speaker 1: esteem for the profession of cook This should never have
Speaker 1: been the case, for cooking is a science and an art,
Speaker 1: and one who puts all his heart into satisfying his
Speaker 1: fellow man deserves recognition. French food, which is always a
Speaker 1: big favorite of mine. Uh And I just love his story.
Speaker 1: I love how he has h impacted so many meals
Speaker 1: that you know, you and I and everyone who has
Speaker 1: ever eaten in a restaurant has had, as well as
Speaker 1: just sort of bringing French cooking to a wider audience
Speaker 1: in some ways. You know, we talked about in the
Speaker 1: modern era Julia Child being a person that really really
Speaker 1: disseminated information about French cooking to the masses, and he
Speaker 1: was sort of her precursor in that they have a
Speaker 1: little overlap in their lifetimes, but they did not actually meet.
Speaker 1: I don't think for listener, Mail, I have a thank
Speaker 1: you for a lovely gift from our listener, Darren So
Speaker 1: Darren wrote, Uh, dear Holly and Tracy, just a quick
Speaker 1: note to say thanks for the show you do, which
Speaker 1: helps keep me saying during long drives when I'm working.
Speaker 1: An extra thank you for the show's featuring Australian history,
Speaker 1: as you have taught me a couple of things about
Speaker 1: my country that I did not know. And then here's
Speaker 1: the cool thing, Tracy, we have gifts that you're gonna love,
Speaker 1: what he said. I have enclosed a couple of copies
Speaker 1: of my friend Luna odd freest fabulous, awesome, Awese Women
Speaker 1: of History coloring book as a thank you. Unfortunately, he says,
Speaker 1: I think it's sold out, but she has other great
Speaker 1: stuff celebrating women on her Etsy page. This is like
Speaker 1: the cutest. The art style is really really fun. I
Speaker 1: can't wait. It's one of those things where I never
Speaker 1: want to color in these coloring books, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: photo copy pages and color though, because that's how I do. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I will make sure that Tracy gets her copy
Speaker 1: when she is next in the office. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you again, Darren. I really appreciate it. I appreciate
Speaker 1: all of the many things people send to us. They're
Speaker 1: always so lovely and we feel very spoiled. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, you can do so
Speaker 1: at History podcast at how stuff works dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find us as Missed in History pretty much
Speaker 1: anywhere on social media, and you can find our website
Speaker 1: at missed in History dot com. You can also subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show on Apple Podcasts or the I Heart
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Speaker 1: this and that's of other topics, visit how staff works
Speaker 1: dot com. HM, HM,