WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Auguste Escoffier 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.360 Happy Saturday. We name dropped a Gusta Scoffier on the 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.600 show this week, and so Today's Saturday Classic is our 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:13.800 episode on him, which I was shocked to realize had 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.040 not already been a Saturday Classic. This originally came out 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.560 on August twenty eighth, twenty eighteen. You think that because 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.600 I invoke him at every opportunity. We hope you enjoy 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.800 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:40.560 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.720 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Okay, So we are 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.360 officially into fall and winter, at least in our hemisphere. Yep. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.560 And for a lot of cultures, this is a season 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.040 where there are a lot of holidays and celebrations that 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:57.440 often involve super delicious things. So this seemed like a 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.440 good time to finally do the episode I had more 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.200 or less promised that I was going to do back 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.400 when we talked about Chef Marie Antoine Carem. So we 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.880 are delving into the man who followed right after Carem 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.800 and became known as the King of Chef, Chef of Kings, 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.560 Augusta Scoffier, And if there are any chefs in our 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.399 listening audience, they already know about Escoffier. He is that 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:25.440 important to basically everything involving professional cooking at this point. 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.679 But people who haven't studied cuisine may not realize that 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.360 this one man really revolutionized food preparation and restaurant dining 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.000 in ways that are still part of just about any 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.959 meal that you would be served today. George Auguste Escoffier 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.840 was born on October twenty eighth, eighteen forty six and 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.919 Villeneuve de Lube, France, and that's in the country southeastern shore. 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.040 His parents were Jean Baptiste Escoffier, was a blacksmith and 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.920 Madeleine Sivat. Although Jean Baptiste had no formal education, he 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:57.880 and the other children of the village had been taught 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.920 to read and write from a priest and then entire 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.960 and Jean Baptiste shared that knowledge with the children of 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:06.160 the community and his own children once he became an adult. Yeah, 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.359 I sort of loved that tradition of teaching that they 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.480 had in their family, even if it wasn't formal education. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.919 The young Augusta Scoffier did not initially want to cook 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:17.560 his dreams as a kid, or that he was going 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.799 to be an artist and specifically a sculptor. But there 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.960 was somemerly indication that he was curious about things that 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.720 happened in the kitchen. This happened when he watched his 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.680 grandmother make herself coffee. This is at a time when 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:32.720 coffee was not guzzled at the rate, for example, that 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:34.440 I guzzle it today. It was more of like a 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.280 special drink you would have from time to time. But 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.880 after he watched her, he waited until everyone had left 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.600 the house so he could try making it himself, which 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.640 he did, and he was just ten at the time. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.480 At the age of thirteen, A Scoffier began working for 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.600 his uncle as an apprentice at a restaurant in Nice, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.280 which was just northeast of where they were living. So 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.200 basically his career choice had been made for him. He 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.320 would go into cooking, and so he headed into La 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.800 Restoral Francaists, who began learning in eighteen fifty nine, and 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.240 he stayed at his apprenticeship there until eighteen sixty three, 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.840 and early on he realized that while cooks weren't especially 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.080 highly regarded, he also saw the potential of the job, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.920 and he decided, also very early on, that he was 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.040 going to work as hard as he could to quote, 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.639 improve the standing of the kitchen chef. I'll also point 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.959 out that this is a time when the word chef 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.000 did not have the connotations it had today. It meant 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.000 chief like the person that runs the kitchen, although he 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.720 wrote that particular line much later on, when it also 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.280 had the connotation of being in the kitchen. I just 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.600 want to make clarity for that. He started writing menus 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.320 very very early on in his apprenticeship. He took a 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.160 great interest in menu writing specifically, and he carefully selected 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.200 words to name and describe dishes that he thought would 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.560 sound quote gentle and pleasing, and when it came to 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.440 menus for special occasions, he described them as a sort 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.960 of poem recalling the happy hours spent. After his apprenticeship, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.720 Auguste was very busy with the whole series of jobs. First, 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.480 he was hired as first assistant at a restaurant called 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:10.200 circlea Messena in November of eighteen sixty three. When that 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.640 kitchen closed for the summer in April of eighteen sixty four, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.240 he moved on to Le Freer Provenceau in Nice as 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.480 kitchen chef. He trained there for six months before being 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.200 hired at Sae Philippe, and then in the spring of 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.760 eighteen sixty five he moved to Paris to work as 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.760 a kitchen aide at a restaurant called Le Petit Moulin Rouge, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.320 which catered to the high society, including the royal families 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.479 of Europe. Yeah, he basically was always kind of jumping up, 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.479 even though the rankings of those positions as we know 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.600 them today may sound lower. In some cases, when he 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.359 went from one to another, he was going to a 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.200 bigger restaurant, so it was still a move up. In 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.400 a little more than a year into his Paris job, 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.880 Escoffier was called up for mandatory military service, so from 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.560 September eighteen sixty six until the following spring he served 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:02.120 in the active Army reserves at Vin, and as soon 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.000 as his military service was complete, he returned to Le 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.479 Petit moulain Rouge. A few years later, military service called again. 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.279 The Franco Prussian War had begun, and in July of 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.760 eighteen seventy Auguste was selected to be Chef de cuisine 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.040 at the Rhine Army headquarters. He was feeding the chief officers, 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.600 and his accounts of providing meals during this time show 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.839 how really committed he was to his ideals as a chef. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:29.839 Even while he was camping in mud with the rest 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.200 of the men, he wrote out menus for every day 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.520 the night before. Sometimes he would start food prep at night. 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.400 He became really adept at improvising to create these multi 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.920 course meals even in very rough circumstances. The men who 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.720 he served ate roast beef, potato salad, soft boiled eggs, 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.719 and sauteed rabbit, along with fresh sausage that he and 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:54.479 his assistant made themselves. In camp. He would catch wild animals, 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.000 sometimes procure things like eggs from nearby farms, always with 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.680 a mind toward creating very filling, balanced meals. Yeah, he 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.200 really was quite nutritionally minded at a time when people 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.280 weren't really thinking about nutrition necessarily in how they put 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.479 together meal menus and literally, when you're in the military, 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.719 that's probably not always your first priority. But he really 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.560 took great care and great pride in how he handled things, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.760 and Escafier saw this work as making room in the 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.200 minds of officers so that they could worry about more 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.040 important things. Than what they would eat. He's like, I 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.400 will take care of your nutritional needs, you worry about 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.839 the other stuff. But he also saw the horrors of 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.520 war during this time. He for example, watched the injured 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.599 being carried into a makeshift hospital that was set up 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.880 on the same farm where he and his regiment camped 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.720 during the Battle of Gravelotte, and he hurried to bring 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.640 what he could to the men who needed treatment. Well, 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.839 continue talking about his experiences during the war, but first 0:06:51.880 --> 0:07:05.000 we're going to pause for a little sponsor break. As 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.400 the war stretched into months, rationing began to impact the 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.120 menus that a scoffier prepared. Horse Meat was used to 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.000 supplement because beef was unavailable, but even so, the chef 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.440 was keenly aware of the drop in his ability to 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.800 provide for the nutritional needs of the men that he 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.440 cooked for. On October twenty eighth of eighteen seventy, which 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.120 was his twenty fourth birthday, August Escuffier became a prisoner 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.280 of war when the French surrendered after the Siege of Metz. 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.280 He remained a pow until the end of the war, 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:36.880 although his skills let him move out of the camp 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.080 proper and into a kitchen roll. Yeah, there's a great 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.440 story in his memoir about how, even though he was 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.680 kind of in like a better situation than the men 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.560 he had left behind in camp, at Christmas that year, 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.760 he made a point to take as many things as 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:53.520 he could from the kitchen that he was allowed to 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.520 take and bring them back to them so they could 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.920 have sort of their own little celebration, and he could 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.840 try to help them have a better Christmas than they 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.680 would otherwise have had. And after the war ended, Escafier 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.960 moved into the role of chef de cuisine at the 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.720 Hotel de Luxembourg in Nice. But in spring of eighteen 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.240 seventy three he was back at La Petite MoU Lain 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.000 Rouge as Chef de cuisine, and he parleyed his success 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.840 there into a side business for himself when he bought 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.400 a small grocery in Cannes called La fe d're that 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.640 means Golden Pheasant, and he bought that in eighteen seventy six, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.200 and over the next two years, while he continued to 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.960 work at La Petite MoU Lain Rouge, he renovated the 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.920 store and added a winter dining room to it. He 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.800 moved into running his new business full time in eighteen 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.640 seventy eight, after the end of the summer season at 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.240 La Petite Moulin Rouge. That August was really busy for him. 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.440 He got married to his fiancee, Delphine Dafis, and he 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.160 did that in between the two jobs. But after only 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.400 two months in his new venue and his new marriage, 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.200 his father in law suddenly died. That meant that he 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.680 took on a lot of responsibility and to help the 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.880 family gets through the strain of this period, Auguste gave 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.960 up his little fledgling shop and can to take more 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.520 stable work in Paris. He became the general manager of 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.640 La Maison Chevet, but he worked there only eight months 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.840 before a new opportunity presented itself, and that was Chef 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.920 de cuisine at the new cafe restaurant du Casino, which was, 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.080 as the name suggests, part of a larger luxury casino property. 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.439 And Escaffaier had been hired simply to get the restaurant 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.120 up and running, and he did this job admirably. This 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.440 is something he did throughout his career after this, where 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:33.959 he would kind of come in and set up a 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.840 new restaurant and then he would go back to his 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.320 regular thing and the restaurant would continue on its own. 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.760 But he did this so well with the casino and 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.360 restaurant that when they had a press event to promote 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.840 this new luxury entertainment complex, all of the reporters there 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.920 were way more interested in Escaffier's food than any other 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.240 aspect of the business that they were trying to talk about. 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.680 After the casino, while working as the restaurant manager of 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.320 the Grand Hotel in Monte car Hello, Auguste Escoffier met 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.360 Swiss business in sesar Ritz was eighteen eighty four and 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.320 Ritz was already a successful hotelier, but he didn't quite 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.760 have the name recognition that he would have later. Ritz 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.559 wanted an expert in the food service end at the 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.440 hotel industry, and Escaffier really fit that bill. So when 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.520 Ritz began managing the Hotel Nacional in Lucerne, Switzerland, he 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.440 eventually hired a Scaffier on there. But their partnership in 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.000 business truly cemented when Ritz became the manager of London's 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.120 Savoy Hotel, and he brought a goost right along with him. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.120 So in eighteen ninety Escaffier took charge of the kitchens 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.760 at the Savoy Hotel. Ritz was hired at the Savoy 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.760 to fix its problems. It had only been opened since 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.880 eighteen eighty nine, and while it was glamorous and beautiful, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.240 it was managed really terribly and was facing bankruptcy. The 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.240 hotel offered an a la carte menu in the restaurant, 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.520 but the chef that had been in charge had really 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.480 only managed fixed price menus where all the courses were 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.960 part of one order. Handling the different supply and prep 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.640 needs of a kitchen that had more items in play 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.360 on the menu was a really different skill set and 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.240 it just had not gone well. Escaffier, though, was excellent 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.240 at this, and he walked into a mess, but he 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.200 straightened it all out. Yeah, he claimed that the day 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.400 that they got there, and he was like, I can't 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.520 imagine why anyone would do this, but I'm like, maybe 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.079 angry on the way out that all of the kitchen 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.520 equipment had been broken and all of the food stores 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.319 had been damaged in some way. Like basically, someone was 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.920 really angry on their way out the door. And so 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.240 he had to call around to chef friends and be like, 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.360 do you have stuff I can borrow today? And so 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.320 he got through that first day. He said he didn't 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:46.079 even have salt to begin with, but he got through 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.640 that first day with the help of the chef community, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.000 and then the next day he kind of got all 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.360 of his contacts with suppliers and got everything right and 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.720 could move forward from there. And Escoffier instituted a number 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.240 of processes to get the hotel's restaurant running smoothly. So 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.520 often when high profile London clients would want to book 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.400 a dinner party, for example, they relied on the Metre 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.319 d'hotel to make decisions on the food because the French 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.520 menus were sometimes a little daunting for them, and a 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.280 scuffier began keeping copious records of what they served at 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:18.679 each meal like this, so that if the same person 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.640 booked another high end dinner party with them at a 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:23.959 later date, they could be sure that they would never 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:25.920 serve them the same meal twice and they would always 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.199 be getting different dishes. Everything about the restaurant was examined 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.320 and optimized to attract the best possible clientele. Even the 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.679 lighting was really carefully designed to be soft and glowing 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.640 so that their customers would look their absolute best while 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.520 they were eating their royalty heads of state, the wealthy, 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.920 and the famous all flocked there as Ritz and Escoffier 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.640 put their mark on the place. It was during his 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.400 early years at the Savoy, in eighteen ninety three that 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.840 Auguste Escaffier invented the dessert peach Melba in honor of 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:02.080 prior podcast subject Dame Nelly Melba, although it didn't appear 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.719 on a menu for a number of years. Yeah, we'll 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:06.520 talk about when it pops up. But he made it 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.240 basically specially for her one night, and then he always 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.520 remembered it and used it later. And it was also 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.920 early on in his Savoy days that Escafier made charity 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.880 a priority for his kitchen. So when he first started 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.160 working there, he was visited each morning by two nuns 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.160 from a group called Little Sisters of the Poor, asking 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.840 for things like coffee grounds or tea that could potentially 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.600 be brewed a second time, or for crusts of bread, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:32.840 and these they would take back to what was essentially 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.280 a poor retirement house, and the chef was inspired by 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.120 them to incorporate giving into the kitchen's normal routine, So 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.360 first he always made sure that he had some good, 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.880 clean supplies to give to them. He would always make 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.040 sure the food was as high end as he could 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.599 possibly manage and always very clean. But he also instructed 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.080 his staff to save any cuts of meat that they 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.720 could during preparations for banquets and set it aside just 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.920 for the little sisters. For example, when they served a 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.920 dish like quail to a large group, they'd normally only 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.439 be serving the breast, and that meant the legs could 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:10.679 be given to the nuns, along with instructions on how 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.440 to prepare it for the people they were feeding. Since 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.400 the Savoy's banquets were off in really huge affairs, this 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.960 was a substantial amount of food to donate, but it 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:23.040 was also a substantial amount of food to otherwise be wasting. Yes, 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:24.960 he was not a fan of that kind of waste. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.320 Now and people were hungry. Escaffie continued to do this 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.640 through his whole career. Yeah, he basically instructed his people 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.440 like any cut of meat that was edible but was 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.920 not considered like high end enough for some of their 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.280 fancy meals, he would be like, okay, you know where 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:40.440 to put it, And they just had a place in 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:42.600 the kitchen where they would always put those things. At 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.400 the end of every night, everything that was edible went 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.440 to the poor, and then they started each new day fresh. 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.600 A Scaffie also engaged in this wonderful little bit of 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.320 devious ingredient renaming while he was at the Savoy. So 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.760 he had prepared frog legs many times as a chef 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.160 in France, but he also knew that the English thought 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.240 this whole idea was gross, and that they often mocked 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.240 the French for eating frog. And he was adamant that 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.120 frog meat was a very fresh and light tasting option 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.720 and it was easy to digest. So during a large 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.600 banquet again remember that often these people would just order 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.840 a banquet and let them select the menu, one of 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.960 the dishes that he served was called nymph a lur 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.240 or Nymphs at Dawn, and the nymphs were in fact frog, 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.640 and his English guests ate them up in a chauffroi 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:40.440 sauce with paprika, declaring the dish absolutely delicious. This sounds 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.960 appalling to you, I encourage you. If you see things 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:48.320 on your menu that you don't recognize, ask yes. It 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.960 makes me laugh so hard. And there were cases where 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.520 he particularly I think it was the Prince of Wales 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.760 at the time who was well traveled in New French food, 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:58.600 recognized what it was and what was going on, and 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.040 it was like their little shared seecret, like we're kind 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.960 of pulling one over on these people. While the Savoy 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.760 years of a Scaffier's career were overall really happy and 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:10.920 they made him very well known, he didn't finish the 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.520 nineteenth century there and we will talk about his next 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:25.840 career shift. After another quick sponsor break in eighteen ninety seven, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.720 things started to unravel at the Savoy for Ritz and Escafaier. 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.880 So throughout their time with the hotel, both men had 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.840 worked side jobs opening new hotels and restaurants, and per 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.760 Escaffier's memoir, a misunderstanding over the nature of these side 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.440 businesses led to him and his partner Ritz being fired. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.680 In recent years, journalist Paul Levy has made the case 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.480 based on documents which he's come into the possession of 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.600 that in fact, the two men were taking kickbacks from 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.720 suppliers and stealing from the hotel's supplies to an exorbitant degree. 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.200 Part of this was because Ritz was also working on 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.399 some other projects and he would have potential business partners 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.200 from those projects come to the Savoy and they would 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.240 feed them sumptuous, very very expensive meals without charging of 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.200 course for them, and so that was kind of considered 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.840 part of this theft. Because Ritz was also signing agreements 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.560 that made him in charge of like large development projects, 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.800 some that would bear his name eventually, So this is 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.240 part of the problem. Descendants of a Scoffaia have challenged 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.480 these claims, but we wanted to make sure we mentioned 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.600 it at least, and regardless of the reason for their sacking, 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.680 Escaffier and Ritz moved into a new venue, the Ritz 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.199 Hotel in Paris, named for Seesar Ritz, which opened on 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.879 June fifth of eighteen ninety eight. This is all the 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.560 same kind of stuff that if you work for a 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.840 big company today, when you have to take your business 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.320 ethics and compliance training, it is absolutely similar all that 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.679 kind of stuff. Yeah. Once the Paris Ritz was up 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.840 and running, Escoffier and Ritz both returned to London in 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.920 eighteen ninety nine to work at the brand new Carlton Hotel. 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.879 While Escoffier's career before this involved constant shifting around, either 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.879 seasonally or just to take better jobs, he stayed at 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.399 the Carlton for over twenty years and on the menu 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:15.639 for the opening of the new hotels. The restaurant was 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.440 peach Melba, appearing on a menu for the first time 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.440 and for the record, a lot of the clientele from 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.600 the Savoy chose to follow Ritz and Escafie over to 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.679 the Carlton. In nineteen oh three, Escafier wrote what is 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.280 probably his most famous book, Laguide Kulnaire, which he co 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:36.280 wrote with Phileas Julbert and Emil Feitout. And this book, 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.600 which is still in print by the way, became the 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.560 bible of French cooking, but really cooking in general in 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.880 terms of restaurant cooking, and it features recipes for all 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.359 possible courses. It's laid out in the narrative form that 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.040 shows dishes in the order that they should be prepared 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.359 and served. And Auguste saw the need for such a 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.240 book because he saw that the restaurant industry was growing 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.199 and that it was increasingly important for chefs to be 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.280 able to manage kitchens that served huge numbers of guests, 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.960 and there was not at this point formal training for it. 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.480 He saw this writing as quote a work tool more 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.439 than a book. He was adamant that even though it 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.600 had more than five thousand recipes, it was incomplete. He 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.280 knew that the industry would always be evolving and progressing, 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.320 and that any new edition of the book would need 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.600 to be updated to reflect all those changes. He also 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.080 thought the basics would remain constant, and he thought he 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.280 could write what would be, in essence, a foundation document 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.840 that chefs could use for years and years to come. 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.440 And he was one hundred percent correct, because most chefs 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.120 that run restaurants today have a copy of this book somewhere. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.520 When the fiftieth anniversary of Escoffier's professional career loomed in 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.960 nineteen oh nine, his colleagues took up a collection with 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.000 the intent that they would use the money to buy 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.840 him a piece of art with it. But when Agusta 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.479 Scoffier was told how much money had come in and 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.120 that they were planning to do this it was about 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.560 six thousand francs, he asked that it instead be donated 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.400 to a retirement home that took care of elderly chefs 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.280 who had little or no money, and on the night 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.639 of the celebration of his career, he was gifted with 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.680 a silver cup from the hotel rather than a lavish 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.800 piece of art. In nineteen ten, Escoffier published a pamphlet 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.240 on suppressing poverty. He felt that if every person followed 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.560 the adage to love your neighbor as yourself, like really 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:28.040 truly followed it, that poverty would be erased. He advocated 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:32.080 for a universal old age pension system, particularly citing the 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.399 people who had worked their whole lives and jobs that 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.960 just hadn't allowed them to put money aside for retirement. Yeah, 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.600 because he had worked in the service industry his entire life, 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.080 he had been very keenly aware that the people that 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.520 were kind of at the lowest levels in any organization 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.920 and were getting paid the least, were often working the hardest, 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.280 and he thought their work was just as honorable as 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.359 anyone else's, and that they should not have to rely 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.639 on charity in their elder years to get by, and 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:58.600 that there should be some sort of system put in 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.560 place to make sure that all people had an equal 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.240 shot at a lovely retirement. Starting in nineteen eleven, A 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.520 Scaffier started publishing a magazine which came out monthly called 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:12.320 Le Coue de Piqueure That's a Gourmet's Notebook, and he 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.399 published that magazine for three years and his hopes that 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.280 it would spread knowledge of French cooking to other countries 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.440 and in turn would help French tourism. But when World 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.760 War One began, the magazine would put aside. Also in 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.760 nineteen eleven, a fire started in one of the elevators 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.359 at the Carlton Hotel that did an estimated two million 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.040 francs worth of damage. There weren't any fatalities, but all 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.800 of the rooms were damaged. A Scaffaer rallied the staff 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:43.119