Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. We name dropped a Gusta Scoffier on the
Speaker 1: show this week, and so Today's Saturday Classic is our
Speaker 1: episode on him, which I was shocked to realize had
Speaker 1: not already been a Saturday Classic. This originally came out
Speaker 1: on August twenty eighth, twenty eighteen. You think that because
Speaker 1: I invoke him at every opportunity. We hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Okay, So we are
Speaker 1: officially into fall and winter, at least in our hemisphere. Yep.
Speaker 1: And for a lot of cultures, this is a season
Speaker 1: where there are a lot of holidays and celebrations that
Speaker 1: often involve super delicious things. So this seemed like a
Speaker 1: good time to finally do the episode I had more
Speaker 1: or less promised that I was going to do back
Speaker 1: when we talked about Chef Marie Antoine Carem. So we
Speaker 1: are delving into the man who followed right after Carem
Speaker 1: and became known as the King of Chef, Chef of Kings,
Speaker 1: Augusta Scoffier, And if there are any chefs in our
Speaker 1: listening audience, they already know about Escoffier. He is that
Speaker 1: important to basically everything involving professional cooking at this point.
Speaker 1: But people who haven't studied cuisine may not realize that
Speaker 1: this one man really revolutionized food preparation and restaurant dining
Speaker 1: in ways that are still part of just about any
Speaker 1: meal that you would be served today. George Auguste Escoffier
Speaker 1: was born on October twenty eighth, eighteen forty six and
Speaker 1: Villeneuve de Lube, France, and that's in the country southeastern shore.
Speaker 1: His parents were Jean Baptiste Escoffier, was a blacksmith and
Speaker 1: Madeleine Sivat. Although Jean Baptiste had no formal education, he
Speaker 1: and the other children of the village had been taught
Speaker 1: to read and write from a priest and then entire
Speaker 1: and Jean Baptiste shared that knowledge with the children of
Speaker 1: the community and his own children once he became an adult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I sort of loved that tradition of teaching that they
Speaker 1: had in their family, even if it wasn't formal education.
Speaker 1: The young Augusta Scoffier did not initially want to cook
Speaker 1: his dreams as a kid, or that he was going
Speaker 1: to be an artist and specifically a sculptor. But there
Speaker 1: was somemerly indication that he was curious about things that
Speaker 1: happened in the kitchen. This happened when he watched his
Speaker 1: grandmother make herself coffee. This is at a time when
Speaker 1: coffee was not guzzled at the rate, for example, that
Speaker 1: I guzzle it today. It was more of like 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, A Scoffier began working for
Speaker 1: his uncle as an apprentice at a restaurant in Nice,
Speaker 1: which was just northeast of where they were living. So
Speaker 1: basically his career choice had been made for him. He
Speaker 1: would go into cooking, and so he headed into La
Speaker 1: Restoral Francaists, who began learning in eighteen fifty nine, and
Speaker 1: he stayed at his apprenticeship there until eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: and early on he realized that while cooks weren't especially
Speaker 1: highly regarded, he also saw the potential of the job,
Speaker 1: and he decided, also very early on, that he was
Speaker 1: going to work as hard as he could to quote,
Speaker 1: improve the standing of the kitchen chef. I'll also point
Speaker 1: out that this is a time when the word chef
Speaker 1: did not have the connotations it had today. It meant
Speaker 1: chief like the person that runs the kitchen, although he
Speaker 1: wrote that particular line much later on, when it also
Speaker 1: had the connotation of being in the kitchen. I just
Speaker 1: want to make clarity for that. 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: Auguste was very busy with the whole series of jobs. First,
Speaker 1: he was hired as first assistant at a restaurant called
Speaker 1: circlea Messena 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 Freer Provenceau in Nice as
Speaker 1: kitchen chef. He trained there for six months before being
Speaker 1: hired at Sae Philippe, and then in the spring of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five he moved to Paris to work as
Speaker 1: a kitchen aide at a restaurant called Le Petit Moulin 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. In
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 Vin, and as soon
Speaker 1: as his military service was complete, he returned to Le
Speaker 1: Petit moulain 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 Auguste was selected to be Chef de cuisine
Speaker 1: at the Rhine 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 chef.
Speaker 1: Even while he was camping in mud with the rest
Speaker 1: of the men, he wrote out menus for every day
Speaker 1: the night before. Sometimes he would start food prep at night.
Speaker 1: He became really adept at improvising to create these multi
Speaker 1: course meals even in very rough circumstances. The men who
Speaker 1: he served ate roast beef, potato salad, soft boiled eggs,
Speaker 1: and sauteed rabbit, along with fresh sausage that he and
Speaker 1: his assistant made themselves. In camp. He would catch wild animals,
Speaker 1: sometimes procure things like eggs from nearby farms, always with
Speaker 1: a mind toward creating very filling, balanced meals. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: really was quite nutritionally minded at a time when people
Speaker 1: weren't really thinking about nutrition necessarily in how they put
Speaker 1: 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 in how he handled things,
Speaker 1: and Escafier 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 eat. He's 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: menus that a scoffier 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 twenty eighth of eighteen seventy, which
Speaker 1: was his twenty fourth birthday, August Escuffier became a prisoner
Speaker 1: of war when the French surrendered 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 roll. 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, 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, Escafier
Speaker 1: moved into the role of chef de cuisine at the
Speaker 1: Hotel de Luxembourg in Nice. But in spring of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three he was back at La Petite MoU Lain
Speaker 1: Rouge as Chef de cuisine, and he parleyed his success
Speaker 1: there into a side business for himself when he bought
Speaker 1: a small grocery in Cannes called La fe d're that
Speaker 1: means Golden Pheasant, and he bought that in eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: and over the next two years, while he continued to
Speaker 1: work at La Petite MoU Lain Rouge, he renovated the
Speaker 1: store and added a winter dining room to it. He
Speaker 1: moved into running his new business full time in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, after the end of the summer season at
Speaker 1: La Petite Moulin Rouge. That August was really busy for him.
Speaker 1: He got married to his fiancee, Delphine Dafis, and he
Speaker 1: did that in between the two jobs. But after only
Speaker 1: two months in his new venue and his new marriage,
Speaker 1: his father in law suddenly died. That meant that he
Speaker 1: took on a lot of responsibility and to help the
Speaker 1: family gets through the strain of this period, Auguste gave
Speaker 1: up his little fledgling shop and can to take more
Speaker 1: stable work in Paris. He became the general manager of
Speaker 1: La Maison Chevet, but he worked there only eight months
Speaker 1: before a new opportunity presented itself, and that was Chef
Speaker 1: de cuisine at the new cafe restaurant du Casino, which was,
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, part of a larger luxury casino property.
Speaker 1: And Escaffaier had been hired simply to get the restaurant
Speaker 1: up and running, and he did this job admirably. This
Speaker 1: is something he did throughout his career after this, where
Speaker 1: he would kind of come in and set up a
Speaker 1: new restaurant and then he would go back to his
Speaker 1: regular thing and the restaurant would continue on its own.
Speaker 1: But he did this so well with the casino and
Speaker 1: restaurant that when they had a press event to promote
Speaker 1: this new luxury entertainment complex, all of the reporters there
Speaker 1: were way more interested in Escaffier's food than any other
Speaker 1: aspect of the business that they were trying to talk about.
Speaker 1: After the casino, while working as the restaurant manager of
Speaker 1: the Grand Hotel in Monte car Hello, Auguste Escoffier met
Speaker 1: Swiss business in sesar Ritz was eighteen eighty four and
Speaker 1: Ritz was already a successful hotelier, but he didn't quite
Speaker 1: have the name recognition that he would have later. Ritz
Speaker 1: wanted an expert in the food service end at the
Speaker 1: hotel industry, and Escaffier really fit that bill. So when
Speaker 1: Ritz began managing the Hotel Nacional in Lucerne, Switzerland, he
Speaker 1: eventually hired a Scaffier on there. But their partnership in
Speaker 1: business truly cemented when Ritz became the manager of London's
Speaker 1: Savoy Hotel, and he brought a goost right along with him.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen ninety Escaffier took charge of the kitchens
Speaker 1: at the Savoy Hotel. Ritz was hired at the Savoy
Speaker 1: to fix its problems. It had only been opened since
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine, and while it was glamorous and beautiful,
Speaker 1: it was managed really terribly and was facing bankruptcy. The
Speaker 1: hotel offered an a la carte menu in the restaurant,
Speaker 1: but the chef that had been in charge had really
Speaker 1: only managed fixed price menus where all the courses were
Speaker 1: part of one order. Handling the different supply and prep
Speaker 1: needs of a kitchen that had more items in play
Speaker 1: on the menu was a really different skill set and
Speaker 1: it just had not gone well. Escaffier, though, was excellent
Speaker 1: at this, and he walked into a mess, but he
Speaker 1: straightened it all out. Yeah, he claimed that the day
Speaker 1: that they got there, and he was like, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine why anyone would do this, but I'm like, maybe
Speaker 1: angry on the way out that all of the kitchen
Speaker 1: equipment had been broken and all of the food stores
Speaker 1: had been damaged in some way. Like basically, someone was
Speaker 1: really angry on their way out the door. And so
Speaker 1: he had to call around to chef friends and be like,
Speaker 1: do you have stuff I can borrow today? And so
Speaker 1: he got through that first day. He said he didn't
Speaker 1: even have salt to begin with, but he got through
Speaker 1: that first day with the help of the chef community,
Speaker 1: and then the next day he kind of got all
Speaker 1: of his contacts with suppliers and got everything right and
Speaker 1: could move forward from there. And Escoffier instituted a number
Speaker 1: of processes to get the hotel's restaurant running smoothly. So
Speaker 1: often when high profile London clients would want to book
Speaker 1: a dinner party, for example, they relied on the Metre
Speaker 1: d'hotel to make decisions on the food because the French
Speaker 1: menus were sometimes a little daunting for them, and a
Speaker 1: scuffier began keeping copious records of what they served at
Speaker 1: each meal like this, so that if the same person
Speaker 1: booked another high end dinner party with them at a
Speaker 1: later date, they could be sure that they would never
Speaker 1: serve them the same meal twice and they would always
Speaker 1: be getting different dishes. Everything about the restaurant was examined
Speaker 1: and optimized to attract the best possible clientele. Even the
Speaker 1: lighting was really carefully designed to be soft and glowing
Speaker 1: so that their customers would look their absolute best while
Speaker 1: they were eating their royalty heads of state, the wealthy,
Speaker 1: and the famous all flocked there as Ritz and Escoffier
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: Auguste Escaffier invented the dessert peach Melba in honor of
Speaker 1: prior podcast subject Dame Nelly 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 specially for her one night, and then he always
Speaker 1: remembered it and used it later. And it was also
Speaker 1: early on in his Savoy days that Escafier made charity
Speaker 1: a priority for his kitchen. So when he first started
Speaker 1: working there, he was visited each morning by two nuns
Speaker 1: from a group called Little Sisters of the Poor, asking
Speaker 1: for things like coffee grounds or tea that could potentially
Speaker 1: be brewed a second time, or for 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 high end as he could
Speaker 1: possibly manage and always very clean. But he also instructed
Speaker 1: his staff to save any cuts of meat that they
Speaker 1: could during preparations for banquets and set it aside just
Speaker 1: for the little sisters. For example, when they served a
Speaker 1: dish like quail to a large group, they'd normally only
Speaker 1: be serving the breast, and that meant the legs could
Speaker 1: be given to the nuns, along with instructions on how
Speaker 1: to prepare it for the people they were feeding. Since
Speaker 1: the Savoy's banquets were off in 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: Now and people were hungry. Escaffie 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 would be like, okay, you know where
Speaker 1: to put it, And they just had a place in
Speaker 1: the kitchen where they would always put those things. At
Speaker 1: the end of every night, everything that was edible went
Speaker 1: to the poor, and then they started each new day fresh.
Speaker 1: A Scaffie also engaged in this wonderful little bit of
Speaker 1: devious ingredient renaming while he was at the Savoy. So
Speaker 1: he had prepared frog legs many times as a chef
Speaker 1: in France, but he also knew that the English thought
Speaker 1: this whole idea was gross, and that they often mocked
Speaker 1: the French for eating frog. And he was adamant that
Speaker 1: frog meat was a very fresh and light tasting option
Speaker 1: and it was easy to digest. So during a large
Speaker 1: banquet again remember that often these people would just order
Speaker 1: a banquet and let them select the menu, one of
Speaker 1: the dishes that he served was called nymph a lur
Speaker 1: or Nymphs at Dawn, and the nymphs were in fact frog,
Speaker 1: and his English guests ate them up in a chauffroi
Speaker 1: sauce with paprika, declaring the dish absolutely delicious. This sounds
Speaker 1: appalling to you, I encourage you. If you see things
Speaker 1: on your menu that you don't recognize, ask yes. It
Speaker 1: makes me laugh so hard. And there were cases where
Speaker 1: he particularly I think it was the Prince of Wales
Speaker 1: at the time who was well traveled in New French food,
Speaker 1: recognized what it was and what was going on, and
Speaker 1: it was like their little shared seecret, like we're kind
Speaker 1: of pulling one over on these people. While the Savoy
Speaker 1: years of a Scaffier's career were overall really happy and
Speaker 1: they made him very well known, he didn't finish the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century there and we will talk about his next
Speaker 1: career shift. After another quick sponsor break in eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: things started to unravel at the Savoy for Ritz and Escafaier.
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: Escaffier's memoir, a misunderstanding over the nature of these side
Speaker 1: businesses led to him and his partner Ritz 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's 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, So this is
Speaker 1: part of the problem. Descendants of a Scoffaia have challenged
Speaker 1: these claims, but we wanted to make sure we mentioned
Speaker 1: it at least, and regardless of the reason for their sacking,
Speaker 1: Escaffier and Ritz moved into a new venue, the Ritz
Speaker 1: Hotel in Paris, named for Seesar Ritz, which opened on
Speaker 1: June fifth of eighteen ninety eight. This is all the
Speaker 1: same kind of stuff that if you work for a
Speaker 1: big company today, when you have to take your business
Speaker 1: ethics and compliance training, it is absolutely similar all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Yeah. Once the Paris Ritz was up
Speaker 1: and running, Escoffier and Ritz both returned to London in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine to work at the brand new Carlton Hotel.
Speaker 1: While Escoffier's career before this involved constant shifting around, either
Speaker 1: seasonally or just to take better jobs, he stayed at
Speaker 1: the Carlton for over twenty years and on the menu
Speaker 1: for the opening of the new hotels. The restaurant was
Speaker 1: peach Melba, appearing on a menu for the first time
Speaker 1: and for the record, a lot of the clientele from
Speaker 1: the Savoy chose to follow Ritz and Escafie over to
Speaker 1: the Carlton. In nineteen oh three, Escafier wrote what is
Speaker 1: probably his most famous book, Laguide Kulnaire, which he co
Speaker 1: wrote with Phileas Julbert and Emil Feitout. And this book,
Speaker 1: which is still in print by the way, became the
Speaker 1: bible of French cooking, but really cooking in general in
Speaker 1: terms of restaurant cooking, and it features recipes for all
Speaker 1: possible courses. It's laid out in the narrative form that
Speaker 1: shows dishes in the order that they should be prepared
Speaker 1: and served. And Auguste saw the need for such a
Speaker 1: book because he saw that the restaurant industry was growing
Speaker 1: and that it was increasingly important for chefs to be
Speaker 1: able to manage kitchens that served huge numbers of guests,
Speaker 1: and there was not at this point formal training for it.
Speaker 1: He saw this writing as quote a work tool more
Speaker 1: than a book. He was adamant that even though it
Speaker 1: had more than five thousand recipes, it was incomplete. He
Speaker 1: knew that the industry would always be evolving and progressing,
Speaker 1: and that any new edition of the book would need
Speaker 1: to be updated to reflect all those changes. He also
Speaker 1: thought the basics would remain constant, and he thought he
Speaker 1: could write what would be, in essence, a foundation document
Speaker 1: that chefs could use for years and years to come.
Speaker 1: And he was one hundred percent correct, because most chefs
Speaker 1: that run restaurants today have a copy of this book somewhere.
Speaker 1: When the fiftieth anniversary of Escoffier's professional career loomed in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine, his colleagues took up a collection with
Speaker 1: the intent that they would use the money to buy
Speaker 1: him a piece of art with it. But when Agusta
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 nineteen ten, Escoffier published a pamphlet
Speaker 1: on suppressing poverty. He felt that if every person followed
Speaker 1: the adage to love your neighbor as yourself, like really
Speaker 1: truly followed it, that poverty would be erased. He advocated
Speaker 1: for a universal old age pension system, particularly citing the
Speaker 1: people who had worked their whole lives and jobs that
Speaker 1: just hadn't allowed them to put money aside for retirement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he had worked in the service industry his entire life,
Speaker 1: he had been very keenly aware that the people that
Speaker 1: were kind of at the lowest levels in any organization
Speaker 1: and were getting paid the least, were 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: Scaffier started publishing a magazine which came out monthly called
Speaker 1: Le Coue de Piqueure That's a Gourmet's Notebook, and he
Speaker 1: published that magazine for three years and his hopes that
Speaker 1: it would spread knowledge of French cooking to other countries
Speaker 1: and in turn would help French tourism. But when World
Speaker 1: War One began, the magazine would put aside. Also in
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, a fire started in one of the elevators
Speaker 1: at the Carlton Hotel that did an estimated two million
Speaker 1: francs worth of damage. There weren't any fatalities, but all
Speaker 1: of the rooms were damaged. A Scaffaer rallied the staff
Speaker 1: and the restaurant was immediately open and serving meals. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: The rooms that they could rent out to guests could
Speaker 1: not be filled for a while while they fixed things up,
Speaker 1: but the restaurant at least could continue to bring in
Speaker 1: a little bit of money. In nineteen twelve, A Scaffier
Speaker 1: participated in what I think is a fabulously interesting dinner
Speaker 1: with his friends from a club that he had formed
Speaker 1: called La Ligue de Germande, and A Scafier created a
Speaker 1: menu that was served simultaneously to club members in restaurants
Speaker 1: throughout Europe. So each kitchen prepared all of the dishes
Speaker 1: as outlined by the famous cook, and then, according to
Speaker 1: Escaffier's memoirs, throughout the continent. At the same time, four
Speaker 1: thousand people were eating the same meal, and during this event,
Speaker 1: called the Dnee Depiqueux, Escafier 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, Escaffier also published a book
Speaker 1: titled Le Livre de minute or The Book of Menus,
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve. And as we said, once the war
Speaker 1: began in nineteen fourteen, things changed. His magazine ceased publication,
Speaker 1: but Escafier also faced rationing and shortage issues, not unlike
Speaker 1: when he had been a cook in the military, but
Speaker 1: this time it was his job not to feed soldiers,
Speaker 1: but to keep a luxury restaurant running today spite 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 fishermen 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 threw 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.
Speaker 1: And he had always been excellent at 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 in place that limited his options.
Speaker 1: Escafaier got very, very creative, indeed, so for the main
Speaker 1: dish that night, he combined all of the various meats
Speaker 1: he had on hand in a mincer because he didn't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of any one meat, and then
Speaker 1: he mixed that result with a patie and bread and
Speaker 1: that had been soaked in cream so it was soft,
Speaker 1: and he made what he called little mignonettes, so they
Speaker 1: were almost like a French meatball. On the one year
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Armistice, Escafaie was awarded the Legion of
Speaker 1: Honor and he became an officer of the Order in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight. Yeah He described a becoming part of
Speaker 1: the Legion of Honor as one of the greatest honors
Speaker 1: of his life and Augusta Scoffier, after the war, was
Speaker 1: tired and he retired from running kitchens in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 1: He has this unique distinction of having never worked for
Speaker 1: a private household in his career as a cook or chef.
Speaker 1: But even after he and his wife, Delphine moved to
Speaker 1: Monte Carlo for their retirement, he continued to write books
Speaker 1: about cooking and running a kitchen. Professionally, and in his
Speaker 1: writing he codified a lot of the innovations that he
Speaker 1: had implemented during his long career. He wrote about the
Speaker 1: importance of sanitation and kitchen safety, and his brigade the
Speaker 1: cuisine system of kitchen management, which is organized military style,
Speaker 1: with the Chef de cuisine, which is the chief of
Speaker 1: the kitchen, as the leader, and all the other positions
Speaker 1: ranked below that one. He also wrote about something that
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier in his first book, of serving meals
Speaker 1: one course at a time, because prior to that the
Speaker 1: standard practice had been everything hitting the table at once,
Speaker 1: and then people just knew to eat them in order.
Speaker 1: And he also outlined his method of canning vegetables, which
Speaker 1: was new that was something he had pioneered in response
Speaker 1: to rationing during his time in the military. And he
Speaker 1: also was entirely ahead of his time when it came
Speaker 1: to healthful cooking. I mentioned already that he thought about
Speaker 1: nutrition in a much broader way than most people did,
Speaker 1: and as you may recall from our Marie Antoine carrem episode,
Speaker 1: France had shifted to less decadent cooking trends over time
Speaker 1: after the French Revolution, and Escafier took that idea even
Speaker 1: farther by extolling the virtues of the freshest possible ingredients
Speaker 1: obtained directly from farms and fishermen. He felt and wrote
Speaker 1: that everyone should have access to good, healthy food and
Speaker 1: what he called a courteous style of living, meaning meals
Speaker 1: shared among friends and loved ones using fine cooking traditions
Speaker 1: and shared from one generation to the next. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: thought like fine cooking should not be something that only
Speaker 1: someone who ran a professional kitchen should know, but that
Speaker 1: families should know it and share it with one another,
Speaker 1: and that it should just be part of life. And
Speaker 1: when you went to a restaurant, it was just so
Speaker 1: you didn't have to do that, but you had the knowledge.
Speaker 1: And of course Escoffier built on the four mother sauces
Speaker 1: established by Marie Antoine cauerrem and the result ended up
Speaker 1: being a little bit of a rework that landed at
Speaker 1: five mother sauces, which remained standard in French cooking. So
Speaker 1: those are Beschema, tomat veloute, Espanol and Hollandais. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Monsieur Scoffier, because they have all given me great joy.
Speaker 1: Augusta Scoffier died in Monte Carlo, Monaco and his home
Speaker 1: on February twelfth, nineteen thirty five, just a few days
Speaker 1: after his wife died. He was eighty nine. His remains
Speaker 1: were buried in the town where he was born, in
Speaker 1: his family's vault. Escoffier's memoirs were published well after his death.
Speaker 1: When he died, his son Paul had assembled all of
Speaker 1: the notes and documents that he had gone and collected
Speaker 1: from the Monte Carlo house as well as Escoffie's apartment
Speaker 1: that he kept in Paris, and those notes included a
Speaker 1: memoir that the chef had written, and those works were
Speaker 1: finally published by A Scoffier's grandson in nineteen eighty five
Speaker 1: in French, and those were expanded and translated beginning in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six to mark Augusta Scoffier's one hundred and
Speaker 1: fiftieth birthday. Today, the Augusta Scoffier Foundation runs the Escaffie
Speaker 1: Museum of Culinary Arts at his birthplace. The Escoffier School
Speaker 1: of Culinary Arts offers training at several campuses and online
Speaker 1: courses as well, and Michel Escoffier, who is the great
Speaker 1: grandson of the Chef of Kings sits on the advisory
Speaker 1: board for the school, and in Escoffier's memoir, which is
Speaker 1: a great read and really easy to read because it's
Speaker 1: the chapters are short, but it's also very fun because
Speaker 1: you really do get a sense that he could not
Speaker 1: stop talking about how to make food, because he'll be
Speaker 1: in the middle of telling a story and then be like,
Speaker 1: let me give you the recipe, and it will just
Speaker 1: drop in, like in the middle of sort of a
Speaker 1: paragraph of a narrative. But there was a passage in
Speaker 1: that memoir that struck me that he wrote about when
Speaker 1: he first entered the cooking profession as a teenage apprentice
Speaker 1: and how he began to look at cooking, and it
Speaker 1: really 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. Hey French food, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: always a big favorite of mine. And I just love
Speaker 1: his story. I love how he has impacted so many
Speaker 1: meals that you know you and I and everyone who
Speaker 1: has ever eaten in a restaurant has had as well
Speaker 1: as just sort of bringing French cooking to a wider
Speaker 1: audience in some ways. You know, we talk about in
Speaker 1: the modern era Julia Child being a person that really
Speaker 1: really disseminated information about French cooking to the masses, and
Speaker 1: he was sort of her precursory that they have a
Speaker 1: little overlap in their lifetimes, but they did not actually meet.
Speaker 1: I don't think. Thanks so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,
Speaker 1: if you heard an email address or a Facebook RL
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Speaker 1: could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History
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