When Kaiser Wilhelm II met Auguste Escoffier, he told him, “I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the Emperor of Chefs.”
Others called Escoffier “le roi des cuisiniers et cusinier des rois,” “the king of chefs and chef of kings.” But Escoffier was much more than that. He was the man that made cooking a profession of prestige, who revolutionized the business of professional kitchens, and brought haute cuisine to the height of its popularity. And he hadn’t started out even wanting to be a chef.
Georges Auguste Escoffier was born on October 28, 1846, the son of a humble blacksmith in the Provence Region of France. His father also dabbled in the growing of tobacco but money was tight, and even though the young boy showed an interest and aptitude for art such an impractical career had to be discouraged. “By all means let him devote his leisure time to art,” his family decided, “but whoever made a living at it?”
Instead, his father sent him to his own brother, the owner of a restaurant, Le Restaurant Francais, in Nice. At the age of 13 young Auguste became an apprentice, and his uncle showed the boy no favoritism. Life was hard in the kitchen: in those days, cooking was not regarded as a noble profession, and understaffed and overworked cooks worked almost around the clock in grueling conditions. Partially in response to this, many cooks had a tendency to abuse alcohol, and from there, to abuse their subordinates. Whether it was true of some, many, or all cooks didn’t matter. What did matter was that this was the public perception of life in the kitchen, and in many cases, the perception soon became a reality.
Nevertheless, Escoffier stayed with his uncle until 1870, when the Franco-Prussian war found Escoffier serving in the army. He became an army chef, adding to his knowledge, and giving him an exceptional interest in the relatively new science of canning and food preservation.
Following his stint in the army, in 1865 Escoffier was employed by Le Petit Moulin Rouge, the best restaurant in Paris. (This is not the famous nightclub, the Moulin Rouge, which did not open until 1889.) He was dedicated to his art, learning all he could, and even wearing built-up shoes so that he could reach the stoves more easily — he was a very short man. He took other jobs following this and worked in the best restaurants in Paris, Monte Carlo, Switzerland, and London.
It was at the Hotel National in Lucerne that he met Cesar Ritz. Ritz’s career had run very much parallel to Escoffier’s. He had begun as a hotel groom and had worked his way up to become a respected hotel manager. Escoffier and Ritz took an instant liking to each other and both were pleased when they were recruited to join the Savoy Hotel in London.
The Savoy was the first luxury hotel in Britain, and featured electric lights throughout the entire hotel, electric elevators, and bathrooms within most of the suites, complete with hot and cold running water. The hotel had been built by Richard D’Oyly Carte with proceeds from the Savoy Theater, a venue that Carte had also established, expressly for the performance of Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
At the Savoy, Escoffier had a chance to put many of his ideas into practice. Deploring the type of kitchen environment he had apprenticed in, he had never allowed himself to smoke or drink, and he didn’t allow his employees to either, at least while they were on duty. He began the practice of providing barley water for consumption in the kitchens. He wouldn’t allow abuse or shouting on the premises, and encouraged good behavior and respectable dress on the streets as well. For his own part, he would leave the kitchen whenever he felt his temper rising.
Escoffier introduced the station-based brigade de cuisine system to the restaurant business, with each station being run by a chef de partie, or “chief of party.” Under this system, a large hotel or restaurant would employ a very large staff, with each individual being responsible for a particular function. Different sections were run by different sub-chefs, the whole coming under the control of the chef de cuisine, the “chief of the kitchen.”
Escoffier was not the first to serve haute cuisine, a style of elaborate French cooking that had been largely invented by a predecessor, the French cook Antonin Careme, but he was the first to modernize it. He greatly simplified the style, and was the first to being serving meals in the style la russe — with the courses served in the order in which they were printed on the menu — rather than la francaise, where the dishes are served all at once.
In 1897, both Ritz and Escoffier were dismissed from their positions at the Savoy. Ritz and Louis Echenard, the maitre d’hotel, had been implicated in the disappearance of over ￡3400 of wine and spirits — an amount worth about ￡290,000 today. Escoffier, it seems, was taking kickbacks from his suppliers.
Escoffier and Ritz opened their own luxury hotel in 1898, the Ritz in Paris, which was followed in 1899 by the Carleton in London. At the Carleton, Escoffier employed a team of 60 cooks, who often served as many as 500 people at a single meal. Here, Escoffier also introduced the a la carte menu, a new innovation. (One of Escoffier’s cooks was Ho Chi Minh, who studied under him to become a pastry chef.)
Escoffier is said to have invented at least 10,000 recipes. Perhaps the most famous is his Peach Melba, a dish of peaches on vanilla ice cream with a raspberry sauce, which he created in honor of the Austrian singer, Nellie Melba. At the time, she was singing at the Covent Garden Opera House, where, in one of her scenes, a gigantic swan appeared. Escoffier served the dessert to her between the two wings of a beautiful ice swan. (A less dramatic, but more practical creation was his introduction of Melba Toast when the singer was feeling ill.)
Other dishes that Escoffier created in order to honor specific people were his Tournedos Rossini (filet mignon served on a crouton and topped with foie gras), prepared for the composer Gioachino Rossini; Salad Rejane for the French actress Gabrielle Rejane; and Rachel Mignonettes of Quail for the French actress Mademoiselle Rachel. He created Cuisses de Nymphe Aurore, literally “Thighs of the Nymph of Dawn” for the Prince of Wales. The Prince was suitably impressed — it sounds a lot better than “frogs’ legs,” doesn’t it?
One of the strangest of Escoffier’s creations was Les Supremes de Volailles Jeannette, a dish created in honor of the USS Jeannette, an vessel that, while exploring the Arctic, had become icebound. The crew had attempted to walk to Siberia, but all had perished except for two men. Escoffier honored them with poached chicken breasts served in slices, in aspic, on a timbale and dressed with slices of truffle and a chaud-froid sauce. The timbales were set into sculpted ice when served.
In 1901, Cesar Ritz had a nervous breakdown, and Escoffier ran the Carleton until 1919. He then retired, and joined his wife, Delphine, in Monte Carlo. The couple had been separated, apparently amicably, for many years. He found retirement not to his taste, however, and soon was working in two Monte Carlo hotels. In 1935, at the age of 89, Auguste Escoffier died, just a few days after the death of his wife.
Escoffier published several books in his lifetime, the most important of which is Le Guide Culinaire. The book featured over 5,000 recipes and is definitely not for beginners. Escoffier assumed his reader to have a solid knowledge of basic recipes and procedures, and explained in his introduction that it was intended for the education of the next generation of cooks. Le Guide Culinaire is considered the definitive reference work on French cuisine, and is still used as a text in culinary classrooms.
Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events, 2011 Edition: The Ultimate Go-To Guide for Special Days, Weeks, and Months, Editors of Chase’s Calendar of Events; http://www.worldculinaryinstitute.com/A_escoffier.html; http://www.nndb.com/people/545/000096257/; http://chefedccp.com/Auguste_Escoffier.aspx; http://escoffier.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=37; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escoffier; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Guide_Culinaire; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoy_Hotel.