History
“The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Poetry, Sculpture, and Architecture–whereof the principle branch is Confectionery.”
– Marie-Antoine Carême
Who is Carême and why do I dedicate my blog to him?
One day, my Misiu found a book at the library, lying amongst a dozen or so culinary books left behind on a table. It was Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef
Carême - the only known rendition of the great chef
Born during the French Revolution in 1784, his namesake Marie Antoinette beheaded at the guillotine shortly after, his life began with the expected turmoil that accompanies a life in the Parisian slums of his time. Carême is said to have been one of about 25 children born to destitute parents, and at age 10 he was orphaned on the streets, left to fend for himself. He began to work for room and board at a chophouse and by chance his skill was noticed and he was eventually singled out and apprenticed to Sylvain Bailly, a famous pâtissier in Paris. He evolved his skill and developed his art under Bailly, and opened his own shop, the Pâtisserie de la rue de la Paix, which he maintained until 1813.
Carême's designs
Carême’s celebrity was cultivated through his elaborate edible creations and his popularity was akin to fashion. Aside from exclusive private dinners (feeding diplomats, socialites and royalty), the buzz of his fame began with his “pièces montées”, complex confection-structures and used as centerpieces, which Bailly would display in his pâtisserie window. These constructions were often several feet high, composed of various edible building materials – mainly sugar, marzipan and pastry. He would mould his confections into temples, pyramids, ancient ruins and other architectural marvels, inspired by his frequent architectural studies at the Bibliothéque Nationale. His freelance creations varied for diplomats and royalty, but his most enduring client was the French diplomat and gourmand Charles Maurice de Tallygrand- Périgord, who would build kitchens specifically catering to the chef and would encourage the Chef’s culinary experimentation when it came to cooking lavish dinners. A legend in artistic skill accompanied a legacy of the finest of dining experience when Napoleon instructed him to run a large estate for dimplomatic gatherings outside of Paris, at Château de Valençay.
Chateau Valencay, today
The most exclusive and sought-after invitiations to dinners in Paris at this time, were to eat a la Carême. During his year at Château de Valençay, Carême had the task of creating a year’s worth of menus, each course original and using only seasonal produce, cooking directly for Napoleon’s most important guests. Talleygrand frequently encourared the chef to try new sauces, incorporate herbs and refine his style. Talleygrand’s table secured its fame during the negotiations following the fall of Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna. This success was followed by dinners for the Prince Regent (later Georges IV) in London, and an invitation to cook for the Tsar Alexander in St. Petersburg before returning to Paris to cook for Baron James Mayer Rothschild. His celebrity was political, as were his loyalties. He was known for creating lavish dining parties for all of the great men of the hour, with no sense of affiliation to any particular cause. Carême worked for the art of food, and to be seated at his table was an honour as it was always a lavish, exclusive affair.
Carême's Dinner at Brighton
Careme’s success grew with his celebrity and he ventured outside of the kitchen chambers quite frequently for numerous projects. Carême wrote numerous cook books, featuring his beautiful illustrations of elaborate table settings and the exclusive menus of his most prestigious dining affairs – the first book ever to be published with recipes was his. He became widely accessible to the public through his writing, and a household name for fashionable Parisians. His artistic sketches and innovations were also not limited to confectionery constructions alone; he is credited with inventing the chef’s hat and redesigning the chef uniform into the shorter, more mobile version we use today. He replaced the practice of service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving each dish in the order printed on the menu), still used today. He redefined the dining experience and created various different forms of pastry commonly used to this day. He is the founder of the gourmand movement!
Carême's cookbook - L'art Cuisine Francais
Carême lived for his art and died for his art, suffering from the common death of chefs living in the dreary, underground confines of kitchens of his days – inhaling the toxic fumes from the charcoal with which he cooked. He died at 48, in 1833, and rests today at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Montmartre.
He is a true artist, and though I doubt he ever starved, I do believe he suffered for his extremely short-lived creations, an art with a shelf-life.
“Imagine yourself in a large kitchen before a great dinner. There one sees twenty chefs at the urgent occupations, coming and going, moving with speed in the caldron of heat. Look at the great mass of burning charcoal, a whole cubic metre for the cooking of entrees and another mass on the ovens for the cooking of soups, the sauces, the ragouts, the frying and the bains-maries. Add to that a heap of burning wood in front of which four spits are turning, one of which bears a sirloin weighing forty-five to sixty pounds, the other two for fowl and game. In this furnace everyone moves with tremendous speed, not a sound was heard, only I had the right to be heard and at the sound of my soft voice, everyone obeys. Finally, to put the lid on our sufferings, for about an house the doors and windows are closed so that the air does not cool the food as it is being dished up. And in this way, I passed the best days of my life.” Antonin Carême 1828
My dream with this blog, is to share knowledge and expertise with others, just as Carême once did. I am inspired by Carême to learn, to practice, to perfect my skill and to one day leave a lasting impression on endless taste buds, and culinary history. While much of my content is ‘by-popular-demand’, my dream is to recreate the legacy of Carême in the form of pastry, desserts and art. His passion to his art invokes something inside of me that I feel when I am standing 14 hours a day in my kitchen, working on a baking order – it is the love for the art, and the joy that comes from providing others with the carnal delight of melt-in-your-mouth textures, mouth-watering smells and love-inducing flavours.
Merci M. Carême - pour l’inspiration!
