Chef marie antoine careme
Carême benefited from the flexible conditions offered by Gendron, being allowed to freelance, catering for important banquets. He codified and to some extent simplified classical French cookery, insisted on the finest and most expensive ingredients, and was regarded as the foremost chef of his day. After staying with Talleyrand for some weeks, the tsar took up residence in the Élysée Palace, and requested that Carême should be his head chef there during his stay.
More recent biographers have raised the possibility that this is a fanciful account, and that the family simply arranged for the gargotier to take the boy on. According to the biographer Marie-Pierre Rey, "Talleyrand's generous hospitality undoubtedly had positive effects on the tsar's mood and the magnanimity that he showed to the French state".
Sculpting in sugar paste had been well known in the Ancien Régime but had become neglected after the revolution. Bailly was conscious of the need to innovate and attract new custom. This was Carême's first venture outside France. When the tsar assembled his troops for a grand review at Châlons-sur-Marne , Carême had to provide three banquets for people each, despite enormous logistical difficulties.
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As an apprentice pastry-cook Carême began as a tourier , or turner, working the dough and repeatedly folding and rolling it to achieve the perfect puff pastry. Carême was born in Paris to a poor family and, when still a child, worked in a cheap restaurant. Already a renowned pastry-cook, he had risen further, to be chef de cuisine to the most powerful man in Europe, reflecting his employer's status with suitable culinary magnificence.
The date of his birth cannot be authenticated and is disputed. After the defeat of Napoleon in , the British and Russians occupied Paris. He was influenced by earlier cooks and food writers, and studied Vincent La Chapelle 's Le cuisinier moderne , Joseph Menon's Soupers de la cour and Lémery 's Traité des alimens From to Carême worked as chef-pâtissier in the kitchens of Talleyrand at the Hôtel de Galliffet , under the head chef, Boucher.
Le Pâtissier royal parisien was an illustrated two-volume compilation of recipes for a skilled pastry-cook. In addition to his skills as a pastry-cook, Carême became expert in the other branches of cookery.
A Name You Should Know: Marie-Antoine Carême - Eater
Marie-Antoine Carême French: [maʁi ɑ̃twan kaʁɛm] ; 8 June or [n 1] — 12 January , known as Antonin Carême , was a leading French chef of the early 19th century. The day and month are generally accepted as 8 June and the year as either or There have been two contrasting explanations of how this came about.
He gained outstanding skill at this, and later put it to use in two confections with which he became particularly associated: the vol-au-vent and mille-feuille. His influence continued after his death; his approach was continued by Jules Gouffé , Urbain Dubois and Émile Bernard , reinvigorated by Auguste Escoffier and continued until it was overtaken by nouvelle cuisine in the second half of the 20th century.
Working with leading chefs of the day, Carême extended his knowledge to cover all aspects of cooking, and became head chef to prominent people including Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord , Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the Prince Regent in Britain. He was deeply interested in architecture and was famous for his large pièces montées — table decorations sculpted in sugar, depicting classical buildings.
Carême liked working for Gendron, where his talents were appreciated by prestigious customers including the finance minister, the marquis de Barbé-Marbois. Talleyrand, anxious to be on friendly terms with the allies, invited Tsar Alexander I to stay with him and tasked Carême with delighting his guest with a continual series of fine meals.
Is there anything more imposing than the sight of a grand table served à la française? By Carême's account his father took him from home in the latter part of and sent him on his way alone, bidding him, with some touching words, to find a house that would take him in. Le Pâtissier pittoresque focused on piéces montées , with over of Carême's drawings of designs, together with what the food writer Barbara Wheaton calls "more or less sketchy instructions" for executing them.
Later he became an apprentice to a leading Parisian pâtissier and quickly became known for his patisserie skills. Tsar Alexander returned to Paris in , en route to an international congress at Aix-la-Chapelle. Carême's history is more reliably documented from , when he began an apprenticeship at Sylvain Bailly's patisserie -restaurant in the rue Vivienne.
Carême wrote a series of books, lavishly illustrated, intended to pass his skills on to other chefs providing grande cuisine for the elite of French, and other, society.
After staying with Bailly for three years Carême joined another celebrated pâtissier, Gendron, who was based in the rue des Petits-Champs. Some biographers portray him as remaining at the gargote for more than five years, sweeping, washing, running errands, serving at table, and later, when he was considered mature enough, helping in the preparation of food. He was paid an unprecedentedly high salary, and the prince was full of praise for his creations, but Carême was unhappy in his post.
Accounts differ also about the next stage of Carême's early years. Bailly allowed him to take two afternoons off each week to visit the old royal library subsequently the Bibliothèque nationale across the road from the restaurant.
In Carême published his first books. He wanted eye-catching pièces montées — elaborate displays of patisserie — in his windows.