[Sca-cooks] Celebrity Chef???

[Elaine Koogler]

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> They were all great chefs in an age before real mass communications, 
> and therefore, while great, probably not celebrities in any modern 
> sense of the word.
>
> See if you can get this great chef's name: I'd have thought Careme, 
> who was just a little later than Napoleon, who wrote extensively about 
> kitchen organization, began the process of codifying French haute 
> cuisine, which process was more or less completed by Escoffier almost 
> a century later, and whose services were much and competitively sought 
> after by both royalty and the fabulously wealthy, would qualify him as 
> the first celebrity chef in the modern sense.
>
> And then there's Alexis Soyer, author of, among other works, the 
> Pantropheon, who was the nineteenth century's answer to Bobby Flay. 
> Now _there_ was a celebrity chef. Now if only he could cook...
>
> Adamantius

Ding, Ding, Ding...and the prize goes to.....(drum roll)....Master A!  
Yes, it was Careme.  It was quite an interesting segment.  It seems that 
there is a person (already forgotten the name) who wrote a biography 
about Careme, and also appeared in a show about him, and he was the main 
player in the segment.  They even reconstructed some of his recipes, 
including one for chicken testicles and another for cockscomb.  They 
stated that he served as chef for Napoleon, the Tsar of Russia and the 
King of England...in addition to the Rothschildes.  They credited him 
with inventing the souffle and crème caramel.

Kiri