[Sca-cooks] The Medici Cooks was Battuto/Mire Poix

[Terry Decker]

So, what is the historical evidence?  I keep coming across the opinion that 
Catherine de Medici's cooks altered French cooking, but I've seen no real 
evidence that this was the case.  I think that the Babylonian Captivity 
(Avignon Papacy) would probably have done more to introduce Italian cooking 
into France than Catherine's arrival.

Catherine's father, Lorenzo (No.2, not the Magnificent) died in the year of 
her birth.  She spent a number of hard scrabble years in convents before 
being whisked away at 15 by her uncle, Pope Clement VII, to cement a 
political deal with France (1533).  The retinue she arrived with in France 
was largely that of her uncle.  She was largely ignored by her husband, 
Henry II, and eldest son, Francis II, and had very little power at the 
court.  It wasn't until she became regent for her second son, Charles IX, 
that she gained any power and the ability to alter the dining habits of the 
French.

Catherine did change dining in France after 1560, but the influence of any 
Italian cooks under her patronage is open to debate.

Bear

>
> Why should the French sputter, when historically
> it can be proven that a majority of their cuisine
> is the result of Catherine di Medici's cooks
> fusion of French and Italian cooking?
>
> Huette