Georges Auguste Escoffier (28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. He is a legendary figure among chefs and gourmets, and was one of the most important leaders in the development of modern French cuisine. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Antoine Carême, one of the codifiers of French Haute cuisine, but Escoffier's achievement was to simplify and modernize Carême's elaborate and ornate style.

Alongside the recipes he recorded and invented, another of Escoffier's contributions to cooking was to elevate it to the status of a respected profession, introducing organized discipline to his kitchens. He organized his kitchens by the brigade de cuisine system, with each section run by a chef de partie.

Escoffier published Le Guide Culinaire, which is still used as a major reference work, both in the form of a cookbook and a textbook on cooking.

[edit] Early life

Escoffier was born in the village Villeneuve-Loubet, near Nice. The house where he was born is now the Musee de l'Art Culinaire, run by the Foundation Auguste Escoffier. At the age of thirteen, despite showing early promise as an artist, he started an apprenticeship at his uncle's restaurant, Le Restaurant Français, in Nice. In 1865 he moved to Le Petit Moulin Rouge restaurant in Paris. He stayed there until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, when he became an army chef. His army experience led him to study the technique of canning food. Some time before 1878 he opened his own restaurant, Le Faisan d'Or (The Golden Pheasant) in Cannes. In 1880 he married Delphine Daffis. In 1884 the couple moved to Monte Carlo, where Escoffier took control of the kitchen at the Grand Hotel.

[edit] César Ritz and the Savoy

The Savoy Hotel, London

During the summers, Escoffier ran the kitchen of the Hotel National in Lucerne, where he met César Ritz (at that time the French Riviera was a winter resort). The two men formed a partnership and in 1890 accepted an invitation from Richard D'Oyly Carte to transfer to his new Savoy Hotel in London together with the third member of their team, the maître d'hôtel, Louis Echenard.^[1] Ritz put together what he described as "a little army of hotel men for the conquest of London", and Escoffier recruited French cooks and reorganised the kitchens. The Savoy under Ritz and his partners was an immediate success, attracting a distinguished and moneyed clientèle, headed by the Prince of Wales. Gregor Von Görög, chef to the Royal family at the time, was an enthusiast of Escoffier's zealous organization. Aristocratic women, hitherto unaccustomed to dine in public, were now "seen in full regalia in the Savoy dining and supper rooms".^[1]

At the Savoy, Escoffier created many famous dishes. In 1893 he invented the pêche Melba in honour of the Australian singer Nellie Melba, and in 1897, Melba toast. Other Escoffier creations, famous in their time, were bombe Néro (a flaming ice), fraises à la Sarah Bernhardt (strawberries with pineapple and Curaçao sorbet), baisers de Vierge (meringue with vanilla cream and crystallised white rose and violet petals) and suprêmes de volailles Jeannette (jellied chicken breasts with foie gras).^[2][3]

[edit] Ritz Hotels

In 1897, Ritz and Escoffier were both dismissed from the Savoy. Ritz and Echenard were implicated in the disappearance of over £3400 of wine and spirits, and Escoffier had been receiving gifts from the Savoy's suppliers.^[4] By this time, however, Ritz and his colleagues were already on the point of commercial independence, having established the Ritz Hotel Development Company, for which Escoffier set up the kitchens and recruited the chefs, first at the Paris Ritz (1898), and then at the new Carlton Hotel in London (1899), which soon drew much of the high society clientèle away from the Savoy.^[1] In addition to the haute cuisine offered at luncheon and dinner, tea at the Ritz became a fashionable institution in Paris, and later in London, though it caused Escoffier real distress: "How can one eat jam, cakes and pastries, and enjoy a dinner – the king of meals – an hour or two later? How can one appreciate the food, the cooking or the wines?"^[5]

Ritz gradually moved into retirement after opening The Ritz Hotel in 1906, leaving Escoffier as the figurehead of the Carlton until his own retirement in 1920. He continued to run the kitchens through World War I, in which his younger son was killed in active service.^[1] Recalling these years, The Times said, "Colour meant so much to Escoffier, and a memory arises of a feast at the Carlton for which the table decorations were white and pink roses, with silvery leaves – the background for a dinner all white and pink, Bortch striking the deepest note, Filets de poulet à la Paprika coming next, and the Agneau de lait forming the high note."^[6]

[edit] Légion d'Honneur

An officer's cross of the Légion d'Honneur

For Escoffier's work in promoting French cuisine, President Poincaré personally presented him with the cross of the Légion d'Honneur (Legion of Honour) in 1919, the first chef to receive such an award.^[1] In 1928 he was promoted to Officier (Officer) of the Legion at "a remarkable banquet at the Palais d'Orsay."^[5]

[edit] Death

Escoffier died on 12 February 1935 at the age of 88 in Monte Carlo, a few days after the death of his wife.

[edit] Publications

• Le Traité sur L'art de Travailler les Fleurs en Cire (Treatise on the Art of Working with Wax Flowers) (1886)
• Le Guide Culinaire (1903)
• Les Fleurs en Cire (new edition, 1910)
• Le Carnet d'Epicure (A Gourmet's Notebook) monthly magazine published from 1911 to 1914.
• Le Livre des Menus (Recipe Book) (1912)
• L'Aide-memoire Culinaire (1919)
• Le Riz (Rice) (1927)
• La Morue (Cod) (1929)
• Ma Cuisine (1934)
• 2000 French Recipes (1965, Translated to English by Marion Howells) ISBN 1-85051-694-4
• Memories of My Life (1996, from his own life souvenirs published by his grandson in 1985 and translated into English by L. Escoffier, his great granddaughter in-law), ISBN 0-471-28803-9
• Les Tresors Culinaires de la France (2002, collected by L. Escoffier from the original Carnet d'Epicure)

[edit] References

• Chastonay, Adalbert. Cesar Ritz: Life and Work (1997) ISBN 3-907816-60-9.
• Escoffier, Georges-Auguste. Memories of My Life (1997) ISBN 0-442-02396-0.
• Shaw, Timothy. The World of Escoffier. (1994) ISBN 0-86565-956-7.