I’ve always been fascinated by culinary history, especially old cookbooks. There’s nothing more fun than finding a really disgusting recipe and wondering “How could they eat this?” The oldest known cookbook was written by a Roman, Apicius. A highly concentrated fish stock was a staple of ancient Roman cookery and sounds completely vile.
The Regency period gave the world its first “celebrity chef” Antonin Carême, the Wolfgang Puck or Marco Pierre White of his day. Carême cooked for Napoleon, the Bourbon kings, the Tsar of Russia, Talleyrand and the Prince Regent. He also published several bestselling books. His works on pastries and desserts, confections as they were more generally called, laid down the foundation of classic French pâtisserie. When I read Ian Kelly’s superb biography Cooking for Kings I had to include Carême’s tenure at the Brighton Pavilion in a Regency novel.
In the end the demands of the plot prevented the great man’s actual appearance in my book. He gets sick so Jacobin is called to pinch hit for him. Carême did in fact suffer from chronic respiratory problems, made worse by the extreme conditions of heat and cold he worked in and constant exposure to charcoal fumes.
I tried to make my description of life in the Prince Regent’s kitchens as accurate as possible. The huge Brighton kitchens were Prinny’s pride and joy and he liked to show them to his guests. A picture of the main kitchen may be found on my website although, sadly, the crazy palm fronds decorating the pillars were added after my story takes place. As Jacobin discovered, Carême didn’t like working with women and he became unpopular with the Prince Regent’s staff for not sharing the income from the sale of surplus food. In fact his time in England was an unhappy period in his life and lasted little more than a year.
I wanted to include some of Carême’s recipes in Never Resist Temptation and had a great time combing through his books. Along the way I found some of the oddities I enjoy. What do you make of a recipe that calls for “about one hundred middle sized lobsters’ tails” but gives you the option of substituting carrots? Carrots? The dish is called Chartreuse à la Parisienne, en Surprise. Surprise indeed, and not a good one, to get a mouthful of carrot when you’re expecting lobster.
Since Carême’s English staff complained about the differences between English and French measurements, I compared some recipes in French with their translations in the English edition. In one place the original called for a piece of butter the size of a walnut which in translation became a turnip. Either turnips used to be much smaller or the English liked a lot of butter. Yet classic French cuisine has a reputation for excessive richness.
I’ve been asked whether I tried any of the recipes in my book. Well, I’m not the greatest baker myself, and Carême’s directions lack the exact measurements we’re used to in modern cookbooks. How much, for heaven’s sake, is a “plateful” of cream? What size plate?
I did think I should attempt choux pastry since it features prominently in the story. And I’ll admit that though the technique appears not to have changed, Julia Child’s recipe was a lot easier to follow than Carême’s. You may find an account of my attempt to make “little puffy things” on my website www.mirandaneville.com together with additional Carême recipes for dishes mentioned in the book. If you try them please let me know how they turn out.