Movimiento de la carga

The largely unsung hero of the modern working class and middle class table was the eclectic aristocrat turned food critic Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de la Reynière (1758–1837). After the Revolution and the chaos of the Terror in the early 1790s, legal reforms enacted under Napoleon shaped a country changed by republican ideas although still breathing ancien régime air. The new Code Napoléon or Civil Law Code of 1804 scripted autonomy and equality (at least, for men) before the law. It fostered meritocracy rather than entitlement based on inherited name or rank. “Quality” now came from work or performance, rather than bloodlines. Grimod, who had trained as a lawyer, had a serious interest in food and deep skepticism regarding the motives of the powerful. His satirical response was to develop a mocking code gourmand or food

connoisseur’s canon of laws for the table. 13 _{During the Napoleonic Empire} (1804–1815), he invented (in 1804) a clever system for judging quality and “legitimating” all that was best to eat. This meant that he persuaded caterers and restaurateurs to give him samples of their wares. Food pro- ducers did so, in part for the advertising, and in part for fear of reprisal from this fearsome new species of ally-adversary, the food critic. Grimod’s guides fueled the nascent gastronomic industry made up of restaurants, boutiques, eaters, and writers; all belonged to a consumer culture that was expanding in many domains. Good taste and knowledge now emerged from interactions among producers and consumers, or chefs and eaters, and writers and readers. What is remarkable is that fashion in food no longer emanated from exclusive removes associated with the centralized power (the court, through nearly the end of the preceding century), but rather from establishments open to the public (or at least, the wealthier segments) and from the response of that public.

Grimod’s system had its coercive aspects; the same is true for the complex relationships that exist today among food producers, critics, and consumers. At the same time, Grimod had a strong sense of duty as a public advocate. During the national conversion to the metric system and uniform system of weights and measures, Grimod vociferously criticized unscrupulous shopkeepers and traders who took advantage of the situa- tion to overcharge customers or short-weight meats or produce. Like many others of his time, he soon tired of Napoleon’s all-conquering military sweep across Europe and worried over the hostilities with Britain. The latter interfered with the fl ow of goods so necessary to support fi ne dining. To protest the former, he championed (from his desk chair and dining table—Parisian central command for gastronomic operations) specialties of, for instance, the German states, such as the fi ne mineral waters, meat stews, and steamed dumplings.

Despite his own distinguished, exceedingly wealthy origins, Grimod had a modern taste for comfort and enjoyment. He disdained the old aristo- cratic preference for ostentation. He recommended that meals be simpli- fi ed. He was an early advocate of serving in the style then called à la russe (Russian style). Instead of the old service à la française, Grimod preferred that each service or course of a meal consist of a single dish. Each prepa- ration should come to the table completely prepared and perfectly done. This allowed the eater to fully appreciate each food at the peak of its per- fection and to enjoy it hot, while resting assured that he had a similar por- tion to his neighbor. The service of a full meal in separate courses became standard in the most elegant and expensive contexts by the 1860s. Sim- plicity made the method adaptable for modest households, too. Today, the

ceremonial yet simple structure is typical for any full meal, whether served at home or in a restaurant.

If Grimod mobilized a comprehensive revolution at the table, the more famous writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826) spread the word with the deliciously amusing Physiologie du goût ( Physiology of Taste, 1826). Brillat was a magistrate who fl ed France during the Terror, ending up in New England, where he taught French and music and famously shot a wild turkey in the “virgin forests” of Connecticut before making his way back home. Food appreciation, in Brillat’s view, is fundamental to the understanding of nearly everything, and nearly everything makes its way into his book. Notes on the physical faculties of taste and digestion, a history of science culminating with “the science of gastronomy” trium- phant, observations not only on feasting and fasting but also on thirst, a discussion of the “Infl uence of Gourmandise on Marital Bliss,” recom- mendations for fattening and slimming diets, gossipy anecdotes, jokes for enlivening a dinner party—all have their place in the Physiologie. Brillat’s cheerful, sociable banter demystifi ed dining rituals formerly associated with grand tables and endeared the author to generations of readers.

The chef Antonin or Marie-Antoine Carême (1783–1833), like Grimod and Brillat, participated both in the ancien and in the nouveau

Enjoyment is the best praise for good cooking. Courtesy of Christian Verdet/ regard public-unpact.

régimes —political, social, and dietary. He was a private chef in the old style who served some of the most prominent individuals in Europe, including Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (wily politician, rakish bishop, and notable gastronome who served under several admin- istrations: the republican Directory of the late 1790s, the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon monarchy restored in 1815) and Baron James de Rothschild. Carême was also a self-made man and phenomenal self- promoter who achieved fame and professional success in a thoroughly modern fashion. He authored several volumes on pastry-making and cooking, including the great oeuvre heavily entitled Art de la cuisine

française au 19e siècle: Traité élémentaire et pratique suivi de dissertations culinaires et gastronomiques utiles au progrès de cet art ( Art of French Cuisine in the Nineteenth Century: Basic and Practical Treatise Followed by Culinary and Gastronomic Dissertations Useful to the Progress of this Art, 1833). The

fi ve-volume cookbook (the last two volumes were fi nished by his execu- tors after his death) modernizes aristocratic grande cuisine for the grand bourgeois table. His cooking was famous for its variety, sense of propor- tion, and delicacy of fl avor. Carême had nothing good to say about the use of spices, but he felt strongly that magnifi cence and elaborate deco- ration had their place on the table, and he preferred a modifi ed version of service à la française. He was a great fan of the expensive truffl e and other such luxuries. As a cook for fancy clients, he clearly had a pro- fessional interest in avoiding the truly modern simplicity advocated by Grimod. The employment of highly accomplished private cooks in many wealthy and upper middle class houses continued until well after the mid- twentieth century. The socialist politics of the 1980s fi nally made the situation somewhat embarrassing for at least some employers. By that time, few people capable of cooking on a high level cared to work as private servants, preferring jobs that better integrated them into the pro- fessional community of cooks.