It is well known that if Napoleon had a proudest boast, it was his participation in sixty battles. It is also well known that Napoleon was largely indifferent to the pleasures of the table. While his biographers take delight in both of these facts, they tend to devote many more pages to the battles and campaigns than they do to the kitchens and the table.
But even the Emperor spent a good deal more of his life eating than he did fighting.
The Age of Napoleon, roughly the half-century stretching from 1770 to 1820, had the unusual distinction of being the period when modern cuisine was born. During this time, the greatest chef who ever lived learned his trade – the first recognizably modern restaurants appeared – banqueting and entertaining became conscious arms of diplomacy and propaganda – cookbooks developed into recognizably modern kitchen manuals – the first restaurant critic wrote his articles – a self-taught scientist invented canning – the great houses of Champagne that still sell the bubbly of choice to the entire world were going international….
This book looks, then, at one of the histories underlying the history we usually read: a history of what Frenchmen ate under the Revolution and the Empire, how they ate it, who made it for them, and how they happened to choose to eat what they did instead of something else.
But even the Emperor spent a good deal more of his life eating than he did fighting.
The Age of Napoleon, roughly the half-century stretching from 1770 to 1820, had the unusual distinction of being the period when modern cuisine was born. During this time, the greatest chef who ever lived learned his trade – the first recognizably modern restaurants appeared – banqueting and entertaining became conscious arms of diplomacy and propaganda – cookbooks developed into recognizably modern kitchen manuals – the first restaurant critic wrote his articles – a self-taught scientist invented canning – the great houses of Champagne that still sell the bubbly of choice to the entire world were going international….
This book looks, then, at one of the histories underlying the history we usually read: a history of what Frenchmen ate under the Revolution and the Empire, how they ate it, who made it for them, and how they happened to choose to eat what they did instead of something else.
