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Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Paris, 6 July 1829..." (more)
Key Phrases: confectionery room, royal parisien, pounded sugar, Prince Regent, Lady Morgan, Tsar Alexander (more...)

4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who enjoy being privy to the evocative details of a past era will devour this book, and foodies will have a field day with the engrossing story of a man who literally died for gastronomy. Carême (1783–1833) was born poor in Paris, and by his late 20s he was already Europe's most famous chef. He cooked for monarchs and noblemen, even baking Napoleon's wedding cake, and his fame dovetailed with the rising interest in gastronomy—what Kelly, a British actor who played a luncheon guest in Howard's End, calls "a cult in want of a priest." Luckily, Carême was also a prodigious author who recorded every major meal and became rich off his cookbooks. Kelly feasts on the wealth of source material; his fine book offers a recipe at the end of each chapter, plus more in an appendix. The scale of Carême's meals will astonish today's readers: he served literally hundreds or even thousands of elaborate dishes for throngs of guests. He'd cook for weeks on end without a break, and Kelly theorizes that he eventually died of "low-level carbon-monoxide poisoning after a lifetime of cooking over charcoal in confined spaces." Worse, this superchef was buried in an unmarked grave and no one attended his funeral (due to a cholera epidemic). But his work wasn't in vain—we can thank Carême for numerous culinary advances, including chef's toques, which he invented, and the course-by-course meal service we're accustomed to today. 18 color and 13 b&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

Antonin Carême was the most illustrious chef of post-Revolution France—Napoleon, the Rothschilds, and Tsar Alexander all employed him—and he is still remembered as the father of modern French cuisine, the popularizer of the soufflé, and the designer of the iconic chef's hat. Kelly charts Carême's use of food as a tool of social leverage, although he perhaps takes the self-promoting chef too much at his own estimation when he attributes the rise of the Rothschilds to their decision to hire Carême. Many of Carême's recipes appear here, but Kelly suggests that his more lasting legacy is the public figure of the celebrity chef. In Carême's dining rooms, ostentation often trumped taste. His signature dishes were elaborate replicas of classical architecture in pastry and spun sugar, held together with gum and colored with spinach. They were not intended for consumption.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Walker & Company (August 25, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0802777317
ISBN-13: 978-0802777317
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #656,759 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Paris, 6 July 1829. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
confectionery room, royal parisien, pounded sugar, crayfish tails, candied lemon peel, moderate fire, spun sugar, veal stock, ounce butter

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Prince Regent, Lady Morgan, Tsar Alexander, Carlton House, Henriette Sophie, Maria Feodorovna, Brighton Pavilion, Marie Antoinette, Winter Palace, Charles Stewart, Lord Stewart, Betty de Rothschild, Catherine the Great, Left Bank, Arc de Triomphe, Congress of Vienna, First Consul, King Louis, King of Rome, Palais Royal, Saint Florentin, Tsarskoe Selo, Alexander Pushkin, Almanach des Gourmands, Archduke Nicholas of Russia

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 26 books:

War and peace : a novel by Count Leo Tolstoy (Modern Library Giants, 1.1) by Leo Tolstoy on page 92, and page 95
War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy on page 92, and page 95
War and Peace (Penguin Classics) by Leo Tolstoy on page 92, and page 95
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy on page 92, and page 95
Views of the Royal Pavilion by John Nash on page 132, and Back Matter

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Customer Reviews

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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Careme the Core of Changes in French Cuisine. Great Read, July 27, 2004

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef (Hardcover)

'Cooking for Kings' by Ian Kelly is a Biography with Recipes subtitled 'the Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef'. I suspect that since the 1820s in France did not have the great celebrity media of TV, press, and print of today, one can question whether Antonin Careme was in any way similar to Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, and Mario Batali. But, this is probably just an academic quibble with a word in the title, as Careme is as important to the history of modern western (read French) culinary practice than any other figure you can mention, including Escoffier.

The greatest delight in reading a book of this type, an interesting history of a period in your field of interest with which you may not be too familiar. There is a little surprise on every page, and a few really big ones. In retrospect, it is almost obvious that to become famous in the culinary field in Napoleonic France, one had to be a patisserie. There were no restaurants. In fact, the book repeats the claim that restaurants were invented by the French Revolution, as the guild system under the Bourbons prevented establishments from selling practically all kinds of food except soup. The Revolution, in seeking to overturn everything associated with the Royal regime, overturned that stricture as well. So, restaurant chefs were not exactly a dime a dozen in Napoleonic Paris. Almost all great chefs were employees of wealthy families, former nobility, or they were pastry chefs, as boulangerie and patisserie were much better established and patisserie offered a medium in which great talent can achieve expression. That is, the centerpieces of great banquets created largely out of sugar and baked shapes.

This would make pastry specialists such as Jacques Torres and Ewald Notter the closest modern counterparts to Careme, as both Torres and Notter are leaders in the very specialized field of confectionery sculpture, one in chocolate and one in sugar. This also means that this practice which seems so 'new' on Food Network specials covering pastry competitions is actually very old, and much more widely popular than it is today. So, it was much easier for a patisserie specialist to come to the attention of the very food conscious politician Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. Talleyrand is probably the third most important non-Royal politician in French history, following only Napoleon and Cardinal Richileau. As important as dining was to Talleyrand's political techniques, it is curious to read that culinary matters were of practically no importance to Talleyrand's boss, Napoleon.

Talleyrand was Careme's first very important patron, the second being the very wealthy Rothchild family. Having such powerful patrons at an early stage in his career did not prevent Careme from suffering and ultimately dying from the occupational disease of cooks, especially cooks in great houses. That is, disorders of the lungs from breathing in smoke and carbon monoxide from charcoal fires in dark, poorly ventilated basement kitchens. The great irony here is that the architectural convention of placing large kitchens in the basement came from the great residential architect Palladio, a major hero in Careme's interest in architecture as an inspiration to his centerpiece constructions in sugar and pastry.

One of Careme's most famous influences on gastronomy was the classification of mother sauces, but his subtle influence is much greater. Another little surprise in the telling of the times was the fact that the style of food service common in great French meals was quite unlike what we are used to today. The French style almost seemed like a 'family style' service where many dishes were placed on the table at once. The modern system plating moderately sized courses, delivered to the table one at a time was imported from Russia and was gaining in popularity in Paris after 1815. Careme was a great advocate of this method of service.

Just a note here to suggest that you do not buy this book with the thought that you will actually make many of the recipes in this book. A fair number can be done, but many involve ingredients that are simply no longer available and many preparation techniques will try the patience of even the most devout foodie. They remind me again and again that much of older French cuisine is built on the premise of its clients having poor teeth. It abounds in purees, aspics, and mousses squeezing some of the most improbable things through coarse screens for hours.
But, this is all part of the picture the author very successfully paints of haute cuisine in the time of Napoleon, even if the Emperor was not himself a gourmand.

Highly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in culinary history.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All you need to know re: great cooking, August 30, 2004

By	Barbara L. Pinzka "Book Friend" (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef (Hardcover)

The review before me explains well the contents of this book. I would only add that you learn how Careme pulled together the skills of speciality cooks to create grand meals and, in turn, earned the title of chef. Sadly, the very process or cooking (carbon monoxide and partilate matter in the lungs from charcoal-fuled stoves and ovens) killed him while only in his 40s but he was dedicated to writing about his skills as much as he used them, thus codifying what we know as Haute' cuisine and creating the first modern cookbooks.

Fortunately Kelly's writing style does not bog down in detail and he is quite readable. The parallel social history of the upper classes is enjoyable reading as well.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for cooks and history buffs, June 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef (Hardcover)

Careme was THE celebrity chef. Suprisingly some of the recipes are really not difficult, but the whole menu is decadent. His life was fascinating, and it makes a great read for the summer, planning scrumptios feasts for the fall.
I loved the book and thoroughly reccommend it to anyone interested in the XIX century in Europe. It gives a great glimpse of life below stairs, but there is still a scent of lost glamour and luxury. Fun read, uncomplicated

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars FAST SERVICE: CLEAN, NEW BOOK
This was a very interesting read about the beginning of the modern foodie movement and the Frenchman responsible for it. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Fabricus

5.0 out of 5 stars /First Celebrity Cook
This is a wonderful book. I'm writing a historical romance and I used this book for reference on the food and times of France and Europe in 1815. It's marvelous.

Published on February 15, 2007 by C. Crow

4.0 out of 5 stars Very well done
In addition to telling the story of the great chef, this book also provides a lot of insight into the history of food and its evolution, and some of the "dark" side of being a... Read more

Published on March 27, 2006 by International Diva

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent blend of biography and cookbook
For an excellent blend of biography and cookbook, choose Cooking For Kings: The Life Of Antonin Careme, The First Celebrity Chef, a survey of the life of the first known celebrity... Read more

Published on March 9, 2005 by Midwest Book Review

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for up and coming chefs
I am currently in school for my bachelors in culinary and this book is a must have for all students i believe i have only started to read it but so far it is great

Published on February 9, 2005 by James Jones

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