In this Coronation month, my memory turns back to the member of the British royal family whom I knew best, Edward VII, great-grandfather of the present queen, and one of the great gourmets of modern history.
England had been plunged into deep mourning upon the death of Queen Victoria's royal consort, Prince Albert. For a generation the Queen did not forget her sorrow, and did not permit her people to forget it either. Young Albert Edward was educated in an atmosphere of gloom and sobriety. When, as Prince of Wales, he married the beautiful and charming Alexandra, he quickly escaped from this gloomy milieu. Ah, but the young Prince of Wales found himself in Paris, and Paris rejoiced in his genial presence!
In the gaiety of the Edwardian reign, England was to rediscover the gentle art of enjoying itself, la joie de vivre, and life was both spiced and sparkling. Edward could appreciate an exquisite vin rosé—and the rosy cheek of the Jersey Lily when it blushed under his royal glance. He was the symbol of an era of magnificent entertaining and superb food, an era in which Madame's robe de stylo was created in Paris, her brilliant complexion caused by hunting in the Shires and riding in Rotten Row, and her superb figure due to the exquisitely planned and executed little dinners and suppers at the Hotel Bristol and later at the Ritz.
Much has been written about those years, and there are many who, like myself, enjoy remembering that wonderful temps perdu.
My acquaintance with King Edward began when I arrived in Paris, at the end of the century, a country boy fresh from my apprenticeship at the Maison Calondre in Moalins. I was lucky indeed to find a place in the kitchens of the Hotel Bristol, the Paris' rendezvous of European and British royalty. Edward, then Prince of Wales, was a frequent visitor to the Bristol until the Ritz opened its doors close by and enticed the Prince and his friends into its shining quarters. Rumor has it that M. Morlock, the owner of the Bristol, never again spoke to M. Elles. the manager of the Ritz, after this terrible coup.
Myself, I was at that time at the bottom of the ladder, a poor potager in the kitchen struggling with gallons of stock and soup bubbling m the great copper pots. Little did I think then that another Ritz would open one day in London, and that I would be there as saucier—eventually to be entrusted with the preparation of les diners intimes for Edward the Seventh himself when he entertained at Grosvenor Square.
And, indeed, i never expected that one day I would watch, from a window of this London Ritz, his impressive funeral procession, always to recall its most poignant touch—the king's little dog trotting behind the great flag-draped coffin in the slow-moving cortege.
The establishment of a chef's career in those days of gastronomic glory, and especially in the heart of one of the hotels which fostered this greatness, required unfailing skill in all the basic techniques of haute cuisine. And infinite attention—has not someone called genius the capacity for taking infinite pains?—to the details of garnishing was of first importance.
Surely this coronation month, when elegance is the order of the day, is an appropriate time to consider the classic and justly famous methods evolved by the Edwardian maitres de cuisine to embellish their chefs-d'oeuvre.
It was, and is, most important that garnishes have more than their beauty to account for their being; they should be as good to eat as they are good to look at, and they must by their color, flavor, and texture complement the dish which they accompany.
Some foods are inherently decorative: slices of truffle, bouquets of asparagus tips, tiny glazed carrot;, artichoke bottoms, and tomato shells. But the true Frenchman includes among his garnitures even the vegetables that go into the stew, the vermicelli and other pasta that go into the soup. So the instruction préparez la garniture as often means the culling and shaping and cooking of the turnips, onions, carrots, and potatoes for an oxtail ragout as it does the notched orange slices for a canard à l'orange or the diamond-shaped croutons and pink shrimp for a sole normande.
Of particular interest at this moment are the special dishes created to commemorate important occasions and garnished in appropriate ways. When a famous personage is concerned, the dish usually contains his favorite food, served in a manner that pays tribute to his native land, or to the country which saw his greatest success. The Ritz hotels have a long tradition of gracefully achieving this sort of culinary tribute. Here, for example, are recipes named for four generations of the British royal family, some of them based on the very fine English sole with the sole arranged en couronne, in the form of a crown.
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