of Americans who turned up late for dinner; he had little to give them, he said, and in desperation threw together what ingredients he could find. He must have thrown them together well, and when his customers asked the name of the dish he replied Homard à l’américaine—they were Americans, after all, and Fraisse had in fact once run the Café Américain in Chicago. And so, theoretically at least, a dish was born. In truth, Fraisse had probably just prepared the lobster dish in his usual manner: he was from Sète in the Languedoc, and the recipe for Langouste à la sétoise is remarkably similar to that for Homard à l’américaine. Escoffier did much the same thing. Whilst still a young chef in Nice he had made Langouste niçoise, another similar dish, and Escoffier would refer to his particular version as “my first chef d’oeuvre,” his first work as a chef. He took the dish with him to Paris, and there it became the speciality of the Petit Moulin Rouge, his first restaurant there. But the upmarket diners of Paris wanted lobster, not the humble and provincial langoustine, and so Escoffier changed the key ingredient, and the name. But he never claimed originality, either for the name or the dish. Even so, Escoffier’s version was good enough to be one of the foundation stones of a remarkable career. It was a career that would take him to the highest pinnacles of cooking and, in partnership with César Ritz, make him one half of the greatest double-act in the history of the hospitality trade. In the words of the German Kaiser, he would indeed become the ‘Emperor of Chefs.’
PEACHES AND CREAM The innovations that Ritz and Escoffier made in hotel-keeping and hotel dining live on in every modern luxury hotel, and the name Ritz quickly became synonymous with luxury and glamour. It remains so today. Escoffier, on the other hand, is remembered less for the great reforms of hygiene and working conditions and practices he instigated, or even the simplification of French cuisine and subsequent codification of recipes in his great
INNOVATION
work, Le Guide Culinaire. Mainly, the name of Escoffier is associated with a simple dish of peaches and ice cream which, in one of life’s great ironies, is named after someone else. Ironic, too, that his most famous creation should be a dessert. Escoffier, being a Frenchman, saw cheese as the true and fitting end to any good meal, with, in the words of his biographer Kenneth James, “nothing sweet between to spoil the palate for the wine.” Indeed, the word itself comes from the fact that the table is then cleared, la table est dessert, after which “something light and sweet can be allowed to invade the taste buds—the dessert.” The creation which he served to Australian opera singer Nellie Melba (she was not yet a dame) is, like all great dishes, a combination of a few choice ingredients working in perfect harmony. Nor is it original: it was based on the Pêche Cardinal au coulis de framboise, which is little more than peaches on a raspberry purée, and for which Mme Melba had already expressed her adoration. Escoffier simply added vanilla ice cream, a scattering of fresh almonds, topped it off with a cage of spun sugar and voila, peach Melba. It was truly a shot heard around the world, and in 1928 Escoffier commented that “half a million more peaches are now tinned every year to meet the demands, still increasing, of the lovers of this delicious dessert.” But the great diva was not the only one to be so honoured: over the years Escoffier was to create such desserts as Pêches Alexandra, Pêches Eugénie, Pêches Isabelle and Pêches Aiglon, the last named for Sarah Bernhardt after a play in which she was starring. They were all variations on theme. Indeed, when asked (by a woman) what he considered to be the secret of his art, Escoffier replied, “the secret is that most of my best dishes were created for the ladies.” Escoffier not only had an eye for the ladies, he had a puckish sense of humour, too. The recipe for another of his desserts, Coupe Vénus, is simple: Two peach halves poached in vanilla flavoured syrup side by side in a bed of vanilla ice cream. Each half is decorated with a red cherry.
Opposite: Peach Melba, Auguste Escoffier’s classic dessert.
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