Chef Careme gained fame in Paris for his pièces montées.

Marie Antoine (Antonin) Careme (June 8, 1784–January 12, 1833), was a French chef and author. He is well known for greatly simplifying and codifying the style of cooking known as haute cuisine, the high art of French cooking which is central to France's national cuisine. He is often thought of as the first celebrity chef.

antonin_careme
Born in Paris and abandoned there by destitute parents in 1792 at the height of chaos of the French Revolution, he worked as a kitchen boy at a cheap Parisian chophouse in exchange for room and board. In 1798, he was formally apprenticed to Sylvain Bailly, a famous pâtissier with a shop near the Palais-Royal. Bailly recognized his talent and ambition.

Careme gained fame in Paris for his pièces montées,

Amazon.com Widgets

elaborate constructions used as centerpieces, which Bailly displayed in the pâtisserie window. He made these confections, which were sometimes several feet high, entirely out of foodstuffs such as sugar, marzipan, and pastry. He modeled them on temples, pyramids, and ancient ruins, taking ideas from architectural history books that he studied at the nearby Bibliothéque Nationale.[1] Utilizing his previous architectural knowledge coupled with culinary genius, some of his sugar works were so elaborate that court jesters would dance upon them while entertaining the king.

He did freelance work creating centerpieces principally for the French diplomat and gourmand Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, but also other members of Parisian high society, including Napoleon. While working on his confections at many private kitchens, he quickly extended his culinary skills to main courses.

Napoleon was famously indifferent to food, but he understood the importance of social relations in the world of diplomacy. In 1804, he gave money to Talleyrand to purchase Château de Valençay, a large estate outside of Paris. The château was intended to act as a kind of diplomatic gathering place. When Talleyrand moved there, he took Careme with him. In his first major position,

Careme worked as chef de cuisine to Talleyrand.

More than simply an employer or sponsor, Talleyrand actively encouraged Careme to produce a new refined style of eating, using fresh herbs and vegetables and simplified sauces with fewer ingredients. Talleyrand's table became famous during the negotiations that followed the fall of Napoléon, at the Congress of Vienna. When the Congress dispersed, both the map of Europe and the culinary tastes of its upper classes were thoroughly revised.

Careme's impact on culinary matters ranged from trivial to theoretical.

He is credited with creating the standard chef's hat, the toque; he designed new sauces and dishes, he published a classification of all sauces into groups, based on four mother sauces. He is also frequently credited with replacing the practice of service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving each dish in the order printed on the menu), after he returned from service in the Russian court, but sources differ on this point.[2]

Careme wrote several encyclopedic works on cookery, above all L'Art de la Cuisine Française (5 vols, 1833–34), which included, aside from hundreds of recipes, plans for menus and opulent table settings, a history of French cookery, and instructions for organizing kitchens.

View from Chefs Hat