Alexis Soyer

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Alexis Soyer with his trademark, the red beret

Alexis Benoit Soyer (* February 4, 1810 - † August 5, 1858 ; born as Alexis Benoist Soyer - in the course of his life he changed his middle name to Benoit) was a chef of French descent who spent much of his life in Great Britain and is considered one of the most famous chefs of the Victorian Age . To his fame contributed, among other things, that he developed soup kitchens during the Great Famine in Ireland (1845-1852) , which should ensure the supply of the starving population and during the Crimean War (1853-1856) tried to improve the nutrition of British soldiers.

Life

childhood

Alexis Benoist Soyer was born on February 4, 1810 at 10 p.m. in the French provincial town of Meaux, east of Paris . Alexis Soyer's parents, Emery and Marie Soyer, moved to this predominantly Protestant city in 1799. After a while, they had to give up the shop, which was initially operated successfully. Emery Soyer tried the livelihood of the family first with work as a goldsmith or Sattler but to secure, then had to be a worker at the of I. Napoléon initiated construction de Canal de l'Ourcq hire. Alexis was the couple's fifth son, but two of the sons had died before Alexis was born.

Very little is known about Alexis Soyer's childhood. The only source (and not really considered reliable) is his autobiography, recorded by his friend Francois Voland. As a result of his good singing voice, he was accepted into an evangelical seminar at the age of nine. Alexis Soyer did not feel comfortable at this seminar and after a little more than a year was finally expelled from school due to a prank.

Youth in Paris

Hippolyte Lecomte , Battle of the Rue de Rohan on July 29, 1830

In 1821 the parents decided to entrust the 11-year-old Alexis to his eldest brother Philippe, who had established himself as a talented chef in Paris. His brother arranged for him an apprenticeship with Georg Rignon, one of the more famous chefs in Paris. At that time there were around 500 restaurants in Paris, and the city was considered a refuge for refined culinary art in the western world.

Alexis Soyer quickly proved to be an excellent cook and organizer. In 1826 he left Rignon to work at La Maison Douix in Montmartre , where in 1827, at the age of 17, he was entrusted with the management of a cooking brigade consisting of 12 cooks. Alexis Soyer was with Maison Douix for about three years, then worked for a while as a rental chef who was hired by aristocratic families when they hosted large banquets. He was finally entrusted by Jules de Polignac with the organization of a banquet that was to take place on July 26, 1830. The unpopular Jules de Polignac recently became the first minister of the French King Charles ; the banquet was planned as a show of power against all the Bonapartists, socialists, reformers and republicans who criticized his office. It coincided with the signing of the so-called Juliordonnanzen , with which, among other things, unconstitutional censorship of the press was introduced and the right to vote was restricted. The first riots broke out during the banquet. Protesters stormed Polignac's palace, killing several of the guards. The next day, the unrest had spread to the entire city area, the so-called July Revolution led to the overthrow of the Bourbons .

Soyer then found it difficult to get further orders. In the politically troubled months that followed, aristocratic families obviously considered it unwise to employ a chef whose name was associated with the Polignac banquet. Neither was Soyer, now considered the lackey of the most conservative political wing, welcome in the bohemian restaurant scene. His lover Adelaide Lamain had also given birth to a son on June 2. The birth certificate of young Jean Alexis didn't even name Soyer as a father.

Careers in Great Britain

His oldest brother once again offered a way out of the private and professional crisis. Philippe Soyer had worked in the UK for a number of years and was now head chef at the Duke of Cambridge . In 1831 Alexis Soyer went to Great Britain to initially work under the direction of his older brother.

Soyer did not stay long in the household of the Cambridge Duke. He was initially sous-chef in the household of the wealthy Henry de la Poer Beresford , then worked for the Duke of Sutherland and finally for the extremely wealthy landowner William Lloyd, who owned over three substantial country estates around Oswestry . He stayed with this family until the spring of 1836 and then moved to the London household of the Marquess of Ailsa , a proven gourmet and reformist. The reason for the change was Soyer's acquaintance with Elisabeth Emma Jones . Her stepfather Francois Simonau had achieved some prosperity as a portrait painter in English society and Elisabeth Jones had already exhibited successfully. Her stepfather was initially opposed to marrying a cook. However, moving to London allowed Soyer to see Elisabeth Jones on a regular basis.

Chef de Cuisine of the Reform Club

Reform Club, first floor 1841

The Marquess of Ailsa was one of the proven reform leaders who supported the Reform Act of 1832. He was also one of the founding members of the Reform Club , which was designed to promote liberal and progressive thinking. The founding members were certain that the club, located on the south side of Pall Mall , would not only have a well-equipped library and retreat, but would also have to have excellent cuisine in order to be successful in the long term. The role of Chef de Cuisine was therefore offered to Alexis Soyer in 1837. The prestigious position also helped him overcome Francois Simonau's concerns. On April 12th, he married Elisabeth Emma Jones in St. George's Church in Hanover Square, London.

One of the large banquets that Soyer hosted as Chef de Cuisine at the Reform Club was the one on the occasion of the coronation celebrations for the young Queen Victoria . Soyer worked under difficult conditions: the old Reform Club building had been demolished to make way for a larger building and Soyer had to make do with the inadequate kitchens in the temporary clubhouse. In addition to typical dishes from English cuisine, the banquet also offered baroque creations from French cuisine. Dishes served included galantine de volaille , truffes au vin de champagne , turban of larks à la Parisienne, and pâtés de pithiviers .

Reconstruction of the Reform Club

The respected British architect Charles Barry , who had been responsible for the construction of the Traveler Club a few years earlier, was entrusted with the construction of the new club building . Barry came from a similarly humble background as Alexis Soyer and the two men got along very well. For Soyer, the new club building was the unique opportunity to have a kitchen built according to his ideas. Soyer had already had the opportunity while working for William Lloyd to implement various ideas that should make work in the kitchen easier. The completely new construction of the kitchen offered the opportunity to implement such innovations on a much larger scale.

When the new Reform Club building opened in 1841, the kitchen wing had its own roast kitchen. Two huge, six feet high and six feet deep, tin-plated screens prevented the heat from this kitchen from penetrating the other rooms. Sliding rails made it possible to move these screens and indentations in them could be used to keep food warm. Around the central kitchen there were rooms that were used, among other things, for cutting meat, preparing desserts, vegetables and sauces. The kitchen wing also provided storage rooms, dining rooms for the kitchen staff and Soyer's office. The storage rooms for vegetables were partly tiled with slate to keep the rooms cool. Sideboards had lead-clad drawers for ice cream to keep the sideboards cold. The drawers, in turn, had small drains to allow the melted ice water to drain away. The basins, in which running ice water cooled the stone slabs on which fish was temporarily stored, as well as steam-powered skewers and food elevators were new. The heart of the central kitchen were gas stoves that made it possible to regulate the temperature of the individual hotplates. Soyer hadn't invented cooking with gas - the Moravian chemist Zachaus Winzler had experimented with gas stoves as early as 1802 - but gas stoves were very rare in Great Britain. They found further use only after the London Industrial Exhibition of 1851 , but were not yet part of the standard equipment of a Victorian house in the 1880s. The fact that Alexis Soyer was able to cook reliably with gas was ultimately also due to the fact that the Reform Club was one of the early buildings that had a reliable gas connection. The modernity of this kitchen wing was also highlighted by the contemporary press. The Spectator spoke of an "unparalleled culinary arrangement" ( matchless culinary arrangements ). London Gourmet magazine went even further

“The Reform Club is very similar to the other distinguished clubs in the Westend [...] but because of its renowned cuisine it has achieved particular fame. Its kitchen amazes those who are only familiar with the usual kitchen equipment. The “ genius loci ” is M [onsieur] Alexis Soyer, who works as the club's head chef and to whose ideas this equipment can apparently be traced back. The art of gastronomy has certainly never had so much scientific equipment at its disposal. "

Growing fame

As Soyers and the Reform Club's kitchen became more famous, visits by club members and their guests to the kitchen wing became common. Alexis Soyer claimed he received more than 15,000 visitors in 10 months in 1846 alone. Over time, the demand for guided tours became so great that Soyer delegated most of them to his secretary François Volant. Soyer himself, dressed in a white uniform and always wearing a red beret, received the most famous guests. He was known for his quick-wittedness, which did not leave him even in the face of political celebrities who visited him in his kitchen. When Prime Minister Melbourne commented on the number of pretty girls in the kitchen during his visit to the kitchen, Soyer replied that you don't want ordinary cooks.

Soyer was the club's highest-paid employee after the club secretary. The club also allowed him to employ trainees who paid an annual fee of £ 10 for the privilege of working with the famous chef. At that time a nurse earned about £ 20 a year, a governess with free board and lodging often only £ 10. Soyer found other ways to make money from his fame, however. He had a large lithograph of the Reform Club kitchen made by the architect John Tarring. The accompanying text under the lithograph explained the function of each room and its special features. The color lithograph cost one guinea each , while the black and white one cost half a guinea. There is no evidence that Soyer obtained approval from the club's governing committee to sell the lithographs. In the Reform Club's archives, however, there is still the subscription book that proves that numerous club members ordered one of the lithographs for themselves. Soyer sold a total of 1,400 copies.

Professional success was accompanied by a personal tragedy. Soyer's wife Elizabeth died in 1842 while giving birth to their first child. At the time, Alexis Soyer had traveled to Brussels in the entourage of Ernst von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha to be introduced to the Belgian king . His secretary Volant followed him to bring him the sad news. Among the many condolences Soyer received in the days that followed were former employers and aristocratic admirers. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge sent him letters of condolence, as did the Duchess of Sutherland. The most generous offer came from his previous employer, the Marquess of Aisla, who offered Soyer and his father-in-law to recover from the loss at his country estate.

Relationship with Fanny Cerrito

Fanny Cerrito, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1842

Alexis Soyer returned to the Reform Club kitchen a few weeks after his wife's funeral. A few months later, he resumed the life he had led before his marriage. He was a regular guest in theaters and opera houses. In May 1844 he met the dancer Fanny Cerrito . Cerrito was no conventional beauty; she had shorter legs and more voluptuous breasts than most ballerinas, and she was also fuller than usual for a dancer. However, due to her unusually strong expression, she had been La Scala prima ballerina for two years and after her first appearance in the UK, the Morning Post had declared her one of the most talented dancers in Europe.

Cerrito had earned a reputation for resisting the advances of noble patrons. Unlike the other great ballerinas of her time Marie Taglioni and Carlotta Grisi , she was therefore socially acceptable and even found friends among the members of the English aristocracy. Similar to Alexis Soyer, however, she belonged to that social gray area, which, due to her professional talent and her pleasant manners, was welcomed in the highest social circles - but always under the not explicit assumption that they were not on the same social level with other guests and owed their invitation solely to their novelty and entertainment value. During his courtship for Cerrito, Soyer wrote a ballet, among other things, but he was probably convinced that it was not suitable for a performance. He also named a dessert consisting of meringue and ice cream in her honor . Cerrito in turn even accompanied Soyer to the dedication of the tomb of his deceased wife. The imposing tomb, which for several decades was the tallest tomb in London's famous Kensal Green Cemetery , had cost Soyer no less than £ 500. The Belgian sculptor Pierre Puyenbroeck had worked on it for more than two years.

Cerrito's parents were hostile to their daughter's relationship with Alexis Soyer. In contrast to Elizabeth Emma Jones, it was not class-specific reservations that spoke against marriage to a chef. However, Cerrito's parents believed that another connection would be more conducive to their daughter's career. Presumably because of her father's influence, Fanny Cerrito finally married the violinist, dancer, choreographer and dance theorist Arthur Saint-Léon on April 17, 1845 , with whom she successfully toured Europe. The marriage was not very happy and the two separated again in 1851. The friendship with Alexis Soyer continued.

The banquet in honor of Ibrahim Pasha

A number of famous banquets were held at the Reform Club. One of the most commented on in the press is the one given in honor of Ibrahim Pasha on July 3, 1846 , and attended by 150 people. It was one of the most popular banquets that Alexis Soyer planned and carried out. With its effort, originality and complexity, the banquet surpasses even the lavish banquets that were typical of British cuisine in the first half of the 19th century.

Ibrahim Pasha, portrait by Charles-Philippe Larivière , 1846

The banquet was served " à la française ". Several, sometimes very different dishes were placed on the table at the same time. Etiquette required that no one could take away from a dish without first offering it to their neighbor. As this led to the tablecloths becoming soiled during the banquet, they were replaced during the banquet. Despite the large number of dishes that were served with each course, the individual guest usually only ate from the dishes that were placed by the service staff in their vicinity. Typical for such a service was that at least one elaborately prepared dish was cut up by the host or the guest of honor and distributed among those present. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that this way of serving a banquet was increasingly replaced by the so-called " service à la russe ", in which the dishes were portioned in the kitchen and increasingly a waiter served the individual guest.

The banquet started with several soups. This included a “Potage à la Victoria”, a veal consommé garnished with blanched rooster combs, a “Potage à la Colbert”, a vegetable soup with pea-sized, glazed Jerusalem artichoke balls and a “Potage à la Comte de Paris”, a meat broth with ribbon noodles and quenelles made from chicken. The fish dishes were served almost at the same time. These included “Turbot à la Mazarin”, a poached turbot with a sauce made from butter and lobster roe, pan-fried trout in sherry sauce, deep-fried whiting garnished “à l'Egyptienne” in honor of the guest, and a Wild salmon au gratin in cream sauce. This was followed by the meat dishes; Roast turkey chicks , rabbits in currant sauce, capons with watercress, roast ducks with orange sauce, roast beef, mutton and saddle of lamb "à la Sévigné", served with veal dumplings, cucumber and asparagus puree. Among the more elaborate meat dishes were the “Chapons à la Nelson”, where capons stuffed with truffles and mushrooms were served in pastry pies shaped like the bow of a ship with details such as sails, portholes and anchors. Mashed potatoes were decorated in waves around the pastry pies. For the first time, Soyer also served his “Poulardes en Diadem”, a dough pie in the shape of a crown, which was filled with roasted chicken, boiled ox tongue and glazed sweetbreads . The top of the pastry was adorned with silver and gold skewers with crayfish, quenelles and truffles on top.

According to the “Service à la Française”, meat dishes and desserts were served at the same time in the second course. House chicks, lamb, veal, rabbit, pies, ham braised in Madeira, lobster in curry sauce, salads and vegetable dishes such as peas and green beans in nut butter were served. Also were applied lamb chops reform , a hallmark Soyers that counted Club the most popular dishes in the reform. Desserts such as fruit jellies, ice cream, meringues , tartlets made from nougat and apricots or almonds and cherries were served with the intermediate dishes. This was followed by the “pièces montées”, elaborate works of art of the confectionery, with which a cook had to prove his imagination and skill. These desserts were often themed. A “crème d'Égypte à l'Ibrahim Pasha” was served, a pyramid-shaped, one-meter-high structure made of meringue in the form of a pyramid, which was filled with pineapple cream and on top of which was a replica of Muhammad Ali Pasha , the father of Ibrahim Pasha. A “Gâteau Britannique à l'Admiral” had also been created in honor of Admiral Napier , who hosted the banquet. The cake in the shape of a warship carrying the English and Egyptian flags was placed in front of Lord Napier, who, as host, was responsible for distributing the dessert filled with iced peach mousse and fresh fruit to the guests. To the amusement of Ibrahim Pasha and the entire congregation, the elaborate construction collapsed even before Lord Napier had performed his duties.

Soup kitchens for Ireland

Parallel to his work in the Reform Club, Alexis Soyer was actively involved in social issues. It is no longer possible to determine exactly when his voluntary work began. However, it began long before the Great Famine in Ireland was publicly discussed in Great Britain and was aimed at improving the living conditions of the lowest British population. Soyer found their ability to prepare food or run a rational household to be deplorably low. He volunteered to advise the trustees of several workhouses and hospitals on the organization of the kitchens in these facilities. The aim was to define work processes and standardize preparation methods in order to improve both the quality and the quantity of the meals prepared there. Since the distribution of meals to the needy was one of the few areas in which upper class women could get involved without experiencing social stigma, he also gave cooking classes to women who were active in this area. As a result, Soyer studied extensively in the course of the 1840s how a reasonably tasty and nutritious meal could be prepared at a relatively low cost.

The famine in Ireland

Irish famine victims

At the end of the first half of the 19th century, Ireland was one of the most backward countries in Europe that had barely participated in the positive changes that began as a result of the Industrial Revolution . The development of a small industrial base had only taken place in Northern Ireland, with jobs almost exclusively in agriculture. Unemployment among the Irish population was high, most of them living on tiny leases where only the cultivation of potatoes provided the families with poor food. Both the poverty of the Irish people and the country's backwardness resulted from centuries of British rule over Ireland. It had meant that most of the fertile land was owned by a relatively small number of British landowners who had no incentive to invest in the country's industrial development. As a rule, they did not live in Ireland and only saw a source of income in their specialty goods for the export of certain foods. Accordingly, they expected their land managers to generate the highest possible income. Ireland also exported food during the famine years of 1846-1850.

The so-called "potato rot" caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans first appeared in the USA in 1843. A little later, it led to food shortages across Europe. In Great Britain, the number of available industrial jobs, the existing infrastructure and a social safety net that is poor by today's standards but still functioning mitigated the consequences of the food shortage. In Ireland, however, there was a serious famine between 1846 and 1852. By 1845 the Irish potato harvest had already fallen to two thirds of the usual amount. In 1846 it was only a quarter of the usual harvest. The UK Government's utterly inadequate response to the disaster resulted in at least one million people starving in Ireland between 1845 and 1850 and another two million emigrating abroad by 1855.

Soyer's soup kitchen

Feeding the poor in soup kitchens had become a common means of social welfare in Europe by the late 18th century. Its introduction is often associated with Benjamin Thompson , who probably first introduced such a facility in Munich in 1790. One of the first London soup kitchens is known to have been set up in 1797. Few of the soup kitchens were built or set up specifically for this purpose. Most soup kitchens were informal establishments that could only cater for a small number of the needy.

Soyer turned to the British press on February 10, 1847 and proposed the targeted construction of two large soup kitchens, one in Dublin and one in London. The kitchens should allow the supply of a number of needy people in a way that was not possible in the traditional soup kitchens. If they were successful, they could serve as an example for the construction of other such structures. The kitchens should be financed through public donations. Soyer himself provided a generous £ 30 - more than a nurse's annual salary. On February 17, Soyer published a report in The Times detailing two soup recipes that he found suitable for feeding the poor. At that time he had also commissioned the kitchen appliances for a somewhat smaller kitchen, which was to serve as the first test of his model kitchens. The kitchen opened a little later in the London borough of Spitalfields under the auspices of the Bishop of London . In another report to the Times that the kitchen had taken care of 350 schoolchildren within 20 minutes, Soyer asked a second time for donations for his two large model kitchens.

Contrary to what his newspaper reports suggested, the donations for his model kitchens were not particularly high. Soyer had only collected 147 pounds by then; his own donation was the largest single amount to date. An exhibition of the works of his late wife did not help to increase the donation amount significantly, although Soyer was able to win over his former employer, the Duchess of Sutherland, to open the exhibition. This lack of success is in marked contrast to the high number of subscribers Soyer had previously been able to find for the lithography of the Reform Club kitchen or its cookbooks. Soyer's biographer Ruth Cowen cites two reasons for this disappointing success: There was widespread indifference among the British public about the poorly understood food shortages that were then prevalent in Ireland and other European countries. Part of the British public continued to explain the famine of the poorer population in terms of the laziness and intellectual limitations of those affected. For the members of the Reform Club, to which predominantly liberal politicians or politically interested parties belonged, Soyer's support would have been tantamount to a vote of no confidence in their own parliament.

Soup kitchens commissioned by the British government

Lieutenant General Sir John Fox Burgoyne, GCB , photo by Roger Fenton , 1855. Burgoyne directed relief efforts in Ireland from April 1847

The British Poor Law , which also applied to Ireland, provided no direct financial or material support for the starving. According to the Poor Law, aid was only provided through prison-like workhouses . The intention behind this was to prevent dependency on government support and instead to rely on those affected to take the initiative . In 1847 the Poor Law was amended to require the Irish part of the country to finance the Irish workhouses itself. The rapidly increasing number of those in need pushed the system to its limits. The inmates could not be adequately fed but had to do hard physical labor. In addition, the hygienic conditions were catastrophic and epidemics developed. In March 1847 there was a death rate of 2.4% per week in the workhouses, which rose to 4.3% in April 1847.

The British government initially only intervened through job creation measures. In October 1846 114,600 jobs had been placed, in January 1847 the number was 570,000 and in March of the same year 734,000. A little later the British government had to admit the futility of these aid measures. The new "Irish Relief Act" specifically provided for the establishment of soup kitchens. Just days after the bill was passed, the Sunday Observer reported that Alexis Soyer had been appointed head chef for the Irish people. Lord Bessborough turned in his function as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to the Reform Club with the request that Soyer be released from his work for a period so that he could participate in the relief efforts for the Irish people.

On April 5, 1847, in the presence of the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Bessborough and Sir John Fox Burgoyne Soyers, the first large model kitchen was inaugurated in Dublin. The soup kitchen, built of canvas and wooden planks, had a floor area of ​​around 372 square meters and had large doors at two ends. The soup kitchen was equipped with a soup kettle that held around 1360 liters. Next to it was a bread oven that could bake 50 kilograms of bread at the same time. Both devices were heated by a coal fire. Around the soup kettle there were eight large iron bain maries , in which another 4,500 liters of soup could be kept warm. At either end of the room were large work tables for cutting the ingredients, as well as tubs, drawers, and shelves for the ingredients. More than 8000 liters of water could be stored in huge water barrels. Long, narrow wooden tables stood on three walls of the soup kitchen. In these tables there were indentations, in each of which an enamel bowl stood, to which a spoon was attached with a thin chain. Tin tubs with water were jacked up at intervals of 3 meters, in which the helpers could clean the enamel bowls between each feed.

It was planned that the needy should gather in line in front of the pavilion. Each 100 people were admitted, each received a soup to eat and then left the soup kitchen through the other entrance, where they were given a piece of bread or biscuit each. The bowls were cleaned and refilled and then the next group was let in. Soyer had calculated that 5,000 people in need could be supplied through this soup kitchen. However, the soup kitchen succeeded in increasing the number of meals to 8,750 and serving another 3,000 servings that had been prepared there elsewhere.

End of the soup kitchens

After the rapid success of the Dublin soup kitchens, a dense network of soup kitchens emerged in the following months, which probably contributed significantly to the fact that the number of starvation deaths fell again in the spring of 1847. In a fatal wrong decision by the British government, however, the financing of the soup kitchens was stopped again in August. The 1847 crop yields were high enough to make the British government believe the disaster was over. In fact, it was the weather conditions that caused the fungus to decline. The harvests of 1848, 1849 and 1850 were as devastatingly low as those of 1846.

Both Soyer and the British government benefited from the opening of the soup kitchen, which was widely reported in the press. In addition to his fame, the fact that his proposed recipes promised inexpensive supplies to the Irish population probably contributed to Soyer's choice. The food science was still in its infancy, and there were few critics who pointed out that a strict adherence to Soyers formulas would have led to an inadequate diet.

Publications

Due to his inadequate schooling, Alexis Soyer was only able to write to a limited extent. Even if this improved in the course of his life, he employed secretaries even in financially more difficult phases, who dealt with his correspondence and to whom he dictated his cookbooks.

  • Délassements culinaires. (1845)
  • The Gastronomic Regenerator (1846)
  • Soyer's Charitable Cookery (1847)
  • The Poorman's Regenerator (1848)
  • The modern Housewife or ménagère (1849)
  • The Pantropheon or A history of food and its preparation in ancient times , 1853, réédition 1977, Paddington Press.
  • A Shilling Cookery Book for the People (1855)
  • Soyer's Culinary Campaign (1857)

literature

  • Ruth Brandon: The People's Chef: Alexis Soyer, A Life in Seven Courses , London 2004, ISBN 0-470-86991-7 .
  • Ruth Cowen: Relish: The Extraordinary Life of Alexis Soyer, Victorian Celebrity Chef , London 2006, ISBN 0-297-64562-5 .
  • Sarah Freeman: Mutton & Oysters - The Victorians and their food . London 1989, ISBN 0-575-03151-4

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 10.
  2. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 11.
  3. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 12.
  4. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 6.
  5. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 8.
  6. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 14.
  7. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 16.
  8. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 28.
  9. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 29.
  10. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 18.
  11. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 33.
  12. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 34.
  13. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 41.
  14. ↑ Cowen: Relish , 2006, pp. 44 and 45.
  15. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 47.
  16. ^ Judith Flanders: The Victorian House . London 2003, ISBN 978-0-00-713189-1 , p. 70
  17. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 46.
  18. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 48.
  19. ↑ Quoted from Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 48. The original quote is: The Reform Club very closely resembles the other distinguished clubs at the West End ... but it is by the possession of its famous kitchen that this club has gained a peculiar notoriety; a kitchen which baffles the conception of those who are accustomed only to ordinary culinary arrangements. The genus loci is M. Alexis Soyer, whose occupation is that of chief cook to the club, and whose invention the general arrangement of the kitchen seems to have been. The gastronomic art, certainly, never before had so many scientific appliances at its disposal.
  20. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 49.
  21. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 61.
  22. ↑ Mark Bostridge: Florence Nightingale . Penguin Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-026392-3 , pp. 186 and 190.
  23. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 65.
  24. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 82.
  25. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 70.
  26. ↑ Nichola Fletcher: Charlemagne's Tablecloth - A Piquant History of Feasting . Phoenix Paperback, London 2004, ISBN 0-75381-974-0 , pp. 155 - p. 157
  27. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 71.
  28. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 72.
  29. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 116.
  30. ↑ a b c Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 117.
  31. ↑ Sharman Apt Russell: Hunger - An Unnatural History. Basic Books, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-465-07163-0 , p. 222
  32. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 113.
  33. ↑ Sharman Apt Russell: Hunger - An Unnatural History. Basic Books, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-465-07163-0 , p. 223 and p. 224
  34. ↑ Sharman Apt Russell: Hunger - An Unnatural History. Basic Books, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-465-07163-0 , p. 220
  35. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 118.
  36. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 121.
  37. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 122.
  38. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 123.
  39. ↑ Cormac O Grada: Black`47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine , Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-07015-6 , p 50, 51st
  40. ↑ Christine Kinealy; A Death-Dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland , Pluto Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7453-1074-9 , p. 75.
  41. ^ Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 124.
  42. ↑ a b Cowen: Relish , 2006, p. 109.
personal data
SURNAME Soyer, Alexis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soyer, Alexis Benoit (full name); Soyer, Alexis Benoist (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chef of French descent
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1810
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 1858