A Great Chef in His Kitchen.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 21 December 1912, Page 14

A Great Chef in His Kitchen.

FAfiHIONABLH LONDON'S OHMSTMAS.

As the twmitioth oentury advances tho custom of dining at West find restaurants at Christmas time grows in popularity with Londoners, and proprietors vio with each other to ponder' tlieir places of cnl<\rtaiument gay and attractive to tho public, making special efforts to givo their patrons that good choor inseparably associated with the Christmas festival. Beneath tlio magnificent dining-rooms of one such restaurant is its kitchen—and a Man of Genius.' Above arc wealth, easo, leisure, well-groomed men, women with pretty faces,. sumptuous gowns, niul sparkling jewels. Dainty musio and rippling laughter fill with soft sounds the voluptuous atmosphere, charged with tho odour of delicate meats, fine wines, perfumes, and exotics. But a foot or so below, separated from its patrons by a. flooring and a few girders, is the workshop which turns out with minute precision and punctuality the ■exquisitely prepared foods its habitues love the machinery, largely human, that works, guided by its famous chef, JI. Escoffier,. that others mar dine. The White-Clad Army at Work. It is eight o'clock. The pressure of work is at its utmost pitch. Above, more than 800 people are demanding food —politely, of course, for the hunger of the rich is not so clamant that it forgets its manners. Yet they must be fed. So the huge fires blaze; the co.'/fc are shovelled on till the tops of the stoves are red hot. An army of white-capped, whitecoated men with white neckerchiefs wound about their throats, and three formidable knives stuck in their girdles, fill the vast, white-tiled, low-ceiiinged kitchen. They are French, .Germans, Italians,. Swiss— not one is English. All are gesticulating and talking excitedly as they work strenuously, without a second's pause, to the extreme urgency of. the hour. The heat-is intense; the din something absolutely inconceivable. At the door stand two head cooks, Frenchmen, with lonjj lists in th(vr hands, shouting—to say yelling would bo nearer tho mark—in a harsh, nasal monotone, the names of the various meats ordered, and the number of persons for whom each ,<ii.ih is required. Each co-ak responsib.o for that particular dish yells back in exactly tho same tono, but with the words translated into his own tongue, if it ia not French: . • "iVmiet saute mix tomatea et cepes— "('v.biUnnd nu beurre fondu—trois." do vol aillo Alexandra cjur,tr«/' . . , But where is the roaster mind who sow in motion all this machinerv? TV ho orjanifics, controls?, find directs the airiest frenziad activities of tbif great Ixxshiver Tho Napoleon of Gastronomy. 1 Apart, he stands, silent, watchful, solf- ' contained amid all the hubbub. His quiet, restraiued manner, in direct contrast with the excitement of hia staff, would alono distinguish him as the muster. Kindly in his bear'Dg, he yet spenVs, which is not often, as one .living authority, and all look anxiously at him for hie approval often excreted bv the mer«t nod. It i 6 EscofSer, tho Napoleon of gastroib a Frenchman from tho south; of small ftature and unpretentious mien, with {frizzled hair and moustache and refined features indicative of hi-prh intelligence. His most marked characteristic, ; that which sweats to-an onlooker the poewssion of tlie quAlit'os which ' have rained him to the petition he now hads And ffiven him his world-wide reputation as a leading cM in Europe, is the extreme reticence of his manner. Charv ot his; won.-"?, his is the critical mind that weighs and balances all thmn? in the monies, apportioning the-ra in'their due relation. Nevertheless, beneath this •'culm exterior burns the'enthusiasm of the artist for his art. ' ' • ' ' ' Rl. Escoffier was born and reared in the wonderful country of the Cote < d'Azivr, with its glories of sky and sea, its Great fields of sweot-scrnted flowers, and all those beauties Which never cease to charm us in the Riviera. It cannot be denied that the poetic nature of his early sur-roundings-has largely influenced the art of M. Epcoffier, and aided* him to invest gastronomy with a poetry, a subtlety, n delicacy which are nut. rarely associated .with cooking in the domestic sense.

From the Lowest Rung of the )_addor. He served his apprenticeship in hia uncle's restaurant at Nice. At eleven years of age he was trotting round the market buying the vegetables. he was afterwards to prepare, for it is -needless to say that he would' not be the great chef ho .'.is had he not mastered the minutest details of his profession. From Nice he migrated to the household of one of tho Russian Hereditary Grand Dukes, and then to Paris, to tho Restaurant Moulin Rouge. This dining resort—not to.be confounded with the dancing place of that name —was, at the time of the second Empire, at the very height .of popularity. When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, -M. Escoffier was to the front. Actin" as'chef to the General Staff of the army on the. Rhine, he was captured, and his fellow-captives benefited gastronoraically.. Hia aext post was with Marshal Macllahon, whom he left to return to the Moulin Rouge—this time, as its chef. On tho olosing of the Moulin Rouge in 1878. M. Escoffier turned southwards to the Grand Hotel, Monte Carko, whenre his fame spread abroad. Ho came to, London at the opening of the . Savoy Hotel specially to inaugurate its kitchens, and in the metropolis ho has remained ever since, only paying flying visits abroad when his advice and direction are. urgently demanded in connection with th£ opening of new hotels. He is a man of untiring energy, for, in addition to his special work, he maintains a large factory in London, whcTe all his famous sauces and condiments are made and may lira purchased. , A wit onco said, T?here are but two kinds of dinnere—a good dinner and a bad dinner." We in tho twentieth century ban add a third, however—an Escoffior dinner. YY hat does it not comprise to-night? "Pilots de Sole Wale.nska and "Turbotin but le plat" seem to bo the favourite fishes out of a choice of a dozen. From the ovens the cooks produce an endless succession of Poulets Reine," quails, snipe, partridges, and light roasts. Heavy dishes are not usually, found in M. Eisooffier's menu for the evening, but in dofercneo to the season roast beef and plum pudding are made a feature on this occasion. Triumphs In Sweets.

But it is, porliap9, in the "Patisserie" that his greatest triumphs have been acltioved; it is in the preparation of what we,, for lack of a hotter name, term the "sweets/' that ho has found the pest field for the employment of that imaginn tion and invention which captivate the eve and delight the palate. His wellknown dish, which hie calls the. Peche Melba," after the famous singer, invented to gratify her fanoy for tho association of tho flavours of raspberry and peach, is but one example out of many. Since the advent of "Peche Melba/ he has invent-" ed, to supply the incessant demand of his ixitron9 for something new, the Toire Bohemienne"—served with vanilla ire and marrons glaces, out small, and a delicate suggestion of rum. These "Poires Bohemiennca generally acoompany another of his masterpieces, the "Omelette Surprise." or—if jerred on fire—"Bombe New." Tho "Omelette Surprise" ia in process of making just now, and all his henchmen look on with supexcitement ready to obey instantly at the word of command as the patissior prepares the confection with lightning Bpeed.' . ~ , Within a hollow gateau nestles some delic.ioufl ice. Both are quickly hidden from view by a thick coating of meringue, dexterously adjusted, trimmed, and adorned, 'almost in one operation, by the palate knife and the foroer. A number of coquilles en pate are inserted in tho crown to serve as containers for tho rum he pours in. A shower of white ™gar. follows. Then willing hands throw wide the open doors ot the cavernous oven, and the white pyramid with its heart of ice is thrust therein. It emerges after a fotv breathless seconds of a golden brown colour. A waiter stands ready with some hot rum with which to ignite it at the very moment of serving nnd—it is done. The "Botiljo Nero" fas the name riven to it bv JI. Escoffier in commemoration of tho burning of Eomo when Nero jrso Bloyina ne&i