CHEF TO THE KING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 August 1938, Page 6

CHEF TO THE KING

DREAM COMES TRUE. A young French boy, learning to be a pastry cook, walked the streets of Paris just before the Great War with a basket of pastries on his head. He dreamed of the day when he would leave the pastry kitchen to become a great chef. He little dreamed that the day would come when he would come when he would make his pastries in a Royal kitchen and be appointed chef to a British Sovereign. The boy was Rene Roussin, son of a Parisian sculptor. More than 20 years’ experience in every branch of his chosen calling has made him a master of his craft, and given him a. know-* ledge of the tastes of the great. • His experience of. cooking in various parts of the world —he is probably the greatest globe-trotter among chefs who, have attained fame—will stand him in' good stead in his new appointment as chef to the King. At Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Balmoral and Windsor he will have to cook for guests from all parts of the world. At one time he had under him a team of 18 chefs, who thought nothing of preparing several banquets a day. That was when he worked for a firm of caterers. He has been chef in private houses in Britain and South Africa. He -has been in charge of the kitchens of a luxury liner on Mediterranean and Atlantic cruises. • One of the railway companies secured him for a time for their exclusive hotels. The line-of noted chefs to whom he succeeds includes Antonin Careme, who designed the kitchens at Windsor Castle for Queen Victoria, “Father” Gerard, King George the Fifth’s chef, and Henri Poupart, summoned from retirement in France to act as Coronation chef last year.

Three families in Pianura, a village near Naplies, total 55 children; this, it is believed, constituting a record.