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Alexis Soyer
Alexis Benoît Soyer (4 February 1810 – 5 August 1858) was a French chef, writer and inventor, who made his reputation in Victorian England.
Born in north-east France, Soyer trained as a chef in Paris, and quickly built a career that was brought to a halt by the July Revolution of 1830. Moving to England he worked in the kitchens of royalty, the aristocracy and the landed gentry until 1837. He was then appointed head chef of the Reform Club in London, where he designed the kitchens on radical modern lines and became celebrated for the range and excellence of his cooking. His best-known dish, lamb cutlets Reform, has remained on the club's menu since the 1840s and has been taken up by later chefs from Auguste Escoffier to Prue Leith.
Soyer became a well-known author of cookery books, aimed variously at the grand kitchens of the aristocracy, at middle-class households, and at the poorest families, whose diet he strove to improve. He took a keen interest in public health, and when the Irish potato famine struck in the 1840s he went to Dublin and set up a soup kitchen that could feed 1,000 people an hour; he published recipes for inexpensive and nutritious food and developed cheaper alternatives to bread. He left the Reform in 1850 and tried to establish himself independently, but his venture failed and lost him a great deal of money.
During the Crimean War, reports reached London of the appalling privations endured by British soldiers, with disease rife and food inadequate. At the request of the British government Soyer travelled to the Crimea in 1855 and worked with the nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale to improve conditions for the troops. He ensured that in all parts of the army there were nominated cooks, useful recipes, and the means to cook food properly − in particular, the portable Soyer stove which he invented and which remained in army use, with modifications, for more than a century. In the Crimea, Soyer became seriously ill; he never fully recovered his health. A little over a year after his return to London in 1857 he died of a stroke.
Soyer was born on 4 February 1810 in Meaux-en-Brie in north-eastern France. He was the youngest of the five children, all boys, of Emery Roche Soyer and his wife, Marie Madeleine Françoise, née Chamberlan. Meaux had been a Huguenot stronghold and retained a reputation for religious toleration. Emery Soyer and his wife, who are thought to have been Protestants, settled in the town in 1799. Emery had several jobs, one of them as a grocer, and scraped a modest living.
Soyer's early life is not well documented. According to his first biographers, François Volant and J. R. Warren, the boy was destined by his parents for the Protestant ministry and was sent to a local seminary at the age of nine. In Volant and Warren's account, Soyer rebelled against the claustrophobic environment of the seminary and deliberately contrived his expulsion by ringing the church bell at midnight, causing general alarm in the town. Later biographers differ about the plausibility of this account: Ruth Brandon (2004) finds the story improbable; Ruth Cowen (2006) does not discount it, but notes that there are no surviving school records for Soyer; Elizabeth Ray, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2011), treats the story as true.
In 1821 Soyer was sent to Paris to live with his eldest brother, Philippe, who was a cook. Philippe arranged an apprenticeship for him at a restaurant run by a friend, Georg Rignon, first in the Rue Vivienne, near the Bourse, and later relocated to the Boulevard des Italiens. In 1826 Soyer left to become second chef at Maison Douix, a large restaurant further along the Boulevard des Italiens. Within a year he was promoted to chef de cuisine with a team of twelve chefs beneath him.
By the end of the decade Soyer had struck out on his own, providing grand and high-profile banquets in aristocratic households. His career in Paris was halted by the July Revolution in 1830. Sources differ as to whether it was in a freelance capacity or as a newly appointed full-time chef to the French foreign ministry that he was cooking for a banquet given by the French chief minister, Jules de Polignac, when an armed mob broke in. Soyer was unharmed, but in the aftermath of the revolution his association with the fallen Bourbon aristocracy made him persona non grata and unemployable. At the suggestion of his brother Philippe he moved to England. He left behind him a young woman, Adelaide Lamain, and the baby son recently born to them.
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Alexis Soyer
Alexis Benoît Soyer (4 February 1810 – 5 August 1858) was a French chef, writer and inventor, who made his reputation in Victorian England.
Born in north-east France, Soyer trained as a chef in Paris, and quickly built a career that was brought to a halt by the July Revolution of 1830. Moving to England he worked in the kitchens of royalty, the aristocracy and the landed gentry until 1837. He was then appointed head chef of the Reform Club in London, where he designed the kitchens on radical modern lines and became celebrated for the range and excellence of his cooking. His best-known dish, lamb cutlets Reform, has remained on the club's menu since the 1840s and has been taken up by later chefs from Auguste Escoffier to Prue Leith.
Soyer became a well-known author of cookery books, aimed variously at the grand kitchens of the aristocracy, at middle-class households, and at the poorest families, whose diet he strove to improve. He took a keen interest in public health, and when the Irish potato famine struck in the 1840s he went to Dublin and set up a soup kitchen that could feed 1,000 people an hour; he published recipes for inexpensive and nutritious food and developed cheaper alternatives to bread. He left the Reform in 1850 and tried to establish himself independently, but his venture failed and lost him a great deal of money.
During the Crimean War, reports reached London of the appalling privations endured by British soldiers, with disease rife and food inadequate. At the request of the British government Soyer travelled to the Crimea in 1855 and worked with the nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale to improve conditions for the troops. He ensured that in all parts of the army there were nominated cooks, useful recipes, and the means to cook food properly − in particular, the portable Soyer stove which he invented and which remained in army use, with modifications, for more than a century. In the Crimea, Soyer became seriously ill; he never fully recovered his health. A little over a year after his return to London in 1857 he died of a stroke.
Soyer was born on 4 February 1810 in Meaux-en-Brie in north-eastern France. He was the youngest of the five children, all boys, of Emery Roche Soyer and his wife, Marie Madeleine Françoise, née Chamberlan. Meaux had been a Huguenot stronghold and retained a reputation for religious toleration. Emery Soyer and his wife, who are thought to have been Protestants, settled in the town in 1799. Emery had several jobs, one of them as a grocer, and scraped a modest living.
Soyer's early life is not well documented. According to his first biographers, François Volant and J. R. Warren, the boy was destined by his parents for the Protestant ministry and was sent to a local seminary at the age of nine. In Volant and Warren's account, Soyer rebelled against the claustrophobic environment of the seminary and deliberately contrived his expulsion by ringing the church bell at midnight, causing general alarm in the town. Later biographers differ about the plausibility of this account: Ruth Brandon (2004) finds the story improbable; Ruth Cowen (2006) does not discount it, but notes that there are no surviving school records for Soyer; Elizabeth Ray, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2011), treats the story as true.
In 1821 Soyer was sent to Paris to live with his eldest brother, Philippe, who was a cook. Philippe arranged an apprenticeship for him at a restaurant run by a friend, Georg Rignon, first in the Rue Vivienne, near the Bourse, and later relocated to the Boulevard des Italiens. In 1826 Soyer left to become second chef at Maison Douix, a large restaurant further along the Boulevard des Italiens. Within a year he was promoted to chef de cuisine with a team of twelve chefs beneath him.
By the end of the decade Soyer had struck out on his own, providing grand and high-profile banquets in aristocratic households. His career in Paris was halted by the July Revolution in 1830. Sources differ as to whether it was in a freelance capacity or as a newly appointed full-time chef to the French foreign ministry that he was cooking for a banquet given by the French chief minister, Jules de Polignac, when an armed mob broke in. Soyer was unharmed, but in the aftermath of the revolution his association with the fallen Bourbon aristocracy made him persona non grata and unemployable. At the suggestion of his brother Philippe he moved to England. He left behind him a young woman, Adelaide Lamain, and the baby son recently born to them.
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