Catherine’s cousin, Marie de Médicis, who married Henry IV of France, also advanced the culinary arts. An important new cookbook appeared in her time. It was called Le Cuisinier françois (1652) and was written by La Varenne, an outstanding chef, who is believed to have learned to cook in Marie De Médicis kitchens. La Varenne’s cookbook was the first to present recipes in alphabetical order, and the book included the first instructions for vegetable cooking. By now spices were no longer used to disguise the taste of food. Truffles and mushrooms provided subtle accents for meats, and roasts were served in their own juices to retain their flavours. A basic point of French gastronomy was established; the purpose of cooking and of using seasoning and spices was to bring out the natural flavours of foods—to enhance rather than disguise their flavour. In keeping with this important principle, La Varenne cooked fish in a fumet, or stock made with the cooked fish trimmings (head, tail, and bones). The heavy sauces using bread as a thickener were discarded in favour of the roux, which is made of flour and butter or another animal fat.

Contributions of the Sun King

La Varenne’s cookbook was a gastronomic landmark, but a long time was to pass before the French cuisine would achieve its modern forms. In pre-Revolutionary France extravagance and ostentation were the hallmarks of gastronomy. Perhaps the most extravagant Frenchman of the time was the Sun King, Louis XIV, who, with members and guests of his court, wined and dined in unparalleled splendour at his palace at Versailles. There the kitchens were some distance from the King’s quarters; the food was prepared by a staff of more than 300 people and was carried to the royal quarters by a procession headed by two archers, the lord steward, and other notables. As the cry “the King’s meat” proclaimed their progress, an assemblage laden with baskets of knives, forks, spoons, toothpicks, seasonings, and spices solemnly made their way to the King’s quarters. Before the King dined, tasters sampled the food to make certain it had not been poisoned. The King himself was such a prodigious eater that members of the court and other dignitaries considered it a privilege merely to stand by and watch him devour his food. His sister-in-law reported that at one meal he ate:

‘four plates of different soups, an entire pheasant, a partridge, a large plateful of salad, mutton cut up in its juice with garlic, two good pieces of ham, a plateful of cakes, and fruits and jams.’

Louis XIV is remembered principally for his extravagance, but he was genuinely interested in the culinary arts. He established a new protocol for the table; dishes were served in a definite order instead of being placed on the table all at once without any thought to complementary dishes. The fork came to be widely used in France during his reign, and the manufacture of fine French porcelain was begun. The King himself hired a lawyer-agronomist, La Quintinie, to supervise the gardens at Versailles and was intensely interested in the fruits and vegetables—strawberries, asparagus, peas, and melons—that were grown there. He paid special honour to members of his kitchen staff, conferring the title of officer on his cooks.