Vol-au-vent

19th-century seafood vol-au-vent filled with scallops, mussels and langoustine
Chef Eric Ripert ~ Le Bernardin , 2009

 

 

 

Louis Eustache Ude
French Cook
Ci-devant Cook to Louis XVI. and the Earl of Sefton, and Steward to his Late Royal Highness the Duke of York. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Carey , 1828.
The first cookbook printed in America devoted exclusively to French cooking. Another was not published in America until 1832.
"First published in London in 1813, Ude's The French Cook was undoubtedly a great success, going through numerous editions. Although it was not, as Favre argued, the first culinary work to appear in London, there is some truth in the claim that Ude was ‘one of the first to popularize haute cuisine in London’ (Favre, vol. 4, p. 1803). The saying, ‘Coquus nascitur non fit’—‘cooks are born, not made’—is attributed to him...He also insists that cookery is the most difficult and demanding of the sciences; that there are few good cooks, though many who claim to be; and that a properly qualified cook can be ‘placed in the rank of artists’ (ibid., xxix)."

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