Dining at Versailles: The Inside Story
Versailles, designed for splendor, not for cooking, was not such an easy place to find good food in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
The very lucky. The king, though even his meals were brought from kitchens a quarter of a mile off.
The fairly lucky.
Courtiers at all levels were not only housed by the king, but many of them expected to be fed by him. The Grand Chamberlain and the Grand Master of the King’s Household kept open table, feeding thirty-six people for dinner and supper. Distinguished foreigners found themselves invited as well. The queen’s dame d’honneur regularly entertained her mistress and her ladies in waiting. The king’s ministers also kept open table in their wings of the palace.
The not so lucky.
Most courtiers had to make their own catering arrangements, which meant that the palace was full of kitchens and corner réchauffoirs, often in contravention of the royal health and safety regulations.
More here. And on the kitchens see also Barbara Wheaton’s evergreen Savoring the Past.
A couple of questions:
How old is the potager du roi? Though intensive in it’s production, I doubt it could really provide fruit and veggies for the court…
How many people would usually be present at court, excluding staff?
Sonia, a search on google turns up 6000 as an estimate of the number of courtiers at Versailles. And then there were the servants and all the other people who made the place work. How these enormous court establishments actually fed themselves from Antiquity on is an interesting issue. Here a link to a recent book that I want to look at. http://www.amazon.com/Vienna-Versailles-Dynastic-1550-1780-European/dp/0521714761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245609700&sr=8-1
I suspect it’s the kind of book where you want to use the index rather than read through but I suspect there is a lot of useful information there.
From the end of the 17th century and expanded in the 18th. It would have produced many tonnes of produce from thousands of trees and many many plants. Even today it is producing fifty tons of fruits and thirty tons of vegetables per year. A lot of effort was also being put into forcing veg/fruit production out of season.
This single garden is one reason why French cookbooks suddenly had huge sections on vegetables by the end of the 17th century.
Adam,
The Potager du Roi is a favorite place of mine, when in Paris. I am particularly interested in espalliered fruit trees, Yes, an amazing amount of fruit can be produced in this intensive manner, on these trees pruned to encourage fruiting spurs. Would like to read more on this, can you recommend some books?
Can you read French? If so you can access La Quintinie’s texts on google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=GywVAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA115&dq=potager+roi&as_brr=1
http://books.google.com/books?id=TywVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA105&dq=potager+roi&as_brr=1
Thanks for the links, Adam. Like Sonia I’d love to have a citation on the link between this garden and the cook books of the period. I have the impression that both Dutch and English cookbooks are also full of vegetable recipes. And the Dutch certainly played a big role in the improvements in horticulture.
Vegetablewise there is not much going on in English cookbooks until after 1650, then a large number of recipes come in as part of the change in food Aesthetic. The Dutch seem to have been developing vegetable varieties and including many veg recipes in their cookbooks before this period, but it doesn’t seem to have had much impact on contemporary English cookbooks. I guess Willaim only became King of Britain in 1689, so this was after the initial increase in veg popularity in England.
Susan Pinkard looks at this issue in “The Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine”. One lovely example of the link between the garden and the kitchen in the French court at this period is Nicolas de Bonnefons, who published a gardening book “Le jardinier français”, then a cookbook focusing on veg and fruit ‘Les Delices de la Campagne’ in 1654. The former was translated into English by John Evelyn.
Bonnefons is now less well known then Varenne, but at the time his books were very important in promoting the modern style of cuisine.
One thing that is worth considering is did the crappy conditions at Versailles drive the development of the new cuisine. It occurs to me that all those “Made Dishes” (fricassee, ragout, hashes etc) are exactly the sort of thing that could be knocked up in a make shift kitchen (over a brasier for instance). Is Western Europan cuisine as we know it a result of all those thousands of courtiers trying to put together elegant meals in makeshift kitchens?
Adam, I love the crappy conditions lead to French High Cuisine thesis. It appeals to my contrarian nature. On gardens I have the Pinkard book but have heard such bad things about it that up to now I have not read it. I’ll take a look. I’m also getting a bit confused about the chronology here. Conclusion. I need to go back to some of the original sources.
Thank you both for the info. Looks like my Summer reading list just got a little longer.
I’ve become completely intrigued by the idea of makeshift kitchens… The clay daube in so many still lifes keeps coming to mind.
Hi Sonia, they are intriguing. And so common in history. And for me it brings Versailles to life to think of some lady’s maid smuggling in charcoal for the brazier. Like the fact, though I have never been able to find the reference a second time, that wine froze in the glasses in cold winters.
Here’s your source on the wine freezing at Versailles: Correspondance de Madame duchesse d’Orléans [Charlotte-Elisabeth Orléans / La princesse Palatine], Ernest Jaeglé, ed. and transl. (Paris: A. Quantin, 1880).
La princesse Palatine, writing to La Raugrave Louise, from Versailles, 5 March 1695: “Il a fait si froid ici qu’à la table du roi le vin ainsi que l’eau gelaient dans les verres (122)
(And apparently 1709 was much worse…)
Thanks a ton Erica. What fun that must have been.