Marie-Antoine Carême His life and how he changed the world of cooking Marie Antoine Carême was a chef that pioneered French traditional cuisine he saw cooking for more than what it used to be. He is responsible for revolutionizing traditional French cuisine and broadening many horizons. You can say that Carême along with many others was a genius of his time. He was the prolific food writer of the 19th century publishing many cookbooks, including recipes and detailing how to prep and cook the dish. He was born on June 8, 1783 was one of 15-25 children, he was born into a poor family and his parents abandoned him as a child at the age of 8, leaving him to fend for himself during the French Revolution. Some say a chef was walking by and saw him in the streets and decided to take him in but it wasn’t for free he had to work, he was 8 years old when he began working as a kitchen boy in a Parisian steakhouse, they Offered him an apprenticeship, he agreed to stay for 6 years as a pot washer. Around the age of 14, he was noticed by his raw potential in the kitchen by Sylvain Bailly, a famous patissier in Paris, whose shop was in rue Vivienne near Palais-Royal. Sylvain Bailly took him as an apprentice and taught him everything he knew about pastries. In 1804, he opened his own shop, the Pâtisserie de la rue de la Paix, which he maintained until 1815- 1816. As he studied the art of architectural design from that he was inspired and appreciated architectural work. He was able to replicate and reproduce this inspiration into his pastries and sugar work, which were edible but mainly used as center pieces. Over the course of studying and by focusing and paying close attention to detail in structure, he was able to develop a painter’s and even a scenic- artist’s eye, for visual impact and extravagant dramatic decoration. His complex confections commonly stood several feet high and took days to assemble. He would glue segments together with mastic and gum Arabic, he mostly used spun sugar and icing to decorate, and marzipan and pastry as components of the piece and he would then mold these structures into ancient ruins, temples, and pyramids. These structural masterpieces of sugar quickly found its way into Sylvain Bailly pastry shop window. This not only benefited Sylvain Bailly by increasing his business because of the eye opening, appealing work of art, but it created an identity and
Reputation for Marie-Antoine Carême. In 1808 Marie-Antoine Carême married Henriette Mahy de Chitenay and had one child, Marie Carême, born 1815. Charles- Maurice de Talleyrand (he was a diplomat) frequently came to see Marie-Antoine Carême soon to be employer and close friend. Charles- Maurice de Talleyrand would build kitchens specifically for chefs, so that they could experiment and partake in food or dish development, when it came to lavish dinners. While free lancing in Talleyrand’s and many other peoples kitchens, Carême learned to cook various things other than pastries. Carême was able to work under Boucheseiche. He worked as head chef for Charles- Maurice de Talleyrand for 12 years and learned a great deal. His accomplishments made its way to Napoléon’s table, he was offered and took the opportunity of catering to Napoleons wedding. Marie-Antoine Carême was moving on to serving the royalty, he became a celebrity with no political sense of affiliation to any cause. He served Tsar Alexander of Russia who requested cabbage soup to emphasize Russia’s power. He also created a cake named Charlotte Russe in honor of Alexander, Russe meaning Russia. When he catered for Napoleon he would frequently request cake that had fruit or fruit flavor, whenever Marie-Antoine Carême would receive the order he would call it Napoleon cake henceforth Napoleon cake was born. In 1804, Charles- Maurice de Talleyrand bought a large estate outside Paris, Château Valençay with 1,600,000 francs of government money on