The People's Chef: Alexis Soyer, A Life in Seven Courses

The People's Chef: Alexis Soyer, A Life in Seven Courses by Brandon, Ruth. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780470869918.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Alexis Soyer, a Frenchman from Meaux, was the most famous cook in London. A combination of chance, talent and social conscience took him into many of the great events of his time. Born in 1810, he cooked his was through the Paris July Days in 1830; he oversaw the building of Londons most modern kitchen at the Reform Club, where he ran the kitchen from 1837-1850; he designed a model soup-kitchen which he took to Ireland, at the Lord Lieutenants request, during the 1847 famine; he opened Londons first Parisian-type restaurant in conjunction with the Great Exhibition in 1851; and in 1855, he went to the Crimea to take over the running of the kitchens in Florence Nightingales hospital at Scutari. When he died in 1858, Soyer was helping Miss Nightingale reform British army catering.