Lecture 20: The Birth of French Haute Cuisine
France did none of these. Wars were fought only for profi t, and they
won those that they got involved in. They had a series of excellent
kings with brilliant ministers, and the state consciously sponsored
trade, industry, crafts, and agriculture. They fully realized that if the
wealth doesn’t get spread around, it’s like blood, and it clots. It gets
stuck in one organ when it needs to circulate to be useful to the
entire body politic. Why the effl orescence of France occurs only in the 17th century has
largely to do with a series of disastrous civil wars in the late 16th
century, mostly over religion. Thus, in the period when Italy and
Spain are fl ourishing artistically, the French court was stagnating.
There were practically no cookbooks written, and what we know of
French fashion and cookery is that it was still pretty much medieval. The only account we have of dining in the latter 16th century
describes the court of Henry III and is really bizarre. It’s a
satire called Description of the Isle of Hermaphrodites because
apparently Henry liked to wear makeup and dress like a woman.
Most interestingly, it says that everything was designed to shock
and surprise, and the effeminate courtiers actually used forks. All that changes when we get to the 17th century. First, the civil
wars come to an end with the reign of Henry IV, who converted
to Catholicism and declared religious toleration. He was succeeded
by Louis XIII, whose prime minister was Cardinal Richelieu, who
effectively increased the power of the crown at the expense of
the nobles. Louis XIV, the Sun King, ruled from 1643 to 1715. More than any
preceding ruler, Louis knew that to rule absolutely, he had to bring
nobles directly under his watchful eye, and he did this by building
the grandest palace Europe had ever seen—Versailles—and forcing
all the leading dignitaries, offi cials, churchmen, and nobles to live
there with him.