The Jazz Age of French Cuisine

French food of the 1920s paints a portrait of one ofEscoffier is also credited with helping to pare down
the country's most exciting culinary periods, whenFrench menus and advocating dishes be served as
ancient recipes had new life breathed in to them andseparate courses on individual plates.
the food of the poor became fine dining for the rich.With this foundation in place, French cuisine, largely
Ironically, French food of the 1920s was notvaried with recipes based on regions, began to
centered around the creation of new dishes,develop a national character. Dishes and recipes
(although this was the period during which the crepeformerly cooked and eaten by the poor, or
suzzete made its debut), but instead grew out of"peasants dishes," began to find their way into haute
new preparation techniques for haute cuisine, or highcuisine. Chefs would often simply replace the
dining.economical ingredients with their more expensive
More efficient preparation allowed the nation's chefscounterparts, such as substituting cheap wine with
to capitalize on the growing number of hotels thatone of a much higher quality.
featured its restaurant as a highlight of its guests'So it's not surprising that French cuisine of the 1920s
experience. For the first time, haute cuisine (dishesfeatured rising popularity of the peasant dish coq au
featuring meticulous preparation and expensivevon, a soup primarily consisting of chicken stewed in
ingredients) could be prepared much faster andwine, became popular. Although an ancient dish (one
subsequently on a much grander scale.legend claims it was cooked for Caesar when he
The groundwork for French food of the 1920s wasconquered the area that would become France), it
laid by Georges Auguste Escoffier, who during thewas not until the 1920s that it became a staple dish
course of the late 1800s through the first decade ofnot only for peasants but for fine-dining restaurants
the 20th century revolutionized the way haute cuisineas well.
was prepared.Although originally published in 1903, Le Guide Culinaire,
Escoffier is credited with dividing the modern kitchena recipe book incorporating much of the foundation
into various stations at which a chef was responsibleof French cooking, such as using fresh, local
for only a specific part of a dish or meal's preparation.ingredients, was updated twice during the 1920s and
For example, a garde manager was responsible forreflected both advanced preparation techniques and
preparing only cold dishes while a rotisseur was solelythe tweaking of ancient recipes into modern
responsible for ingredients that needed to be fried,masterpieces.
grilled, or roasted.French food of the 1920s produced recipes in which
This meant that dishes which previously could takeregional diversity melded into one cohesive culinary
up to 30 minutes to be prepared could now betheme and is a testimony to the success of modern
completed in half the time since different chefsefficiency combined with tradition.
worked on different components simultaneously.