Practical gastronomy and culinary dictionary

was remarkable, handsomely provided for the old age of his favourite cook by leaving him £100 a year for life." Ude was the first, it is said, to define clearly the distinction between entrees, and entremets. It was usual to use these terms very indifferently. Ude said that an entree was "any dish of meat, fowl, game, or tish, dressed and cooked for the second course," and entremet applied to " all vegetable dishes, jellies, pastries, salads, prawns, lobsters, and in general to everything that appears in the second course — except the roast. " 858 PRACTICAL GASTRONOMY ALEXIS SOYER, 1809-1858. In October, 1809, at Meaux-en-Brie, a small town in France noted for its cheese, called Fromage de Brie, Alexis Soyer first saw the light, and was forthwith dedicated to the service of the church by his parents, who were small shopkeepers in that town. Alexis Soyer had two brothers, Philippe, apprenticed to the kitchen, and young Louis to cabinet-making ; but at nine years of age our youthful hero was sent to the cathedral church as chorister, to earn by his singing a free instruction for the priesthood. He is reputed to have possessed a good voice and an ear for music, which would have served him well in his devotional practices, but which he used in after life to amuse his social companions. - Alexis urged his parents to alter his course, but without effect, so he thought it well to alter it for himself. The story is told that he consummated his desire to leave the church by tolling the big bell of the cathedral and giving an alarm of fire in the middle of the night, in consequence of which the inhabitants were scared out of their slumber and the garri.son placed underarms. When the author of this escapade was found out, his dismissal from the choir of the cathedral followed as a matter of course, much to the distress of his parents, who little dreamed then of the fame that was in store for their light-headed and light-hearted bantling. For some years his future was very undecided, and it was not until he was sixteen that he made any move at all towards selecting a career, and then his brother Philippe induced him to turn his attention to cooking, and accordingly he was apprenticed at Grignon in 1826. Having completed his appren- ticeship with more or less colat, he was engaged by Douix, the well-known restaurateur in the Boulevard des Italiens, with whom he remained three years, taking the head of the kitchen when little more than seventeen. But Soyer's culinary inclina- tions were not yet definitely fixed ; he was excessively fond of gaiety, therefore his next fancy was for the stage, to which he was possibly led by the applause of liis friends and associates, who flattered his vanity whilst loudly eulogising his mad pranks, his mimicry and mischief. In 1830 he was appointed to serve in the Foreign Office as second cook, which he did for a few weeks only, when the revolution broke out and the kitchen was stormed, Soyer saving himself from rough treatment by singing the " Marseillaise " with all his might, beating time with a spoon, which led to his being carried off in triumph by the mob, whilst all his confreres were ill-used, and some were actually shot. It also led in the following year to his walking out of the country, scarcely in triumph, to London, where he joined his brother in the service 5!(V. ALEXIS SOYKl\ jj I