Jules Gouffé

Martin Jules Gouffé (; 1807 – 28 February 1877) was a French chef and pâtissier, nicknamed ("The apostle of decorative cooking").

He had a deep impact on the development of French gastronomy by publishing unusually simple and precise recipes in his cookery books, of which the two best-known are (1867) and (1873).

Life and career

Gouffé was born in 1807 at 2 rue Saint-Merri, in what is now the 4th arrondissement of Paris.Kay, pp. 132–135 His father, Pierre-Louis Gouffé, was a well-known pastry cook, and Jules and his two brothers, Alphonse and Hippolyte, all trained under him. Alphonse later became head pastry cook to Queen Victoria and Hippolyte, head chef to Count Shuvalov of Russia.Neirinck, p. 82 Unlike them, Jules spent his entire career in Paris.

Under the guidance of Pierre-Louis, the young Gouffé learned his trade, and very early on was attracted to creating artistic presentations. He later recalled that the celebrated and chef Antonin Carême happened to pass by and saw in the window of Gouffé senior's shop "two baskets of pastillage and a marzipan cake which were my work".Gouffé, p. vi Carême was impressed and took on the sixteen-year-old Gouffé as a trainee. Fifty years later, Gouffé wrote: Working under Carême, Gouffé learned the general art of cookery as well as that of pâtisserie. He later wrote: "A good pastry chef can become an excellent cook, but one rarely hears of a man trained as a cook who goes on to master pastry".Davidson, p. 346

In 1838 Gouffé married Anne Suzanne Mercier. He remained under Carême's tutelage until 1840, when he opened a pâtisserie in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The establishment flourished: workers there soon numbered twenty-eight. He sold the shop in 1855, and was persuaded by his long-time friends Charles Monselet, and Alexandre Dumas senior to take over the management of the kitchens of the Jockey-Club de Paris. His biographer Edmond Neirinck writes that the Universal Exhibition of 1867 allowed Gouffé to express all his talent, but one event did not come off. The organisers had originally planned, and announced, an international gastronomy competition in a state-of-the-art building to be designed by Gouffé on the Champs de Mars, but the government decided instead to lease every available part of the site to traders.

Less than four years later, during the Siege of Paris in 1870–71, when the Prussians blockaded the city, Gouffé, like other chefs, had to exercise ingenuity and a willingness to use unfamiliar ingredients in dishes such as horse soup, mule's liver and roast leg of dog.

Gouffé retired to La Charité-sur-Loire, but he returned to Paris, where he died in the suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on 28 February 1877, aged 69 or 70."Les grands noms de l’art de la gastronomie : Jules Gouffé"
''Maria Total, Cuisine et gourmandises de France et d’ailleurs'', 1 January 2019

Books

While chef to the Jockey Club, Gouffé began writing cookery books. They were published not only in France but in translation elsewhere; the English versions were translated by his brother Alphonse. In the preface to his first book, (1867), Gouffé wrote:

As a chef, Gouffé became known ("The apostle of decorative cooking"), but as a writer he was known for the simplicity, clarity and precision of his recipes. He stated that he not written a single one without constantly having the clock in front of him and the scales in his hand. He added that once his reader has mastered a recipe, such constant recourse to clock and scales is less necessary, but that rigorous precision in the writing of recipes is essential, as "the only way to put an end to the approximations and doubts which still hover over even the simplest preparations, and cause so many people to eat badly at home".

In ''The Oxford Companion to Food'', Alan Davidson writes that Gouffé's most successful book was , "a comprehensive work which ran to nearly 900 pages and was distinguished by a number of innovations. The typographical design was clear and spacious, and the book was beautifully illustrated with nearly 200 engravings and colour lithographs". In Davidson's view, the content matched the presentation: "Gouffé wrote in a limpid style, comprehensible by all and exhibiting a standard of literary craftsmanship which equalled the author’s skill in the kitchen. This was, moreover, the first French cookery book to give metric measurements and cooking times in a systematic way".

Legacy

Gouffé has been an influence on chefs including Bernard Loiseau and molecular gastronomy researchers, such as Hervé This.''Compte rendu du Séminaire N° 36 de Gastronomie moléculaire'', 15 avril 2004''Cours de gastronomie moléculaire n°2'', décembre 2006.
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Works

All published by , Paris

References

Sources

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External links

''Le livre de cuisine''

''Le livre de pâtisserie''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gouffe, Jules
French chefs
French male chefs
French cuisine
1807 births
1877 deaths