
Louis Eustache Ude ( – 10 April 1846) was a French chef and writer who spent the majority of his culinary career in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The best known French cook in Britain before
Alexis Soyer, he was the author of an influential cookbook, ''The French Cook'', first published in 1813 with thirteen new editions being written over the next three decades. After leaving an apprenticeship in the kitchens at the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...
, Ude is thought to have tried numerous other occupations before returning to cooking and rising to the top of the profession. He eventually moved to England, where Ude was credited with introducing ''
haute cuisine
''Haute cuisine'' (; ) or ''grande cuisine'' is a style of cooking characterised by meticulous preparation, elaborate presentation, and the use of high quality ingredients. Typically prepared by highly skilled gourmet chefs, haute cuisine dish ...
'' to the country. His clients included members of the
British nobility
The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the gentry of the British Isles.
Though the UK is today a constitutional monarchy with strong democratic elements, historically the British Isles were more predisposed towards aristocratic gove ...
,
royal family
A royal family is the immediate family of monarchs and sometimes their extended family.
The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term papal family describes the family of a pope, while th ...
and
gentlemen's club
A gentlemen's club is a private social club of a type originally established by males from Britain's upper classes starting in the 17th century.
Many countries outside Britain have prominent gentlemen's clubs, mostly those associated with the ...
s.
Early life
Ude was born in France . Little is known for certain about his early years.
[Levy, Paul and Robert Brown]
"Ude, Louis-Eustache"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 In a biographical sketch written in 1835
Abraham Hayward stated that Ude's mother was a milliner, who married a member of the kitchen staff at the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...
. According to this account Ude joined his father in the royal kitchens (he later described himself as "former cook to
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
") but left to become apprenticed to, successively, a cheap jeweller, an engraver, a printer and a
haberdasher
__NOTOC__
In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a men's clothing st ...
, after which he became traveller for a merchant in
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
. After returning to Paris he was for a short while an actor in a small theatre, and then worked unsuccessfully in finance and the civil service.
[
By some accounts Ude fled France during the ]Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...
.[ According to Hayward, and to Joseph Favre in the ''Dictionnaire universel de cuisine'' (1892), he remained in France throughout the revolution, returned to cooking and rose to become ''chef d'hôtel'' for Letitia Bonaparte, the mother of Napoleon.][Favre, p. 1893] Hayward wrote:
Career in England
Ude's history after he moved to England is more consistently attested, although precise dates are mostly lacking. Despite the impression conveyed by Favre that a French chef in London was something new, Ude was in fact following a centuries-old tradition of French cooks working for the rich and powerful of London. He became chef to William Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton
William Philip Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton (18 September 1772 – 20 November 1838), also known as Lord Dashalong, was a sportsman, gambler and a friend of the Prince Regent.
Personal life
Born in 1772, Lord Sefton was the only son of Charles ...
, of Arlington Street off Piccadilly
Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...
and Croxteth Hall
Croxteth Hall is a country estate and Grade II* listed building in the West Derby suburb of Liverpool, England. It is the former country estate and ancestral home of the Molyneux (surname), Molyneux family, the Earl of Sefton, Earls of Sefton. ...
in Lancashire. Favre describes Sefton as "this wealthy lord, who was known as the king of English Epicureans".[ Sefton paid Ude well: his salary was £300 a year, according to Hayward. When Sefton died in 1838 he left Ude an ]annuity
In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals based on a contract with a lump sum of money. Insurance companies are common annuity providers and are used by clients for things like retirement or death benefits. Examples ...
of £100, though the chef had not by then worked for him for more than twenty years.[
While working for Sefton, Ude published the first edition of ''The French Cook'', in 1813. Favre calls it the first cookery book to be published in London, which, as the '']Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...
'' (''ODNB'') observes, is untrue, but the ''ODNB'' finds some truth in Favre's statement that Ude was among the first to popularise haute cuisine
''Haute cuisine'' (; ) or ''grande cuisine'' is a style of cooking characterised by meticulous preparation, elaborate presentation, and the use of high quality ingredients. Typically prepared by highly skilled gourmet chefs, haute cuisine dish ...
in England.[ The book was a considerable success and went through fourteen editions over the next three decades, making the author a large amount of money.][ By the time of his death it was regarded as "the standard work in the science of cookery".]["Louis Eustache Ude", ''Illustrated London News'', 18 April 1846, p. 255] Its fame spread beyond kitchens. Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...
drew on it extensively for a description of a banquet in ''Don Juan''.
Between the publication of the third edition of the book, in 1815, and that of the fourth, in 1816, Ude left Sefton's employment. (There is a story that he resigned because a guest added more pepper to his soup.)[Brewer, p. 166] After leaving Sefton, Ude became steward to the United Service Club, where "his dinners were acknowledged to be better than any other Club could boast", according to the historian Arthur Humphreys. By the time of the fifth edition of ''The French Cook'' (1818) Ude had left the club. In 1821 he married (Camille) Barbe Lucot at St George's, Hanover Square.[
At some point between 1818 and 1826 Ude became steward to Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, George III's second son. Following the death of the duke in 1827 Ude became chef at Crockford's gambling club. '' The Standard'' reported on 25 October 1827:
£1,200 a year was an enormous sum in the 1820s – the equivalent of more than £1m in terms of 2020 incomes][ – although from it Ude had to pay all his assistant chefs and kitchen staff.][ The ''ODNB'' comments, "At a time when club food consisted chiefly of boiled fowl, mutton, and roast beef, Ude's more refined cooking put Crockford's on the culinary map". Thomas Crofton Croker wrote in 1829 of "the classic Cuisine of Ude ... Ude's fame is boundless as is his talent. Does not London resound ... with the celebrity of this Professor of the culinary art?" ''The London Review'' praised Ude's banquets as "quasi-Elysian".][''Quoted'' in Ude (1829), unnumbered introductory page] The ''ODNB'' gives examples of Ude's famous creations: "an entrée of soft roes of mackerel baked in butter and served with a cream sauce" and "a most delicious sweet made with fresh stoned cherries, and which he christened Boudin de cerises à la Bentinck".[
]
Later years and death
In 1838 Ude parted company with the club. Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a ...
wrote to his sister, "There has been a row at Crockford's, and Ude dismissed. He told the committee he was worth £4,000 a year. Their new man is quite a failure, so I think the great artist may yet return from Elba."[Monypenny, p. 39] The new man, Charles Elmé Francatelli, was in fact a success, and Ude did not return. In retirement he was financially well off, but bored and miserable. A friend asked him why he did not busy himself in his own kitchen, but he replied, "Bah! I have not been into my kitchen once: I hate the sight of my kitchen. I dine on roast mutton dressed by a cookmaid". He was indignant about his treatment by Crockford's but admitted, "Ah, I love that Club, though they are ''ingrats''".[
Among Ude's friends in his later years was his successor as London's most famous French chef, Alexis Soyer, whom Ude liked as a man and approved of as a chef. At Soyer's wedding in 1837, Ude was one of the two witnesses. He continued to live in London until his death of fever at his house in Albemarle Street on 10 April 1846 at an age variously reported as 76, 77 and 78.]["Deaths", ''The Daily News'', 14 April 1846, p. 8] After a Solemn mass at the French chapel in Little George Street he was buried in Kensal Green cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of North Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in P ...
.[ His widow lived until 1862.
]
''The French Cook''
The contents of the book varied from edition to edition. In the first (1813), Ude contends in a brief introduction that "The works hitherto published on the Art of Cookery are unintelligible, and the receipts therein indicated impracticable". He makes it clear from the outset that he is writing about grand cuisine. An example he gives of a typical dinner menu consists of:
The above is one of the simplest of his menus.
Ude took care with his prose, and either coined or popularised the maxim ''Coquus nascitur non fit''— "cooks are born, not made".[ In ''The French Cook'' he observed, "It is very remarkable that in France, where there is but one religion, the sauces are infinitely varied, whilst in England, where the different sects are innumerable, there is, we may say, but one single sauce". To Ude, sauces were "the soul of cookery".][Ude (1829), p. lxvi]
Although Ude considered that when English cooking was done well it was unsurpassable,[ he deplored some aspects of the English attitude to dining. He condemned the unremitting hostility of England's doctors to good eating, and the indifference of its women to haute cuisine:
E. Cobham Brewer, calling Ude "the most learned of cooks", attributed to him the authorship of a book called ''La Science de Gueule'' ("The Science of the Mouth").][ No such book is listed in ]WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
or mentioned in the ''ODNB'' or obituaries of Ude.[
]
Notes, references and sources
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{{Authority control
English chefs
French chefs
French male chefs