I Catered Napoleon's Wedding: Carême, the First Celebrity Chef
Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio
This episode of Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio explores the life and legacy of Marie-Antoine Carême, widely regarded as history's first celebrity chef, who cooked for royalty and invented iconic culinary elements like the chef's hat and
Key takeaways
- Marie-Antoine Carême was the world's first celebrity chef, known for cooking for Napoleon Bonaparte and European aristocracy.
- Carême pioneered modern culinary techniques and standardized recipes for soufflé and meringue.
Main topics
- History of Marie-Antoine Carême
- The evolution of Mexican cuisine
Notable quotes
"A taco is just like a soft tortilla and you put something on it." – Christopher Kimball
"There are so many different expressions of tortilla that asking for the best one was not the way to go." – Enrique Olvera
Conclusion
This episode celebrates culinary innovation across centuries, from Carême's foundational role in professional
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, this is Christopher Kimball. Next May, we're taking a culinary tour of northeastern Spain, and we'd like you to come along. You'll eat just like the locals, which means lobster stew at a folding table by the sea, and sausages and vermouth in a neighborhood taverna. You'll also make fideas a la cazola and sip cava at a small winery. Forage with a botanist and transform your wild harvest into an elegant dinner. And eat barbecue a la Catalonia in a field at the foot of the Pyrenees. Please join us. Head to culinarybackstreets.com slash milkstreet to learn more. That's culinarybackstreets.com slash milkstreet. Speaker 1 (0:39) Thanks for downloading this week's podcast. If you'd like to hear an ad-free version of this episode and every episode, please visit our show page in your Apple Podcast app. Again, you can listen to our show ad-free and support the work we do here at Milk Street. Go visit the Milk Street Radio page in your Apple Podcast app and start your seven-day free trial. And thanks. This is Milk Street Radio from PRX, and I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Today it's the story of the first celebrity chef, and you've probably never heard his name. We find out who he cooked for, he made Napoleon Bonaparte's wedding cake, and of course, we hear about his food. The food is fascinating, and the food is drama. The food is love and lust, obviously, but it's also power and history and nostalgia and regret. Speaker 1 (1:35) The life and food of Marie Antoine Carême. That's coming up later on the show. But first, we're joined by one of today's celebrity chefs, Enrique Olvera. He's the chef behind one of the most celebrated restaurants in the world. That's Puyol in Mexico City. Since 2011, it's been consistently ranked on the world's 50 best restaurants list. And in 2019, it was named the best restaurant in North America. Now he has a new book called Sunny Days Taco Nights. Enrique, welcome to Milk Street. Thank you, Chris. Great to be here. Here's a question I want to start with. You know, I was in Mexico City a year ago or so, and it dawned on me, I'm probably the last person in the world who understood this, but, you know, a taco is just like a soft tortilla and you put something on it. Like, that's about the definition. But you want to give me a little bit of history and sort of... Speaker 1 (2:33) start out with what a taco is, if there is any definition at all? I mean, there are different ideas. And the common history is that the taco was how some miners kept the explosives, and it had the shape of a rolled paper. And people started making tortillas in that shape, and then they started calling them tacos, and that's... What most people have said about it, at least the word comes from that era. But really, I think it's a way of eating. If you have tortillas, like you would have bread in the center of the table, you're basically making tacos of whatever you're eating. And then it started to get like really different expressions depending on the region of Mexico that you were. And also the tortillas changed drastically. Speaker 1 (3:29) depending on the filling of the taco. So if, for example, you're making in Michoacán tacos that are wet tacos, like the filling is made of aguisado or stew, the tortilla will probably be thicker and the corn will probably be ground a little bit coarser. Whereas if you go to Oaxaca, where the fillings tend to be dry meats, like tazajo or even like chorizo, the tortilla tends to be thinner. and the corn is milled to a finer texture. So also the tortillas are changing forms, and it's something that we learned like 15 years ago when we first started nexamalizing corn at the restaurant. I remember talking to one of the head chefs, and I told him, like, let's make the best tortilla. And then maybe a year later, I realized what I had asked was really stupid because... Speaker 1 (4:25) There are so many different expressions of tortilla that asking for the best one was not the way to go. If you go to, let's say, the flower market in Mexico City, and there's a little, is it called Comida Economica or what those places were for 80 pesos, you get three courses, and the food's really good and it's inexpensive. Is there at the same time a long tradition, a sort of white tablecloth? high-end tradition of Mexican cooking? Or did restaurant cooking sort of come out of street cooking or market cooking? Or maybe both, you know, both things exist side by side. Speaker 1 (5:04) No, so Mexican cooking was basically done, like you said, in the markets. But I think even within Mexico, there was a push to say that Mexican food didn't belong in a fine dining setting. And I think this is true for many cultures like Mexico that are older now. For example, in Japan, it's the same way. A lot of sushi came from the streets. It was executed to a level of excellence that could be placed into a fine dining setting. But unlike Japan, where there was royalty, there was no cooking for the kings or royalty in Mexico. Most of the cooking from Mexico was either moles that were town celebration recipes or everyday cooking. So... You've opened a lot of restaurants, but Cosme in New York is one I've been to. How do you think about opening that restaurant? Did you have to? Speaker 1 (6:08) rethink the dishes for a New York audience? How do you translate what you knew and what you've learned into a New York restaurant? No, I did think about it a lot. When we opened, Puyol was not really successful in the beginning. And one of the reasons was that people didn't crave something that they didn't know. And that is something that we took into consideration when we opened. Cosme, so for example, I remember when we opened, we had like a tostada with smoked salmon. So I was definitely playing a game where people would feel the flavors were familiar. So you would feel like you've tasted food like this before, you know, like for example, the corn husk meringue, you know, it tastes a little bit like cornbread from the US. And then with time, what we switched to was trying to keep the Mexican techniques, but utilizing. Speaker 1 (7:07) the ingredients from the New York area. No, like we try always to use fish from the Atlantic, which we don't have in Mexico. So we were celebrating the ingredients from the area. So in your book, you have all kinds of tacos, Korean tacos, duck tacos, grilled onion tacos, pork belly and red bean tacos. So if I want to make tacos at home, you know, start me off with what's a simple taco I could try. I mean, yeah, I think you can make a taco out of anything, even leftovers. Speaker 1 (7:44) I think that's a great way to approach it. If you're starting or whatever you're doing, just put it in a tortilla and add some salsa. I think salsa is the way that you express yourself a little bit. So there you can be like a little bit more playful. But the feelings can be like really simple. Like if you made like a rice pilaf, then you just add on top of that a little cream and some salsa. That's a great taco. It's one of my favorite ones. Or if you have like scrambled eggs in the morning. put it in a tortilla and then add like a simple salsa of just like charred tomatoes and charred onions. So that's the beauty I think about tacos is that they're just like there for you all the time. You don't have to really think about it. Speaker 1 (8:32) Is there something in the entirety of Mexican cuisine that people would be shocked to know is there that they wouldn't think of as being part of the Mexican repertoire? So some outliers that really are, you know, have deep history to them, but most of us are totally unaware of? I think there's still a few regional cuisines that are yet to be... popular. I wouldn't say discovered because they've always been there. But for example, most people are not familiar, even in Mexico, with like the cuisine from Tabasco, which is more like a Creole style cooking with a lot of different bananas. It has like more like a sweet and acid components, whereas Speaker 1 (9:20) Most of us think of Mexican cooking just about corn and beans and salsa, no? But there's so many different expressions. Also, for example, in Yucatan, there was a big influence of the Netherlands. So there's a cheese called queso bola, which comes from that area. So I think that's also the beauty about Mexico is that it has a lot of diversity in terms of regions, but it also has a lot of depth. because the country has had so many influences and migrations that you can see it in the cuisine. So you're a busy guy. I'm looking at your resume. My God. Do you love everything you're doing? Do you just want to be a cook, a chef? Do you want to be a restaurateur? Do you want to write books? Do you want to travel? What part of this really appeals to you most or is everything equal? No, I think we humans are a little bit like trees. So you have seasons and... Speaker 1 (10:24) In some seasons, you might really enjoy being in the kitchen and sometimes you might really enjoy writing a book. So I think it's a privilege to be able to do so many things. And yes, of course, sometimes it's a little bit too much. But I mean, that's a good and happy problem. So we should never complain about that. Enrique, it's been a real pleasure meeting you and all the best and great success. Thank you, Chris. That was Chef Enrique Olvera. His new book is Sunny Days, Taco Nights. Speaker 1 (11:10) Now I'm joined by my co-host, Sarah Moulton, to answer a few of your cooking questions. Sarah is, of course, the star of Sarah's Weeknight Meals on public television. Her latest book is Home Cooking 101. So, Chris, before we get going with the calls, here's a question for you. Is there any recipe or technique that you've never done but would like to learn? No, I've done everything, actually. I can die now. I've done everything. I would say if you go back, especially the 19th century, and look at some of those books like Karam, some of the pastries they did in particular, they'd make pastries in the shape of porcupines or turtles or palaces. They do all these amazing things. I'm really fascinated by ridiculously architecturally stunning. Speaker 1 (12:00) pastries. I mean, they just did amazing things. And so that stuff people just don't do anymore for obvious reasons, because not too many people have palaces and have 12 pastry chefs at their disposal. But I would love to go back and make some of that stuff just to see if I could do it. It'd just be fun. Well, I hope you do. I hope I do, too. The chances of doing that are about zero. But anyway, let's take some calls. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? This is Michelle Phillips from Talmadge, Massachusetts. Nice. And how can we help you today? I watch a lot of cooking shows, including yours, of course. I'm wondering why most of the cooks will say to use canned plum tomatoes and then crush them. My question is, why don't you just use the crushed tomatoes in a can, like Kitchen Ready or one of those? Excellent question, by the way. Speaker 1 (12:56) I think really it's because you have more control over the size of the chunks. You know, crushed tomatoes are pretty uniformly crushed. And here you might get a little more texture and maybe even a little more juice. You know, likewise, I mean, not likewise, because it's not the same. I never use the diced stuff because they have a... Calcium chloride in it. Right. And the calcium chloride gives it an off taste and also sort of... makes those little cubes very rigid so they don't melt down in the sauce. So that's why plum tomatoes are a good option. Right, Chris? I always buy crushed tomatoes. There's only one thing that might matter. Occasionally in a recipe, they'll say drain the whole tomatoes, reserve the liquid, and only use some of the liquid in the recipe. So in that case, yes, you'd want to do that. Speaker 1 (13:51) But if you're going to use the whole can of whole tomatoes and just crush them and add everything in, absolutely, you're right. Just use crushed tomatoes. Who cares if one piece is a