François Pierre (de) La Varenne (
1618 –
Dijon 1678),
Burgundian by birth, was the author of
Le cuisinier françois (1651), the founding text of authentically French cuisine. La Varenne broke with the Italian traditions that had revolutionized medieval French cookery in the 16th century. La Varenne was the foremost member of a group of French chefs, writing for a professional audience, who codified
French cuisine for the age of Louis XIV. The others were
Nicholas de Bonnefons,
Le jardinier François (1651) and
Les Délices de la Campagne (1654) and
François Massialot,
Le Cuisinier royal et bourgois, (1691), which was still being edited and modernized in the mid-18th century.
The seventeenth century saw a culinary revolution which transported French gastromomy into the modern era. The heavily spiced flavours inherited from the cuisine of the Middle Ages were abandoned in favour of the natural flavours of foods. Exotic spices (saffron, cinnamon, cumin, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, nigella, seeds of paradise) were, with the exception of pepper, replaced by local herbs (parsley, thyme, bayleaf, chervil, sage, tarragon). Sweet and sour flavours were banished, and any trace of sugar (considered a spice in the Middle Ages), outside of desserts, was considered bad taste. New vegetables like cauliflower, asparagus, peas, cucumber and artichoke were introduced. Special care was given to the cooking of meats in order to conserve maximum flavour. Vegetables had to be fresh and tender. Fish, with the improvement of transportation, had to be impeccably fresh. Preparation had to respect the gustatory and visual integrity of the ingredients instead of masking them as had been the practice previously. A saying by Varenne sums up his philosophy on this subject&_160; "When I eat cabbage soup, I want it to taste like cabbage." [1]
La Varenne's work was the first to set down in writing the considerable culinary innovations achieved in France in the seventeenth century, while codifying food preparation in a systematic manner, according to rules and principals. He introduced the first bisque and Béchamel sauce. He replaced crumbled bread with roux as the base for sauces, and lard with butter. Here one finds the first usage of the terms bouquet garni, fonds de cuisine (stocks) and reductions, and the use of egg-whites for clarification. It also contains the earliest recipe in print for mille-feuille. The cooking of vegetables is addressed, an unusual departure. In a fragrant sauce for asparagus, the reader may detect an early sauce hollandaise
La Varenne preceded his book with a text on confitures—jams, jellies and preserves— that included recipes for syrups, compotes and a great variety of fruit drinks, as well as a section on salads (1650).
