Alexis Soyer (Radio Edit)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Alexis Soyer" – You're Dead to Me

Podcast Information:

• Title: You're Dead to Me
• Host/Author: BBC Radio 4
• Description: The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Greg Jenner brings together the best names in comedy and history to learn and laugh about the past.
• Episode: Alexis Soyer (Radio Edit)
• Release Date: November 22, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of You're Dead to Me, host Greg Jenner delves into the fascinating life of Alexis Soyer, a 19th-century celebrity chef who revolutionized culinary arts in Britain. Joined by historian Dr. Annie Gray and comedian Ed Gamble, Greg explores Soyer's innovative contributions to the kitchen, his tumultuous personal life, and his enduring legacy.

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Early Life of Alexis Soyer

Birth and Upbringing [04:24] Alexis Soyer was born in 1810 in Meaux, France, a town renowned for its mustard and cheese. Growing up in a working-class environment, Soyer's early life was marked by the struggles between social classes, a theme that would influence his later pursuits of social respectability.

Initial Training and Escape [04:43] Originally training for the priesthood at a Protestant seminary, Soyer's aspirations took a dramatic turn. According to Dr. Annie Gray, Soyer was expelled from the seminary after orchestrating a raucous escape by climbing the cathedral tower and ringing the bells, prompting a chaotic response from the town's authorities ([05:11]).

Transition to Culinary Arts [05:15] After his expulsion, Soyer moved to Paris to live with his brother Philippe, a chef. Embracing the culinary world, Soyer's flamboyant personality and penchant for partying helped him ascend within Parisian society, eventually securing a prestigious position as the chef at the Foreign Office in 1830.

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Career in France and England

July Revolution and Fleeing to Britain [06:30] During the July Revolution of 1830, a mob stormed the kitchens where Soyer was catering a banquet. Demonstrating quick thinking, Soyer sang "La Marseillaise," which inadvertently made him appear as a patriotic hero to the revolutionaries. However, this act backfired, branding him as a monarchist sympathizer and forcing him to flee to England alongside his brother Philippe ([06:30]).

Establishing in Britain [08:21] Settling in England during the reign of William IV, Soyer worked for the Duke of Cambridge at Stafford House before securing the head chef position at the Reform Club. His role involved not only cooking but also innovating kitchen practices to cater to the tastes of London's liberal elite ([08:35]).

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Innovations and Inventions in the Kitchen

Kitchen Technology Pioneer [09:05] Alexis Soyer was not just a chef but a kitchen innovator. He introduced various technological advancements, collaborating with architects to design efficient kitchen layouts at the Reform Club. Innovations included:

• Sliding Chopping Boards and Partitions: To create individual workspaces for kitchen staff ([09:27]).
• Steam Tables and Temperature-Controlled Ovens: Enhancing food quality and service efficiency.
• Advocacy for Gas Cooking: Soyer was a staunch proponent of gas for cooking, ensuring adequate supply by advocating for larger gas pipes in kitchen designs ([09:10]).

Notable Gadgets [10:34] Soyer is credited with popularizing several kitchen gadgets:

• Mechanical Kitchen Timer
• Plug Strainer
• Tendon Separator for Meat
• Cafetiere for Coffee

However, the ice cream scoop was not among his innovations, emerging later in the century ([11:09]).

Magic Stove [17:55] One of Soyer's most notable inventions was the "Magic Stove," a portable, steam-heated cooking device. Although not patented, it became a bestseller, generating significant revenue and earning a place in military kitchens until the Falklands War ([17:55]).

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Personal Life and Marriage

Romantic Relationships [12:35] Soyer's romantic life was as vibrant as his culinary career. In 1837, he married Emma Elizabeth Jones, a talented artist and career woman. Their unconventional marriage, marked by mutual respect and independence, was tragically short-lived. Emma died young in 1842 due to complications from a miscarriage during a severe storm while Soyer was away ([14:11]).

Grieving and Subsequent Relationships [15:21] The loss of Emma profoundly affected Soyer, leading him to channel his grief into his work. Two years after her death, he remarried Fanny Trito, an Italian ballet dancer, illustrating his resilient drive to continue his culinary and philanthropic endeavors ([15:10]).

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Charity Work and Social Contributions

Soup Kitchens in Ireland [21:13] Amidst the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852), Soyer responded by establishing soup kitchens under the so-called "Soyer's Charitable Cookery" principles. These mobile kitchens could serve up to 5,000 meals daily, implementing efficient processes to address mass hunger. Despite initial praise, his methods were later criticized for their mechanical approach, lacking nutritional balance and treating the poor impersonally ([22:00]).

Crimean War Efforts [23:06] Soyer's commitment to charity extended to the Crimean War, where he offered his expertise to improve soldiers' nutrition and kitchen conditions in Scutari, Turkey. Utilizing his Magic Stove, Soyer provided smokeless, efficient cooking solutions in the dire conditions of wartime camps. Unfortunately, his service exposed him to harsh conditions, leading to illness and his eventual death in 1858 at the age of 48 ([25:45]).

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Legacy and Final Thoughts

Publications and Influence [15:43] Alexis Soyer authored several cookbooks, including:

• "Gastronomic Regenerator" (1844)
• "Modern Housewife" (1849)
• "Shilling Cookery for the People" (1854)

These works not only provided recipes but also offered social commentary, reflecting the changing dynamics of Victorian society and domestic life.

Cultural Impact [26:18] While not widely known today, Soyer's pioneering efforts in kitchen technology, culinary arts, and social welfare mark him as a foundational figure in modern gastronomy. His blend of innovation, celebrity, and philanthropy set the stage for future culinary icons ([26:24]).

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Notable Quotes

• Greg Jenner on Soyer’s Escape [05:22]: "He was the bad boy of the bell squad. So it was Bye bye Bree for teenage Alexis Soyer."
• Ed Gamble on Soyer's Innovations [10:42]: "I think what I've learned about this guy so far is we can't necessarily trust what he says."
• Hannah Fry on Soyer’s Magic Stove [17:55]: "The magic stove is basically a camping stove. He never took out patents on it, which was a bit of a problem because ultimately he didn't make as much money as he could have done from them."
• Ed Gamble on Soyer’s Influence [26:24]: "He packed a lot into a relatively short life."

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Additional Insights from Guests

Dr. Annie Gray [26:58] Dr. Gray highlights Soyer’s significant yet underappreciated contributions to culinary history. She emphasizes the unique narrative structure of Soyer's "Modern Housewife," written from the perspective of two Victorian English housewives, providing both recipe collections and social commentary ([26:58]).

Ed Gamble [26:18] Comedian Ed Gamble expresses admiration for Soyer’s multifaceted career, lamenting his own lack of knowledge about Soyer despite the latter's pioneering status: "I’m ashamed that I didn't know more about him, to be honest, because it seems like he's sort of the absolute proto celebrity chef."

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Conclusion

Alexis Soyer's life was a blend of culinary brilliance, inventive genius, and passionate philanthropy. Despite facing personal tragedies and professional challenges, his legacy as a pioneer in kitchen technology and social welfare remains noteworthy. You're Dead to Me effectively uncovers the rich tapestry of Soyer's contributions, making him a captivating figure in the annals of culinary history.

Listeners are encouraged to explore more about the history of food through You’re Dead to Me's other episodes, gaining deeper insights into figures like Lord Byron and the evolution of Gothic vampire literature.

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Notable Mentions:

• You’re Dead to Me encourages listeners to subscribe, leave reviews, and share the podcast to support its continued exploration of historical topics through a comedic lens.
• Ad segments were omitted from the summary to maintain focus on the episode's content.

Transcript

[Hannah Fry]

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[Hannah Fry]

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello and.

[Greg Jenner]

Welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are tying our aprons and firing up the stove as we learn all about 19th century celebrity chef Alexis Soyer. And to help us, we have two very special dining companions in History Corner. She's an author, broadcaster and food historian specialising in food from 1600 to the present day. That's a lot of food. You might have heard her on BBC Radio 4's the Kitchen Cabinet or read one of her many wonderful books, including the Greedy Queen, all about Queen Victoria's food tastes. And you'll definitely remember her from our delicious episode on the history of ice cream, it's Dr. Annie Gray. Welcome back, Annie.

[Hannah Fry]

Thank you for having me.

[Greg Jenner]

Lovely to have you back, Ann. In Comedy corner, he's a comedian, podcaster, writer, broadcaster. He's a superstar. He co hosts the mega award winning Off Menu podcast. He judges dishes on the great British menu. He has done gags on the Mock the Week. He's had an existential crisis on Taskmaster, champion of Champions. Sorry, Ed, I had to mention it. You may love his food themed memoir, the multi Course Life of a Very Greedy Boy. And you'll remember him from our episodes on Lord Byron and Gothic vampire literature, it's Ed Gamble. Welcome back, Ed.

[Ed Gamble]

Thanks for having me back.

[Greg Jenner]

Delighted, Edd. You are the foodiest comedian in the uk.

[Ed Gamble]

It's certainly an avenue that I've pursued. I would say, you know, once you get a thing, you've really got to lock in. I'm just out there mopping up every single food themed job possible and you.

[Greg Jenner]

Don'T even like food. You just found a niche.

[Ed Gamble]

I barely eat.

[Greg Jenner]

What do you know about food history? Are you happy in the 19th century?

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I can't promise to offer much historically in terms of food history, I can barely remember what I ate last week.

[Greg Jenner]

So what do you know? This is why I have a go at guessing what our lovely listener might know about today's subject. And we, we all can name a celebrity chef, right? Some of them are so famous they only need one name. Delia, Jamie, Nigella. But Alexis, probably not ringing any bells for you, you're probably not going to know about him unless you are a student of 19th century Military history or culinary history. That's the kind of the Venn diagram of people who might know I was.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm none of those things.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so who was this French celebrity chef who found fame in Britain? Why is he known to ex soldiers? Just what is a magic stove? Let's find out. Right. Okay, Dr. Annie. First things first. Where and when was little Alexei born and to whom?

[Hannah Fry]

He was born in 1810. So in what to us Brits is the Regency period. So think about Jane Austen, Colin Firth coming out of the lake, that kind of thing. Born in France in a town called Meaux Henry, which was known for Its mustard and its cheese. So I think it would be kind to call Alexei working class. He was on that sort of liminal zone that you find so often in Victorian period between working class and actually abject poverty. Something he never forgot about. He was always desperate for social respectability later on in life.

[Greg Jenner]

Born in Bree. He was born in the home of Bree.

[Ed Gamble]

That's pretty good, isn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Surrounded by cheese in the labour ward.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Do you want to guess what his childhood professional training was?

[Ed Gamble]

You would have thought, if you're born in Bree, you're going to be a cow. You may be a cow, maybe you work within dairy or cheese, et cetera. Or mustard. You know, he mustn't forget the mustard.

[Greg Jenner]

No. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So, yeah, maybe he's a spicy cow.

[Greg Jenner]

And he was. He was training for the priesthood.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah. So he was a Protestant, which is relatively rare in France at that point, so they sent him off to a Protestant seminary because he had a very good singing voice, so one presumes he could get a scholarship. And his beginnings are quite kind of murky because there's lots of stories that he told about himself, the truth of which, anyway, so the story goes that he decided to get expelled by breaking out of his dormitory, climbing up the cathedral tower and ringing the bells, which, bearing in mind that was also the signal for Armageddon, released all hell upon the town. So the. The local fire brigade came out and the local garrison. So, as you can imagine, he didn't last very long.

[Ed Gamble]

The other priests would have been like, man, this is such a bad boy.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he is. Yeah, he is. He's. He's the bad boy of the bell squad. So it was Bye bye Bree for teenage Alex Y so what was next for our Bolshe bellboy?

[Hannah Fry]

Well, next he got pushed off to Paris to go and stay with his brother Philippe, who was a chef. And by all accounts, he sort of decided that, okay, well, yeah, fine, he'd go into cheffing, largely because it was a really good excuse to drink a lot and party. So he became a real party animal. He worked his way up through Parisian society, as a lot of chefs did at that point, and he ended up being the chef at the Foreign Office. And this was in 1830. 1830, there was another revolution, the July Revolution in this case, which didn't last long, but did topple the monarch at the time. They stormed the kitchens where Soyer was in the middle of catering a banquet, and this mob broke into the kitchens, they shot two of the chefs and all hell broke Loose. And it was genuinely a very dangerous moment. But because Soi was very good at thinking on his feet, he quickly ripped off his apron and started singing La Marseillaise. So what actually happened was he was hoisted on the shoulders of the revolutionaries who took him out of the kitchen singing what a hero, what a patriot. Presumably not recognising who he was. And then once he was out of the kitchens, he scarpered. But he then got a reputation as being this sort of shill for the monarchists for. And he was Persona non grata. Couldn't get a job anywhere in France. He followed brother Philippe over to England, which was again, a tried and tested roots for Parisian chefs. They all sort of drifted over to England.

[Greg Jenner]

So he saves his life by singing the French national anthem. What song could you sing to save your life if a crowd broke into.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, it depends. I mean, obviously it depends what the crowd are for.

[Hannah Fry]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

Because I'm happy to capitulate to any mob instantly. I just want to save my own skin. I've got absolutely no ethics whatsoever.

[Greg Jenner]

They're angry at the concept of podcasting. They hate podcasts. What are you gonna do?

[Ed Gamble]

I guess I'm singing the Radio four Pips just to let them know I am a traditionalist when it comes to broadcasting.

[Greg Jenner]

You're doing the shipping forecast?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I'm doing the shipping forecast. You know, I like live radio. That's what I like.

[Greg Jenner]

Alexis fleeing violence, going from revolutionary France into Britain in 1831, which is during the reign of. We're not at Victoria yet, are we? We're at William Ivan, the sort of most non entity monarchy, no one's favourite king.

[Hannah Fry]

So he worked for the Duke of Cambridge. He went to work at Stafford House, which was probably the grandest house in London, over onto the Welsh borders, to go and work for a family called the Lloyds. And eventually networked his way into working as the head chef at the Reform Club, which was a liberal gentleman's club founded by people who had favoured the Reform act of 1832. And he was there specifically to cook the best, most fashionable food.

[Greg Jenner]

We know now that Alexis Soyer is. He's a whiz in the kitchen. Right, but he's also a whiz with a kitchen. Ed, do you know what I mean.

[Ed Gamble]

By that, in terms of running the kitchen?

[Greg Jenner]

More than that, in terms of the technology in a kitchen.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay, so the equipment as well.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he's innovating in that way. It's quite interesting, Annie. And I don't know whether he's the Pioneer, because I know he likes to sort of build his part a little bit. So I don't know whether he's like really, really inventing or whether he's just sort of popularizing, but he brings a lot of stuff into the kitchen.

[Hannah Fry]

I think it's a mixture of both. He was quite well known for finding sort of small scale inventors and such and then buying out their invention and kind of, you know, popularizing it or building on it. But he was absolutely an inventor in his own right as well. He was always coming up with ideas with the reform club. He worked with the architect to put in new kitchens just after he arrived. And, you know, some of the stuff was fine. There were separate departments for butchery and for lots of different larders. And, you know, it was a huge complex of kitchens. So far, so normal. But then he did things like install sliding chopping boards and sliding partitions so that everyone could have their own workspaces. He made sure things were the right heights for short people, kitchen maids and people like that. And then he went all out for steam. So you had a steam table, steam heated, so the dishes are staying hot, there's temperature controlled oven. And most of all, he was this huge champion for gas. So gas had been in for lighting for quite a long time, but very, very few people had thought about cooking with it. Partly because the size of the pipes was too small to get enough supply in, but because he was building from new, he could make sure the pipes were made bigger so he could get this gas into the kitchens. And he was this enormous champion for cooking on gas.

[Greg Jenner]

He was experimenting with kitchen appliances as. So he claims we've invented many gadgets. I'm not sure if he invents them or whether he licenses them.

[Ed Gamble]

I think what I've learned about this guy so far is we can't necessarily trust what he says.

[Greg Jenner]

You're definitely getting the hang of this episode.

[Public Ad]

Thank you, Ed.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So which of these five gadgets. One of them's not true. Did he not invent or at least popularize or claim to invent? Popularize. Okay, so mechanical kitchen timer, plug strainer, a tendon separator for meat, an ice cream scoop or a cafetiere for coffee. Which of those five was not an Alexis Soyer original?

[Ed Gamble]

Obviously, they're all big in my life. The tendon separator especially. I'm gonna go with the plug strainer. It doesn't feel sort of grand enough. It doesn't feel. No, I'm gonna go with that. I mean, huge News, if he really did invent the cafetiere.

[Greg Jenner]

But the cafetiere he does invent, he invented it. Yeah. So, no, the one that. I'm afraid I caught you out there, ice cream scoop is not his. Comes later, later in the century.

[Ed Gamble]

Thinking about it, the plug str is almost the sink cafeteria, isn't it?

[Hannah Fry]

And also really important because blocked drains at that point in time, very, very difficult to clean them when you don't have diner rod.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. A cafetiere is one of his.

[Ed Gamble]

Wow.

[Greg Jenner]

Kitchen timer. Pretty clever, isn't it? What is one utensil that you wish someone had invented or perhaps you could invent right now that desperately we need in kitchens?

[Ed Gamble]

Hey, look, if I could invent a kitchen utensil that we desperately need in kitchens, I wouldn't be here. I'd be.

[Greg Jenner]

You've got Dragon's Den, right?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Back to the Future two, they have that sort of rehydrating oven thing where they get a tiny pizza delivered and they put it in the oven and hit it and then five seconds later it's a full size pizza that. Yes, I'd like that.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, yes, please.

[Ed Gamble]

And I know there are like, you know, dehydrators and whatever and all of that, but I just want something that makes food massive.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, I'm here for it. Yeah, that's absolutely.

[Hannah Fry]

I'd buy it.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. So the ice cream scoop comes later in the century. The others are Alexis Soyer originals. Caveat. Maybe not originals, but certainly he's popularizing them and claiming them.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah. And everyone builds on the shoulders of others.

[Greg Jenner]

I get the feeling he's fun in a kitchen. But 1837 was a spicy year for him romantically as well, because this is where he meets his good lady wife.

[Hannah Fry]

Well, he's already met her. He meets her in 1835, I think, so in Paris. He'd already had a relationship with a lady called Adelaide Le Main and almost certainly had a son by her, or at least later on, the son called himself Alexis Soyer and they had some lovely tete a tete. And then Soyer forgot about him and his will. So who knows? But he, with typical aplomb, walked into the studio of a leading artist at one point and said, I want my picture painted because I'm Alexis Soyer. And the chat went, yeah, right, whatever. My stepdaughter can paint you. So in comes the stepdaughter, and by all accounts, it was love at first sight. So Soye courted this lady who was called Emma Elizabeth, Emma Jones. And in 1837, they got married. They had a really interesting marriage because she was a career woman and he was a career man. So they didn't really have what was, by Victorian standards, a conventional relationship at all. She would be off traveling quite a lot, he worked quite a lot. It does seem to have been a really lovely relationship, though. Genuinely, when you read about it, it's gorgeous. There are stories like she turned up at one point to go and wait for him in his office at the Reform Club, and he didn't turn up for an hour, so she just sketched herself on the wall as a visiting card and left. And when he got back, he was so entranced by this picture that he had it framed.

[Ed Gamble]

I think it's better just to be there on time, though. That sounds lovely and romantic, but it's a. Isn't it?

[Hannah Fry]

Well, I mean, you could argue that it did have a tragic end, though.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. She dies very young.

[Hannah Fry]

Very, very young. So she became pregnant with their first child. And about. I think it was only a couple of weeks before the child was due. Suye went off to Belgium. She told him to go. She was like, don't worry, don't worry, it's gonna be absolutely fine. And then there was this big storm and her maid said, oh, I'm going to the theatre, but there's a big storm. And Emma went, don't worry about it, I'll be fine. Off the maid goes to the theatre. The huge crash of lightning. Emma starts to haemorrhage, she miscarries, there's nobody there. She's all alone. And by the time anybody realizes what's going on, it's just too late. She loses the child and she herself died as well. And then he spent really the next two years planning this enormous memorial for her. But it didn't last that long, his mourning period. He sort of got back on the horse and took up with an Italian ballet dancer who was apparently very voluptuous and called Fanny Trito.

[Greg Jenner]

But, yes, emma died in 1842, so their romance was quite short, but was very meaningful to me.

[Ed Gamble]

It sounds like a Victorian novel, doesn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

It does.

[Ed Gamble]

The way that all builds, you're right.

[Greg Jenner]

It's quite Gothic, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does this sort of grief slow his rise, his culinary quest for stardom? Cause this is a man who's got drive.

[Hannah Fry]

He started really chasing glory. And one of the things he did, like all good chefs who really want to make a splash, is he started publishing cookery books. The three best Known are the gastronomic regenerator, which was his first one. 84. Then there was the modern housewife in 1849. And then there was the Shilling Cookery for the people in 1854, which built on an earlier pamphlet called Suye's Charitable Cookery.

[Greg Jenner]

I don't know if it's in a different book, but we've got a couple of images to show you, Ed. Oh, yeah. And I wouldn't say that this is the 19th century equivalent of cheese on toast. Do you want to describe what you can see for us?

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. Oh, my goodness.

[Hannah Fry]

These are not from the Shilling cookery, I should point out. These are gastronomic regenerator dishes.

[Ed Gamble]

Something that appears to look like a sort of a big duck or a swan or a gull. But is that an actual bird or are you supposed to form whatever you're cooking into a bird shape? And then something else which looks like a roast turkey, but also a galleon.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

With the little birds going all the way around it. I mean. Yeah, that's a nightmare to me. If I turned up somewhere and someone had done me that, I'm like, total waste of time.

[Greg Jenner]

So Alexis Soyer was releasing cookery books, but he also had other money making schemes. Ed, what do you think they might have been?

[Ed Gamble]

Deliveroo. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, I wouldn't have put it past him, but I don't think he did that.

[Hannah Fry]

No, lots of people did. But not him.

[Greg Jenner]

Not him. No. He went the other way. He went very 21st century. He went branded merch.

[Ed Gamble]

Wow.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. In the 1840s, Alexis Soyer is one of the first influencers in the food space and he invents the art form. Manny, I'm coming out big for him. I'm swinging for the fences with Alexis Soyer. I think he's a pioneer in this.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, he is. Lexi decided to partner with Cross and Blackwell to produce a range of sauces. He also did kitchen gadgets. There was a stewing pan and there was improved baking dish and all the various bits you've sort of heard about already. But the big thing was the sauces. Soyez sauce was marketed in two versions. There was a spicy one for the gentleman and then a milder one for the ladies.

[Ed Gamble]

You've always got to think of the ladies.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And their soft mouth.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, well, exactly. Then there was soy's relish, which was for general purposes, no one knows what was in this, but it seems likely that it was a heavily garlic sauce. So perhaps also not the most sociable of sauces. And he marketed that as being so perfect, it would create a soul under the ribs of death, which is a quote from John Milton. Wow. He's aiming high with quotes from masters of the English language and religion from the 17th century.

[Ed Gamble]

I always say that when I eat something delicious.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

He's also got his magic stove. Ed, do you know what this is?

[Ed Gamble]

No. I heard you mention the magic stove earlier. I'm very excited. Is it a bit like a Dutch oven?

[Greg Jenner]

I don't know what that is.

[Ed Gamble]

So maybe it's when you fart and then push someone's head underneath the duvet.

[Greg Jenner]

Soyer's gas. Yeah, yeah. Annie, is it a Dutch oven? Is it a thing?

[Hannah Fry]

No, actually. Although I suspect if he'd been able to invent that one, he would have done it as well and marketed his own farts in a bottle. But no, the magic stove is basically a camping stove. So it's a miniature stove. Again, it wasn't his invention per se, but he marketed it. He never took out patents on it, which was a bit of a problem because ultimately he didn't make as much money as he could have done from them. But he loved this magic stove. It sold for phenomenally well to anyone who was camping or traveling. He made about 6,000 pounds from it in the first year, which was a phenomenal amount of money at the time.

[Greg Jenner]

I'm assuming the Reform Club, where he meant he's meant to work. They must be delighted. No. Their star chef is a superstar bringing in the cash. Everyone knows him. Surely people are queuing to eat at the Reform Club. This is a win for them.

[Hannah Fry]

Why? But they're a members club. You don't want too many people queuing because you don't want the holy ploy to get in, do you? And I will be fair, he was stretching himself a little thin. He. He increasingly didn't love being a subordinate. He wanted to be the person that was the draw, because he was. And it all got a little bit tense, basically. And then in 1850, they kind of offered him an ultimatum. They basically said, look, either toe the line, start cooking here and turn up, or, you know, go away and do all your other things. So he went, turn up and left.

[Greg Jenner]

So one thing that we haven't talked about yet is what Alexis Sawyer looked like if he walked into this room right now. What do you imagine?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there's two classic chef looks, right, that I'm thinking of chefs from history. Big Fat Red man or Little Weasley Rat Boy. Okay, Those are the two which One.

[Greg Jenner]

Are you going? You're looking at me right now at the Weasley boy. That's me.

[Ed Gamble]

No, no, I was looking at you anyway because I'm talking to you, Greg. I'm not thinking big fat red man.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

I feel like he's got so much stuff going on, he doesn't really have time to indulge all of the time. So I'm thinking more we. The little rat boy. Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, Here is a portrait done by his wife, Emma.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay. Right, so this is through his wife's eyes.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, exactly. This is love for you. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Rap. I was right.

[Greg Jenner]

So, Annie, is he playing up to the Frenchyness here with the beret and the rap boy?

[Hannah Fry]

Look, he's not a rat voice. This doesn't give you an impression of his height. He was apparently quite tall and slender and very much in vogue. The fashionable Victorian gentleman. He very much.

[Ed Gamble]

That's back in. It's, you know, it's a rat boy summer.

[Greg Jenner]

It is Rap boy summer.

[Hannah Fry]

I like to think of him. As soon as he entered a room, you'd know he was there just because he just must have oozed this energy and this interest. He. He did play up on his Frenchness, but actually, that's not a beret. That's more like a sort of Tam O'Shanter. He really loved things cut on the bias.

[Greg Jenner]

So.

[Hannah Fry]

A la Zugz or Ella Zigzag, as he called it. Yeah. And, like, it got really obsessive. Like, his business cards were cut in a zigzag way. I mean, to be fair, a lot of people did actually take the mix out of what he wore. Because he did.

[Greg Jenner]

Look, he drew attention, didn't he? He drew attention to himself. And certain people were like, this guy's a bit of a douchebag, but he's.

[Ed Gamble]

Still being talked about. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So he's as stylish as Nigella, as French as Raymond Blanc, and also, Alexis Soyer is doing charity work. He's a man of the people. Do you know where he did charity work? In which country?

[Ed Gamble]

So he's going outside of.

[Greg Jenner]

Outside of England.

[Ed Gamble]

He's going back to France to do charity work.

[Greg Jenner]

It's a good guess, but. No, no, no. Think of another country close to another country. Think of another country that is not France or England.

[Ed Gamble]

Germany.

[Greg Jenner]

Nope.

[Ed Gamble]

Spain.

[Greg Jenner]

No, it's Ireland.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, I should have guessed it, sir.

[Greg Jenner]

Ed, have you heard of the Irish potato famine?

[Ed Gamble]

I have.

[Greg Jenner]

We're a comedy show, but I think for the next two, three minutes, it's a bit of a gear change. This is a tragedy, right, Annie? This is a million die. Probably a million have to emigrate. It's a devastating, horrible thing. And he responds to it in quite an interesting way.

[Hannah Fry]

Yeah, he does. So Ireland is in dire, dire straits. This all happens from 1843, when potato blight hits Ireland and you have six years of awful harvests. The English overlords just go, well, they're Irish, their fault, they're poor. They didn't work very hard, did they? And they just leave them to it for a couple of years. And then eventually the newspapers start saying, oh, hang on, maybe it's not actually the poor's fault they're poor. Maybe the fact that the Irish are all starving is because the English have taken all their crops and sold them abroad. Oh, do you think you want to do something about this? And very gradually, this movement builds, which is saying that perhaps some form of poor relief should be offered. And Sawyer gets to hear about this. He already had some dealings with the idea of feeding the poor and caring for the poor. He set up soup kitchens and Spitalfields. So he had already kind of dabbled in the idea, but in 1847, he decided to set up a soup kitchen under new principles, which classic soyer were basically factory feeding principles. So the idea there was. There was this portable soup kitchen and you could feed about 5,000 people, feed 5,000 meals a day. And you had a bowl in each position, you had a chained down spoon. So people came in, they were fed their soup, they ate it, they got out really quickly. You swabbed out the bowls, you wiped down the spoon, the next lot came in. And he took that out to Ireland and there was a grand opening because he was never a man to miss up an opportunity for some publicity.

[Greg Jenner]

Sure.

[Hannah Fry]

And he devised all these recipes which he said would feed people and be nutritionally really brilliant. And they weren't. I think it's fair to say it's problematic because I think his heart was really in the right place. He genuinely wanted to do something, and I don't think he ever really thought that his soups were nutritionally sound. He was accused of treating the poor like wild animals, which, you know. Yes. He was accused of treating the whole thing like a technical problem to be solved. Eventually, the tide turned and people started saying that actually the soup kitchen was a bad idea. You know, when he first went out, everyone was like, great, what an amazing thing. And the British government went, brilliant. We can blame it all on him.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. I mean, I was gonna say he. He did something when the government did nothing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

But it wasn't necessarily the best thing. So that was his first effort with charity relief. He did another one. He went to warzone.

[Ed Gamble]

Wow.

[Greg Jenner]

Do you know which war zone this might be?

[Ed Gamble]

Couldn't guess. All of my guesses have been rubbish so far.

[Greg Jenner]

You might have heard of this one, the Crimean War.

[Ed Gamble]

I have heard of that one.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. So that's a long way to travel. This is 1855. This is the. You know, we know about this war because of Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale, but for listeners who don't know where Scutari is, which is where he went to. Scutari, weirdly, is in Turkey, a totally different country to where the war was happening, 300 miles away.

[Hannah Fry]

Yes. But it was where the British troops who were fighting were taken to. Well, to die. Let's not be there.

[Greg Jenner]

They weren't meant to die there, but that's what happened.

[Hannah Fry]

But this is a war like every other war up to that point, but even worse, where the vast majority of casualties were from disease, not from fighting in action. They'd get wounded or, you know, a bit. They'd be put on a ship and then they'd be brought over to Scutari and then they would be left on the dock where the rats would eat them as they died. And eventually they converted a barracks into a hospital, which is where Florence Nightingale went out and tried desperately to reform. I mean, there was nothing there. It was falling down, there was no furniture, there were rats everywhere, there was lice. It was. The conditions were horrific. And for the first time, the newspapers in Britain, they reported on this, and they reported on it in very critical terms. So this became a real thing. The British government was seen to be failing its own.

[Greg Jenner]

It brought down the Prime Ministers.

[Hannah Fry]

It did, yeah. And Soye heard about this and he wrote an open letter to the Times saying, I will go out there and I will sort out the catering and I will sort out the nutrition and I will sort out the kitchens. And that is what he did.

[Greg Jenner]

And he brings his magic stove.

[Ed Gamble]

Of course he does.

[Greg Jenner]

Of course. You know, it brings it everywhere, but it's really useful for the soldiers. It's smokeless, which means they can use it in the battlefields because it doesn't show the enemy where you are. And the British army carried on using it until the Falklands War.

[Hannah Fry]

Apparently, some countries still have soya stoves tucked away in case of emergencies, so. And the army still celebrate him.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. And he doesn't come back healthy.

[Hannah Fry]

No. He contracted Crimea Fever. Towards the end of his time there, he also got dysentery, so he was very, very, very ill. And then when he got back to the uk, he published his book. He kept. Kept working and he had a fall from his horse and he started hemorrhaging. And actually reading about his last few weeks is really awful. He's coughing blood, but he's still desperately trying to work and produce things. And then the blood turns to sort of black bile and it very, very clear he's going to die. And he died in 1858, so he was only 48 years old.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he'd achieved an awful lot. I mean, we've talked quite a lot about Alexis Soyo and his career. What are your sort of final thoughts?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I'm ashamed that I didn't know more about him, to be honest, because it seems like he's sort of the absolute proto celebrity chef.

[Greg Jenner]

I love him, I've talked about him a lot, but no one knows who he is. You have to be, you know, historians know him and no one else. So, you know.

[Ed Gamble]

But even the marketing of the products and bottling his sauces and doing all of this stuff just. Yeah, it's incredible.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

He packed a lot into a relatively short life. The nuance window.

[Greg Jenner]

This is the part of the show where Ed and I sit quietly and sup on our turkey lobster for two minutes while Annie tells us something we need to know about Alexis Soyer. My stopwatch is ready. You have two minutes, Annie. Take it away.

[Hannah Fry]

Right, so Alexis Sawyer is best known in terms of his books for Shilling Cookery for the People, which was a massive bestseller. But I am going to talk about this book, the Modern Housewife, which was published in 1849 and then went through subsequent editions. And the reason I want to go through that is because he's always recognised for the magic stove and for the other book. But this one, to me, is unique among history books because it is written by a French chef who was almost illiterate, working through a series of secretaries. And not only is it a brilliant book from a recipe point of view, but the way it is written is just magic. So he writes this book from the point of view of two Victorian English housewives writing to each other, Hortense and Heloise. Hortense is the kind of mother figure who is advising Heloise on how she can run her household. And it's not just, you know, here's a letter about Roast. You know, they chat to each other, they talk about what's going on in their neighbourhood. Throughout the different editions, their story changes. So by 1853, Hortense has fallen upon bad times due to her husband speculating unwisely on the railways and had to move from St. John's Wood to Rugby, where she can now advise on other things involving poor people's food, for example. You get really invested, you want to buy the different books, but interspersed with that are things that are brilliant for a food historian because you can study social history through it because of those details. He has a picture in here which shows you apple pie. One of my favourite pictures in a book ever. Apple pie as it ought to be taken from still life, followed by apple pie, as they often are. And you look at that and you think, yes, people in the Victorian times, they cocked up their food as well. This makes me feel reassured. But also. And the final thing about it is the recipes are fantastic. So I brought in rout biscuits. I've never managed to find a biscuit recipe which satisfyingly moulds every single time you make it. And as you can see from these, they are a little biscuit, a lot like a rich tea biscuit, and I like a rich tea, but they take a mold, you can emboss figures onto them and then these would have been served at balls.

[Greg Jenner]

So there we go. Alexis Soyer, Fun guy, I think. Yeah. Well, listener, if you want to learn more about the history of food with Annie, check out our episode on the history of ice cream for more quality time with ed in the 19th century, we've got episodes on Lord Byron and Gothic vampire literature. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review. Share the show with friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But I just want to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we had the amazing Dr. Annie Gray. Thank you, Annie.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you, Annie.

[Greg Jenner]

Comedy Corner, we have the excellent Ed Gamble. Thank you, Ed.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you very much.

[Greg Jenner]

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we cook up another historical feast. But for now, I'm off to go and invent turkey a la Wellington. It's basically turkey in a rubber boot. Bye.

[Hannah Fry]

I'm Hannah Fry.

[Greg Jenner]

And I'm Dara O'Brien.

[Hannah Fry]

And in the all new series of.

[Greg Jenner]

Curious Cases, things are getting curiouser and curiouser. We'll be looking the universe squarely in the eye and demanding an answer to your everyday mysteries, including can you actually die of boredom?

[Hannah Fry]

Why do some people taste music?

[Greg Jenner]

And how many lemons would it take to power a spaceship.

[Hannah Fry]

We will shine a light on the.

[Greg Jenner]

World'S most captivating auditorium, brought to us by you, you delightful bunch of weirdos.

[Hannah Fry]

I don't think you're allowed to call.

[Greg Jenner]

Them that, but I love them. Really curious cases on Radio 4 and available now on BBC Sounds.

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