SOYER THE GREAT
By L. M. RAGG
F anyone has an opportunity of acquiring a second-hand copy of I Alexis Soyer's Culinary Campaign, let him not neglect to purchase it. The book is interesting from many points of view, e.g., for its reminiscences of Florence Nightingale, Lord Raglan, Sir Colin Campbell and other Crimean celebrities, and its descriptions of
country which has again become a seat of war ; but chiefly because it is the record of an immense reform wrought with joyful success by a single—and single-hearted—individual. It is, moreover, bound up with a culinary supplement giving the great chef's recipes for attractive little suppers, for hospital diets and camp cooking, for soup kitchens and institutions. Most of the latter would serve today for British Restaurants and public canteens, or, with a reduction di quantities, for families in war-time ; while many of Soyer's remarks and explanations might well figure in the B.B.C.'s " Kitchen Front." For the first time in Victorian England the public was taught how to make appetising soups with a minimum of meat combined with vegetable stalks and peelings which, " when well washed, contain both flavour and nourishment." Soyer, of course, knew nothing of vitamins, but he was a connoisseur of flavours, and was fond of quoting the saying of Hippocrates that " what pleases the palate nourishes."
Alexis Soyer's first situation when he left Paris for England was as 'assistant to his elder brother in the kitchen of the Duke of Cambridge—a circumstance which some will call a happy accident and others a providential preparation for his life's mission. His second position as chef of the Reform Club was equally favourable
to it ; for there his culinary inventions, his willingness to exhibit his kitchens, his bonhomie and lively intelligence, made him a persona grata with the members.
Thus his organising power was known to himself and to the public when, in 1855, an opportunity came to him for reforming the hospital kitchens at Scutari. The speed with which he matured his plans
was entirely characteristic of the man. On February 2nd, while wait- ing for supper at the ' Wellington,' he took up a copy of The Times
and read an article by its famous correspondent, W. H. Russell.
His heart instantly replied: " Here am I, send me." Calling for pen and ink, he wrote a letter offering immediate and gratuitous service in the Scutari Hospital, " if the Government will honour me with their confidence and grant me full power of acting accord- ing to my knowledge and experience." The letter was posted late,
but to his surprise was published by The Times the following
morning (February 3rd). On the afternoon of February 7th he was asked to Stafford House to explain his projects to the Duchess of Sutherland and a circle of guests. He declared: (i) That he would take at first zoo patients, gradually increasing the number till the whole hospital was under his control ; (2) that he would use only the rations allowed by Government ; (3) that as regards the diets, he would obey the doctors in charge. The Duke of Argyll, who had listened to his brief exposition, left immediately for Downing Street to lay the proposals before Ministers, while Soyer betook himself to the office of Dr. Andrews to obtain the ration-lists.
On the morning of February rith he was interviewed by Lord Parunure's secretary, and in the afternoon he went again to Stafford House, taking specimens of dishes he had concocted with the ration materials. These dishes were solemnly brought in on silver trays by footmen, and were tasted and approved by the assembled guests. The simple recipes for this fare would, he explained, be printed on large sheets and hung in every hospital kitchen. At 9.3o a.m. on February i2th he had an encouraging and decisive interview with Lord Panmure, the Secretary for War, who exhorted him, after he had reformed the Scutari Hospital, to go on to the Crimea and "cheer up the brave fellows in camp and teach them how to make .the best of their rations." Soyer replied that he could do little to improve their cooking if they used the utensils he had seen in the camp at Chobham, where an immense quantity of fuel was con- sumed to no purpose. Lord Panmure asked if he could devise some- thing better, but equally portable. Soyer promised to think it over. Later in the day he visited the gas engineers and stove-makers, Messrs. Smith and Phillips, produced some rough sketches, ex- plained his needs, and begged the experts to produce a model boiler on a scale of an inch to the foot. Three days later the model was submitted to Lord Panmure. Such was the origin of the camp stove still known by Soyer's name. On March loth the mail-boat by which Soyer was travelling entered the Bosphorus. The following morning he had a reassuring interview with the Ambassadress, Lady Stratford de Redcliffe. He then called on various medical and military authorities and set to work. Difficulties melted before him from the first, for he was ready to request and to take advice, to appear as co-operator, not as boss, and to hob-nob happily with the cooks hitherto in charge of the hospital kitchens. He understood the British Tommy and handled him tactfully. Thus when he discovered that it was the custom of the kitchen orderlies to boil the meat to shreds and then throw away the water, he made no remonstrance, but asked for the contents of one of the large fixed boilers. Adding seasoning and vegetables to the " water," he presented the men next day with excellent strong soup, and having skimmed off a thick layer of rich fat, he spread on their bread dripping far more edible than the rancid butter dearly purchased at high prices in Constantinople. The orderlies stopped throwing away the broth and fat, and while they were enjoying the change of diet, Soyer had the coppers re-tinned. In these coppers, perfunctorily cleaned, the soldiers had been accustomed to make tea by throwing the leaves, tied tightly in cloths, into boiling water. Soyer at first exchanged the cloths for nets supplied by Miss Nightingale, and then invented his Scutari teapot, a tall kettle into which a detachable strainer for the leaves was inserted. A good well-flavoured beverage was provided with half the quantity of tea formerly used.
On May znd he sailed for Balaclava, and the day after their arrival visited, in company with Miss Nightingale, the sanatorium on the Genoese heights and the row of white buildings which formed the general hospital. In the Crimea, however, his chief object was the improvement of camp cooking and the saving of fuel ; and, always eager for culinary hints, he did not neglect to visit the French, Sardinian and Turkish camps, their kitchens and canteens. He remained, however, convinced of the superiority and greater sim- plicity of his own camp boilers, which unfortunately were delayed in transport. Meanwhile, he cooked a good dinner out of poor material for Lord Raglan, and then sat down to eat it with the guests. The bread being unsatisfactory (because it was shipped hot daily from Constantinople and became " sad " on the way), he invented a biscuit-bread which kept indefinitely, was pleasant to eat dry, and when soaked in broth became like fresh bread. Later, a bakery was established on board one of the English ships in harbour. It produced good bread, brown and white, and Soyer begged that the former might be given to the troops, as it was far more nutritious.
Towards the end of August, Soyer arranged an al fresco exhibition of his stoves. Though the wounding of Col. Seymour, who was to have acted as M.C., cast a cloud over the proceedings, over eight hun- dred people, among them the French General and some of his officers, visited the tent-kitchens and sat down to an appetising and sub- stantial dinner. The fare consisted of Scotch mutton broth, pot-au- feu made with vegetables and ox cheeks (usually thrown out of the camps and buried), salt beef with dumplings, salt port with pease pudding, stewed mutton with haricot beans, and curried meat with rice. Soyer pointed out that two stoves—sufficient for a company of rzo men,—might be carried by one mule, together with sufficient wood inside them for the next day's meal ; that smaller ones might be made for pickets and outposts ; that the heat could easily be regulated ; that cleaning was a simple matter, and that the saving of fuel was extraordinary.
When the war and Soyer's labours ended, he took a characteristic six months' holiday of travel, during whiCh, he says, " I became acquainted with the cookery of Russia, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Malta, Italy and the French provincial towns, which enjoy a high reputation for peculiar dishes esteemed by the gourmet." We may have something still to learn today from the career of this simple, vital, compassionate individual, as well as from the attitude of authority towards his self-imposed mission.
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