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Did Carême publish actual recipes for his mother sauces?

I'm not looking for recipe suggestions, or Escoffier's revisions, or anyone else's revisions. There are numerous recipe suggestions available from many reputable sources, many with impactful variations. (Plenty of them are effective in dishes and meet current textbook and conventional wisdom definitions.)

The intent here is to find the originals, if those originals exist.

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2 Answers 2

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Yes, Carême published cookbooks, which were the most popular cookbooks in print in France in their day. They're still available in various editions and historical book collections. The primary ones would be the two-volume set Le Pâtissier Royal, republished in French a few years ago by Hachette, and translated into English by Andesite. These have recipes for the Mother Sauces, for 18th century values of "recipe".

It's well out of copyright, so you should also be able to find a free PDF of the book somewhere, although Project Gutenberg doesn't have one.

Let me also recommend the book Cooking for Kings, Carême's biography, which is an excellent read.

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    Archive.org has an English translation of Le Pâtissier Royal [archive.org/details/b21527684] the translation and transcription is a bit rough, but the information is there
    – Phil
    Sep 1, 2020 at 15:30
  • @Phil Gone already, any chance you downloaded it?
    – jayce
    Sep 1, 2020 at 19:15
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    @jayce It's still there, the link just got messed up in the comment. Delete the ] at the end and it works. Sep 1, 2020 at 22:23
  • Try this link - the link should be in round brackets not square Sep 2, 2020 at 8:46
  • The Internet Archive version says Creative Commons so it should be possible to run it through Distributed Proofreaders and crowd source a cleaner transcription. Hmmm. Sep 2, 2020 at 14:08
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You can find a digital version of a treatise on French cuisine written by Carême (in French) at this link. There are recipes and instructions in it; I don't know if there is any English version of it, though.

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  • (side notes) If you can read French, this is so fun to read.
    – Max
    Sep 1, 2020 at 12:08
  • That's a really cool resource... If only I spoke French!
    – Phil
    Sep 1, 2020 at 15:18
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    I suspect it's actually a treatise, not a treaty.
    – A. R.
    Sep 1, 2020 at 20:50
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    This book is a riot. "Je veux donc venger mon art du tort qu'il reçoit de ces hommes audacieux qui se donnent pour litérateurs, en multipliant les soustractions qu'ils n'ont pas honte de faire, et en publiant des compilations, véritable assemblage d'ignorance et de charlatanisme." Hah!
    – J...
    Sep 2, 2020 at 11:48

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