Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 16, 1998

In Dear Mr Thoms Nos 35 and 36, we dealt with suicides by architects, engineers and the seventeenth century maitre d’hotel, Vatel, who supposedly took his own life when the fresh fish for a meal he was planning failed to arrive in time. The Food Chronology by James Trager (Henry Holt, New York, 1995, and Aurum Press, London, 1996) contains this story. The version given, like all of the accounts of which I am aware, derives from a letter written by Madame de Sevigne. However, The Food Chronology (page 485) also contains a supplementary story about the chef, Auguste Escoffier. Apparently Escoffier was once asked how he would have reacted if faced with the same situation that affected Vatel so badly. He replied:

I would have taken the white meat of very young chickens and made filet of sole with the. Nobody would have known the difference.