Tea at Trianon: Apicius in Paris

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Apicius in Paris

From France Today:

Retooling an established restaurant with a crowd of devoted regulars is a challenge for any restaurateur, but this was especially true when it came to Apicius, a favourite power table of corporate and political France in Paris’s 8th arrondissement, not far from the Champs-Elysées. Formerly run by chef Jean-Pierre Vigato, this table – named for the Roman epicurean said to have penned one of the world’s first cookbooks – occupies an exquisite limestone mansion that was built in 1860 for the Marquis Auguste de Talhouët-Roy on the site of the former stables of the Comte d’Artois, the brother of King Louis XVI. And one of its greatest attributes is that it’s surrounded by a beautiful garden where, weather permitting, meals are served. (Read more.)