The Modern Housewife, or Ménagère

1853

Special Collections TX717 SQ33

London: Simpkin Marshall & Co.

Flamboyant French chef Alexis Soyer (1810-58) found fame in Victorian England. Apprenticed to a Paris restaurant aged 11, he moved to England in 1830. He became famous for catering lavish banquets, and in 1837, he designed the iconic kitchen at the newly established Reform Club in London. Soyer published numerous cookbooks, invented kitchen equipment, and produced branded merchandise. An altruistic man, he worked with the British government to feed the starving Irish during the Great Famine (1847). He also contributed to the war effort in the Crimea, alongside Florence Nightingale. Soyer’s cookbook, Modern Housewife, takes the form of an epistolary recipe exchange between two fictitious housewives, Eloise and Hortense.