A Feast for a King: Le Grand Couvert: The custom of official royal eating throughout the reign of the Bourbon Kings throughout the 17th and 18th centuries was a sight to behold…
It’s Sunday night time, 10pm. At Versailles within the eighteenth century, the occasion was solely simply getting began. The King, having formally invited his spouse, the Queen, and their youngsters to dinner, sits down on the well dressed desk in his antechamber. The room is completely filled with individuals, but he and his household are the one diners. Everybody else is there to observe in silence because the royal household feast.
Throughout the reign of Louis XVI, this was a typical Sunday night time. By this level in historical past, nevertheless, such a proper eating follow was already an antiquated customized and one which Marie Antoinette loathed, hardly consuming and yawning extensively with the intention to hurry the occasion alongside.
This royal public meal was known as Le Grand Couvert and was an event honoured all through the Ancien Régime. The three royal Louis both celebrated or barely tolerated it (Louis XV detested it and most popular intimate dinners together with his mistresses). Its largest proponent was Louis XIV, the Solar King, whose gargantuan urge for food preceded him and was mentioned, after his loss of life, to have had a abdomen and intestines twice the dimensions of an everyday man. I’m simply speculating right here, but it surely may be as a result of Louis XIV dined au Grand Couvert each single night time.
The ritual demonstrated the King’s energy – his huge capability for meals was understood as “wholesome”, representing the nation’s personal wellbeing. Earlier than him, served on golden platters, stretched the bounty of France. All for only one household.
Every night time, a bunch of servants had been chargeable for the graceful operation of the event. This workforce was referred to as the Bouche du Roi (the King’s Mouth) – a division throughout the Maison du Roi, the royal family of as much as 2,000 servants – which itself was divided into seven subsections together with bakers and fruits (sure, fruit had its personal group!), and repair was a well-oiled machine. The meal was served in choreographed waves in what is called service a la française, a buffet-style meal delivered at staggered intervals.
Louis XIV’s 23-acre vegetable backyard subsequent to the palace of Versailles, the place fruit, greens and salads had been grown for the royal desk. It was feted for its innovation and head gardener Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie was capable of produce unique fruits comparable to bananas, in addition to out of season bounty like asparagus in December and strawberries in March. It break the bank to create and keep and it was Louis’ pleasure and pleasure.
As much as eight dishes had been served directly. There have been hors d’oeuvres and at the very least 4 soups, adopted by roasted meat and salads, then desserts and pastries, and all the time gracing the desk had been towers of hard-boiled eggs, on which the still-peckish King would snack as he went to mattress. Every course was merely added to the already groaning desk, plates solely being cleared as soon as the dish had been devoured. The procession of programs needed to journey a fantastic distance from the large kitchens to the eating room, so goldsmiths had been tasked with creating revolutionary tableware to maintain the meals heat. Sadly for the royal household, the meals was often chilly on arrival, however this might have additionally been because of the King’s paranoia.
Louis XIV was scared of being poisoned. Regardless of the dishes having an armed guard as they had been marched by means of the palace, Versailles employed meals tasters. The King’s meals was sampled by at the very least two individuals earlier than reaching the royal mouth, and allegedly, because of this the well-known leek and potato soup, vichyssoise, is to this present day served chilly. In keeping with legend, the fashionably new soup (created to advertise consumption of the peculiar and overseas potato) required such thorough tasting earlier than it was deemed satisfactory for the royal abdomen that it was ultimately served stone chilly.
Not solely that, however amongst the infinite serving dishes and fancy crockery, there was not a single glass from which to drink. Offered on request, a drink required a whole ceremony. The royal Cupbearer would first shout, “A drink for the King!” and, accompanied by an armed guard, would busy himself on the sideboard the place the King’s glass stood ready – coated, naturally, ought to a poisoner take an opportunity. Into it he would decant wine and water, and it will be lastly offered to the King at the very least seven minutes later because of the time taken for the Head of the Wine Chamber and the Cupbearer to style it. The King needed to quaff the wine in a single earlier than returning the empty glass to the Cupbearer who instantly coated it once more, and the entire ceremony was repeated each time the royal was thirsty. Think about having a tickle in your throat.
However we’ve got merely scratched the floor of the mountain of meals Louis XIV consumed. His eating habits had been famously described by his sister-in-law Princess Palatine: “I’ve usually seen the King consuming 4 full plates of soup, an entire pheasant, a partridge, an enormous dish of salad, two slices of ham, mutton with jus and garlic, a plate of pastries after which fruit and hard-boiled eggs.” To cater to such an urge for food, and to feed 3,000 to 10,000 courtiers a day, the kitchen employed 500 members of employees. In 2009, Dom Pérignon took on the problem of internet hosting a typical dinner served to Louis XIV, inviting forty company, and the occasion took an entire yr to plan and execute. And but, Louis’ kitchen employees achieved this and extra each night time.
After all, even Louis couldn’t eat every little thing. And two generations later, Marie Antoinette ate nothing. The leftovers got to the court docket, the primary being rating officers. As soon as they’d demolished their share, the meals moved down the pecking order till the final remaining meals was bought to retailers who arrange stalls exterior the fortress. Of their remaining guise, the King’s leftovers had been bought with closely spiced sauces, probably masking or including flavour, as on this period, French delicacies was notoriously bland.
A ceremony so distinguished by gratuitous extra and stifling etiquette was to not final for much longer, but Le Grand Couvert influenced courtly eating all through Europe, because it was a privilege to see your royal household chow down on twenty to thirty programs. Monarchs’ lives, in any case, weren’t their very own – King Louis was the image of France, and a contented, well-fed King meant a contented and well-fed nation, the epitome of blissful ignorance within the face of actuality.
Ally Mitchell is a blogger and freelance author, specialising in meals and recipes. She lives in Toulouse and writes at: NigellaEatsEverything.
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