Few people know why an extra thick fillet of beef is called a Chateaubriand, and fewer still know how it ought to be cooked. You may ask all the chefs in town, and it is about thirty-three to one against your getting any historically precise information on the subject.
The story of the matter is briefly this. The dish was first cooked in the year 1802 at Champeaux Restaurant, in the Place de la Bourse. It was just at the period when Chateaubriand published his most brilliant work, “Le Génie du Christianisme.” “The profane wits of the kitchen” thought that a good steak sent to the fire between two malefactor steaks was a fair parody of the title of the book. The fillet or steak was cut so thick that by the ordinary method of cooking it might be burned on the surface whilst quite raw inside, and therefore—although the original and authentic method is ignored nowadays—it was put upon the fire between two other slices of beef, which, if burned, could be thrown away. Thus only is the Chateaubriand properly cooked.
The title has really nothing to do with the garnishing or the sauce, although the average maître d’hôtel will insist otherwise. Nevertheless the true story is as above. Chateaubriand was French Ambassador at the Court of St. James in 1822.
It may be of interest to put on record here His Majesty the King’s Derby Day dinner at Buckingham Palace to the members of the Jockey Club. Here it is:—
MENU
Tortue Claire.
Crême de Pois Comtesse.
Whitebait au Naturel et à la Diable.
Suprêmes de Truites à la Valenciennes.
Zéphires de Cailles à la Montagne.
Hanches de Venaison, Sauce Aigredoux.
Selle d’Agneau froide à la Niçoise.
Pommes de Terre à la Jaucourt.
Ortolans Rôtis.
Poussins sur Canapés.
Salade de Cœurs de Romaines.
Asperges d’Argenteuil, Sauce Mousseline.
Pêches à la Reine Alexandra.
Patisseries à la Parisienne.
Cassolettes à la Jockey Club.
Petites Glaces Printanières.
Friandises.
Dessert.
From trustworthy accounts I am constrained to believe that royal banquets are like many other mundane things. They look well, they read well, possibly they taste well, but there is inevitably the sub-acid flavour of Dead Sea apples, and the thoughtful observer may echo Talleyrand’s remark that whenever he perused a royal menu his thoughts involuntarily turned to pot-au-feu.
LES RÊVES D’UN GOURMAND
(A. B. L. Grimod de la Reynière inv. 1808)
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