Fighting Battles and Dining Well
Food Preparation in Napoleonic Times
by Janet Clarkson, Australia
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When the Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz said that “there are generals who win battles and there are generals who dine well”, he would no doubt have included Napoleon in the first category, and therefore by definition excluded him from the ranks of gourmet.
Clausewitz would have been correct. For all his pre-occupation with feeding his troops, Napoleon was remarkably uninterested in his own meals. He preferred
plain food, which he ate very quickly. He said that "A man’s palate can, in time, become accustomed to anything” and told his colleagues “If you want to eat well,
dine with the Second Consul; if you want to eat a lot, visit the Third Consul; if you want to eat quickly, dine with me.”
Small wonder that he went through a large series of chefs, frustrated by their poor pay and the lack of appreciation for their efforts. Napoleon was by no means the first military leader to realise that “an army marches on his stomach”, nor would he be the last, but his constant efforts to feed the troops had ramifications far beyond the mere provisioning of his army. Necessity certainly begat invention, and the developments in food preservation and technology stimulated by his direct and personal encouragement of those sciences meant that future generals in future wars would have far fewer problems victualling their troops. They would be liberated from many of the usual military supply problems, and from the frequent necessity to live off the land and to plan campaigns according to the seasons.
Food Preservation
Feeding the army was already a problem in 1795, and the Food Preservation Committee of the Societé d’Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale in that year
offered a prize of 12,000 francs for a method of preserving food, especially for use by the army and navy. Eventually the news reached the ears of Nicolas Appert, a
small town mayor and a chef and confectioner by trade. The idea of food preservation was already his personal passion, and he had spent years experimenting with various methods in his own workshop, initially using champagne bottles as his preserving vessels.
By the turn of the century he was beginning to develop a reputation in this field, and had a thriving small business in Paris where his preserves were sold. His foodstuffs were eventually tried aboard French naval ships, and the reports were favourable. Appert’s method of heat treatment and air exclusion is still the basic one used today. Food was placed in custom-made wide mouth glass jars, heat treated, sealed with cork stoppers which were then wired down and the whole made airtight with pitch. This purely empirical method worked, and the food stayed edible for long periods, although the scientific explanation was to remain a mystery until the time of
Pasteur.
In 1810 Appert published his findings and on January 30th received his award, paving the way for the food “canning” industry as we now know it. Glass jars were however, heavy and breakable - not good features for campaign food.
Appert’s method was patented only a few months later, but not by himself, and not even in France. It was in England, by a Peter Durand who was apparently known to Appert. Whether this was industrial espionage and opportunism on the part of Durand, or commercial naivety on the part of Appert is not certain. Interestingly, the English patent also covered the possibility of metal being used as a container, a far more practical method, and a process more likely to be successfully developed in the industrially further advanced and less war ravaged England.
Beet Sguar
The other significant development dating from this time was precipitated by Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. The ensuing English blockade of cane sugar imports
from the Caribbean into continental Europe stimulated interest in alternative sources of sugar. Napoleon had heard of the pioneering work on the extraction of sugar
from beets by Marggraf in Berlin 50 years earlier, and the progress made by Marggraf’s student, Franz Achard, but it was still not possible to produce sugar in any significant quantity.
Napoleon issued a decree on March 25th 1811 which was intended to stimulate experimentation in this area. It set aside 80,000 acres of land for production of beets, and established schools, scholarships, and factories in beet sugar production. In 1812 he awarded the Légion d’Honneur to Benjamin Delessert for his technical
advances in the clarification of sugar, which enabled the process to be carried out on a viable scale. By 1814, there were 40 beet sugar factories were in operation in France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. The industry did temporarily decline after Napoleon’s defeat., but eventually revived, and by the late 19th century, beets had again become the major source of sugar. Behind the scenes of war and technology life went on in myriad other ways of course, as it has always done.
While Napoleon and La Grande Armée foraged and fought their way across Europe, many of the un-military were enjoying the changes in dining which followed the Revolution. The destruction of many of the aristocratic houses had released their private chefs from employment. Many of these fled to England, but of those who stayed, some went into business for themselves, giving impetus to the fledgling restaurant industry, and staking France’s claim to its supremacy in this area for decades. On the political front, the wily Talleyrand was developing the fine art of dinner-table diplomacy, boasting of how many important state decisions were influenced by the quality of the table over which the negotiations occurred. His secret weapon was his chef, the famous Carême, who he would send to the kitchens of his diplomatic targets throughout Europe. In the careless ecstasy following a superb meal, it is said that they often paid for their pleasure with state secrets.
Chicken Marengo
Of course, no discussion of Napoleon in the context of food would be complete without mention of the famous dish, “Chicken Marengo”. At risk of spoiling a good myth with some probable truth, it seems highly unlikely that this dish was in fact invented by Napoleon’s chef at short notice, with ingredients quickly scavenged from the area, at the end of the battle. The chef in question, Duran, did not enter Napoleon’s service until five years after Marengo, and the dish was not mentioned in print until about 1820. In view of the interest in the culinary arts at the time, it seems unlikely then that it would not have been mentioned before, had it been known.
The probability is that Chicken Marengo was invented in a French restaurant somewhere between 1810-1815 and named by a patriotic chef to commemorate the
battle some years after the actual event. The tradition of commemorating events or honouring a famous person by naming a dish after them was still in its infancy at
this tiime, but became part of haute cuisine by the time of Escoffier’s heyday nearly a hundred days later.
There were many other such commemorative dishes developed in the decades after Napoleon’s defeat. A “Chicken fricasée Austerlitz” was mentioned on one restaurant menu in 1815. “Tournedos Beauharnais” is often said to be named for Josephine, but it was actually named for her aunt, Fanny. Fanny de Beauharnais was a well known socialite and gourmet who said of herself “although I am far from averse to the charms of the bedroom, I cannot help but prefer those of the well-set picnic table.” There were dishes named for Joachim Murat, Marie Louise and Marie Walewska, and Prince Metternich, among others.
Beef Wellington
Napoleon’s enemies did not go unrecognised in this way either, as they were of course someone else’s heroes. The Iron Duke seemed himself to be, like Napoleon, in Clausewitz’ s first category, not particularly interested in food himself. The “Fillet of Beef Wellington” is supposedly named for him because of its resemblance to his highly polished boots, and of course, what could be more English than beef. There was a tradition for some time in England of “Waterloo Pies” being made to celebrate the anniversary of the victory. The most famous one was made in 1815 by the citizens of Denby Dale in Yorkshire. It was baked in a local kiln and contained 2 sheep, 20 fowl, and half a peck of flour.
Pyotr Bagration, the Russian general who died following Borodino ultimately had several dishes named after him, and these became standard items on European menus for decades. It seems that he may have been in Clausewitz’s second category as Napoleon said of him “The man is an absolute fool who has not the slightest idea how to command an army.” Certainly he was well known for his extravagant dinner parties, their legendary status being assured when Tolstoy chose to write about them. It seems ironic that Napoleon himself has no dish named for him. What we call a “Napoleon” seems to be a corruption of the original name “Napolitain” (from Naples), which is as well, since the lightweight flaky sweet pastry concoction, seems a totally inappropriate association for the man himself.
It seems then, that Napoleon has left us a food legacy as well as a military one. We can justifiably be reminded of him every time we open a can of beans or cater for our sweet tooth, or we can commemorate his battles or the birthdays of his contemporaries with the dishes named for them. For those history students or enthusiasts who like to honour their own stomachs, this seems a far more pleasant culinary celebration of the man and his time than re-enacting a day in the life of a soldier on campaign food!
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