Foreword

by Jeremiah Tower

The history of classic desserts is usually considered to have begun with the great nineteenth century French master Carême, who gave us recipes that were conceived in architectural terms, with plans as elaborate as those for intricate buildings. Later his disciple Urbain-Dubois, in his Le grand livre des pâtissiers et des confiseurs, simplified desserts, but even his designs—such as that for the famous Pêches à l’Andalouse—could easily have served as an elevation for the top of a turret of the Taj Mahal. Auguste Escoffier, heir to these teachers, went even further in streamlining desserts, to accommodate them to the changing tastes of the early twentieth century. Today, desserts have come to resemble, in any number of international settings, nothing so much as Schiaparelli hats, ratified concoctions whose creators seem to have only princely patrons, and imperial tastes, in mind.