Soyer's Culinary Campaign
Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War

A Victorian celebrity chef's vivid 1857 account of feeding soldiers serving in the Crimean War using his portable field kitchen.

Alexis Soyer (Author)

9781108063302, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 June 2013

630 pages, 16 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.5 cm, 0.79 kg

Perhaps the first celebrity chef, Alexis Soyer (1810–58) was a flamboyant, larger-than-life character who nonetheless took his profession very seriously. As the chef of the Reform Club, he modernised its kitchens, installing refrigerators and gas cookers. In 1851, during the Great Exhibition, he prepared spectacular (but financially ruinous) culinary extravaganzas at his restaurant, the Gastronomic Symposium of All Nations. In stark contrast, he organised soup kitchens during the Great Famine in Ireland and volunteered his services in the Crimea in 1855 to improve military catering. This work, first published in 1857, gives a vivid account of his efforts to prepare nutritious meals for the soldiers using a newly invented portable field stove, which remained in use until the Second World War. Also reissued in this series are Soyer's Gastronomic Regenerator (1846) and The Modern Housewife or Ménagère (1849).

Introduction
1. By rail and coach to Virginia Water
2. A summons to Stafford House
3. Off to the war
4. Delights of travel
5. Comfort on shore and penance at sea
6. The land of the Moslem
7. A bird's-eye view of Constantinople from Pera
8. First view of the scene of action
9. Commencement of the culinary campaign
10. A tour round the kitchens
11. First operations
12. The Scutari mission accomplished
13. Departure for the Crimea
14. Commencement of my campaign in the Crimea
15. The English and Turkish commanders-in-chief
16. A new enemy
17. Reception at English and French head-quarters
18. A universal calamity
19. Haps and mishaps in camp
20. Expeditions on horse and on foot
21. Matters grave and gay
22. Preparations for another trip
23. Our steam voyage in the London
24. Three weeks at Scutari
25. Festivities at Scutari and visits to French hospitals
26. My second trip to the Crimea
27. Camp life at head-quarters
28. My great field-day
29. The eighth of September
30. Fall of the doomed city
31. Illness and change of scene
32. Camp of the Fourth Division
33. Hostilities at table
34. Crimean festivities
35. Last days of British occupation of the Crimea
36. Last scene of our strange and eventful history
Addenda
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]