44 Facts About Alexis Soyer

Alexis Soyer was then appointed head chef of the Reform Club in London, where he designed the kitchens on radical modern lines and became celebrated for the range and excellence of his cooking.

Alexis Soyer became a well-known author of cookery books, aimed variously at the grand kitchens of the aristocracy, at middle-class households, and at the poorest families, whose diet he strove to improve.

Alexis Soyer took a keen interest in public health, and when the Irish potato famine struck in the 1840s he went to Dublin and set up a soup kitchen that could feed 1,000 people an hour; he published recipes for inexpensive and nutritious food and developed cheaper alternatives to bread.

Alexis Soyer left the Reform in 1850 and tried to establish himself independently, but his venture failed and lost him a great deal of money.

At the request of the British government Alexis Soyer travelled to the Crimea in 1855 and worked with the nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale to improve conditions for the troops.

Alexis Soyer was born on 4 February 1810 in Meaux-en-Brie in north-eastern France.

Alexis Soyer was the youngest of the five children, all boys, of Emery Roche Soyer and his wife, Marie Madeleine Francoise, nee Chamberlan.

In Volant and Warren's account, Alexis Soyer rebelled against the claustrophobic environment of the seminary and deliberately contrived his expulsion by ringing the church bell at midnight, causing general alarm in the town.

In 1821 Alexis Soyer was sent to Paris to live with his eldest brother, Philippe, who was a cook.

In 1826 Alexis Soyer left to become second chef at, a large restaurant further along the.

Alexis Soyer was unharmed, but in the aftermath of the revolution his association with the fallen Bourbon aristocracy made him and unemployable.

Alexis Soyer left behind him a young woman, Adelaide Lamain, and the baby son recently born to them.

Alexis Soyer became sous-chef to the 2nd Marquess of Waterford, and then, in 1833, to the 1st Duke of Sutherland, whose London residence, Stafford House, was widely considered to be the grandest in the capital.

Alexis Soyer worked for the Lloyd family for more than three years, becoming well known among the Shropshire landed gentry, who vied to lure him away from the Lloyds but had to content themselves with borrowing his services for important occasions.

Alexis Soyer left the Lloyds in early 1836 to take over the kitchens of the 1st Marquess of Ailsa at St Margaret's House near Twickenham, a large riverside residence.

Alexis Soyer was a gourmet, a prominent Whig and a freemason; it is possible that it was he who introduced Soyer to freemasonry, of which he became a lifelong member.

Ailsa took a very active interest in the kitchen, discussing menus in detail with Alexis Soyer, and was to remain a friend and supporter when Alexis Soyer moved on after a year.

Alexis Soyer encouraged his wife's burgeoning artistic career, and she continued to exhibit and sell her paintings.

At around the same time Alexis Soyer was appointed head chef of the recently founded Reform Club, a liberal-minded rival to the right-wing Carlton Club, situated nearby.

The table was built around the kitchen's four central columns, to which Alexis Soyer had small cupboards attached, holding spices, salt, fresh herbs, breadcrumbs and bottled sauces, conveniently to hand for the chef and his juniors.

In 1842, at the invitation of Leopold I, King of the Belgians, Alexis Soyer travelled to Brussels.

Alexis Soyer was distraught and, according to Ray, "never fully recovered from his grief and guilt at having left his wife alone".

Alexis Soyer commissioned a memorial statue, and threw himself into his work, becoming even busier.

Alexis Soyer had recipes published in The Times for cheap but nourishing soup that could be made in large quantities to feed the hungry; he put theory into practice, first in a soup kitchen in Spitalfields in the East End, where Huguenot silk weavers had been impoverished by cheap imports.

At the government's request Alexis Soyer sought leave of absence from the committee of the Reform in 1847 and went to Dublin, where he set up a kitchen capable of feeding a thousand people an hour.

Alexis Soyer's recipes were attacked by the anonymous "Medicus" of the rival Athenaeum Club, who maintained that "Every physician and physiologist knows that the digestive organs in man are incapable of assimilating sufficient nutriment for health or strength from any liquid diet".

Alexis Soyer responded by providing solid foods such as "pea panada", which an independent report found "only one-fourth the price of bread, while it is fully five times as nutritious".

In 1849 Alexis Soyer brought out what Ray calls "his most ingenious production", Alexis Soyer's Magic Stove, a compact cooker with which food could be prepared at the table.

Alexis Soyer was invited to tender for the catering at the Great Exhibition being planned for the following year, but he found the proposed role too restrictive.

The Symposium was well attended, but Alexis Soyer was not as good a businessman as he was a chef and had aimed at the wrong public.

Alexis Soyer had died in 1836, and Jean had only recently learned who his father was.

The Admiralty accepted Alexis Soyer's offer to examine some of the cans.

Alexis Soyer endorsed the findings of other examiners that the supplier was using meat unfit for human consumption, and found that the methods of canning were inadequate, allowing even good meat to decompose within the tin.

At around the same time, Alexis Soyer was working on another book.

Alexis Soyer removed some of Duhart-Fauvet's drier academic passages; the book was favourably reviewed but it did not sell well.

Alexis Soyer followed The Pantropheon with a work in his own, livelier style: A Shilling Cookery for the People, aimed at a working-class readership.

Alexis Soyer then went with Florence Nightingale to Balaklava and Sevastopol and reorganised the provisioning of the field hospitals, in addition to undertaking the cooking for the Fourth Division of the army.

Alexis Soyer decided that each regiment should have a trained cook, armed with a book of simple recipes which he put together for the purpose.

Alexis Soyer had brought with him a small team of cooks, whom he sent out to teach selected soldiers.

Alexis Soyer published A Culinary Campaign, recounting his experiences in the Crimea and his reform of army catering.

Alexis Soyer was then asked to design new kitchens for the existing Wellington Barracks.

Alexis Soyer had a stroke in early August, and died at his house in St John's Wood on 5 August 1858, aged 48.

Alexis Soyer was buried in Kensal Green cemetery under the elaborate memorial he had erected to his wife, interred there sixteen years earlier.

Alexis Soyer's books remain valued by historians of both food and social history.