27 Facts About Louis Diat

Louis Felix Diat was a French-American chef and culinary writer.

Louis Diat observed the cooking of his mother and grandmother.

Louis Diat's mother taught him tarts, while his grandmother demonstrated how to broil chicken over charcoal.

Louis Diat was appointed chef potager in 1903 at Hotel Ritz Paris.

At both locations, Louis Diat was coached by founder Cesar Ritz.

On October 8,1910, aged 25, Louis Diat immigrated to New York, becoming the chef of Carlton House on 23 October 1910 and about 7 weeks later the head chef of the newly opened Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan.

Louis Diat served as the chef de cuisine at the Ritz-Carlton's roof-garden restaurant.

Louis Diat invented a novel recipe every summer for the sultry climate.

Louis Diat was a master in the kitchen who was always willing to stop cooking long enough to talk about it in an interpretive and fascinating manner.

Louis Diat "worked fourteen hours a day, six days a week, and spent seven or eight hours at the hotel on Sunday, his day off".

Louis Diat forbade the use of substitutes in food, and rejected the proposition of a canned version of vichyssoise.

Louis Diat received a visit from the president of the Campbell Soup Company, Arthur Dorance, who stayed at the Ritz for half a year to learn Louis Diat's soup making techniques.

In 1938, Louis Diat won the distinguished Chevalier du Merite Agricole "for having done so much to bring an important element of culture and civilization to the United States".

Louis Diat was included in a list of chefs with annual salaries of $10,000 to $25,000.

Louis Diat retired, returning to his home in Hartsdale, where he spent the rest of his life writing cookbooks.

On 29 August 1957, Louis Diat died in New York Hospital aged 72.

Louis Diat's experimenting soon led to a combination of "leeks, onions, potatoes, butter, milk, cream and other seasonings".

Louis Diat named it "creme vichyssoise glacee", after Vichy, a spa town near his birthplace in France that is famous for both its exceptional food and its springs.

Louis Diat recalled that Sara Roosevelt had had vichysoisse and "once called me up at five in the afternoon and asked me to send eight portions to her house".

When Louis Diat had no access to leeks in his cooking, his vexation prompted the produce stocker to find a Long Island farmer to cultivate a small yield.

Suzette Diat married George J Lawrence, with whom she had two children.

Louis Diat's son was chef saucier at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Louis Diat collaborated with Helen E Ridley, a home economist and administrator of the J Walter Thompson Company.

Louis Diat noted that the key to cooking is appeal.

Louis Diat alleged that American women cannot cook since they "often ruin good food trying to save" money or time.

Louis Diat suggests that they "approach their cooking with imagination, interest and an eye for artistic effects".

Louis Diat wrote French Cooking for the Home and Gourmet's Basic French Cookbook.