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I came across this interesting Infographic on pizza facts… Yum!

Chefs consider their wonderful food as their masterpieces. As with many famous artists, their legacies live on, producing progressive changes in cultures and lifestyles, exactly the way master chef, Georges Auguste Escoffier did.

This revolutionary chef became as famous as his is today for three major points: The development of modernising traditional French cooking methods, modernising restaurant menus and applying organisation within the professional kitchen. Later on, Escoffier became a best-selling culinary author of books such as, Le Livre des Menus (1912), Ma Cuisine (1934) and most famously, Le Guide Culinaire (1903) which is still currently used as a reference for cookbooks and textbook cooking.

His recipes, techniques and approaches to kitchen management remain highly influential today and adopted by chefs and restaurants not only in France, but around the world.

In the late 19^th century, Auguste followed many techniques of another, earlier and very famous chef, Marie-Antoine Careme. Careme’s culinary style was much more elaborate in the early 18^th century but his introduction to modernising European dishes and introducing much needed illustrations into his books inspired Escoffier to simplify Careme’s recipes in a way that could continue to be modernised for decades to come.

Beginning his cooking career at Le Petit Moulin Rouge in Paris, Auguste quickly moved up the professional ladder, due to the most notable part of his culinary career: Introducing this newly discovered simplicity along with organised discipline into restaurant menus and kitchens to improve professional kitchen working conditions.

In no time at all, he was working all over Paris in the finest dining restaurants and travelling to Monte Carlo, Switzerland and London to learn more about the culinary world while fine-tuning his own culinary techniques.

Another interesting little fact is that during this era of his career, Auguste served in the French Army as Chef de Cuisine during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, which most likely comprised of the best fed soldiers to date! This experience in touring and Army life led Escoffier to realise the importance preserving foods which led to him becoming the first chef to ever research and develop techniques for canning and preserving meats and vegetables.

After his time was up as Chef de Cuisine in the French Army, Auguste Escoffier delved right back into the same role, only this time, Cesar Ritz invited him to become the Chef de Cuisine for the Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo in the winter and at the Grand National in Lucerne in the summer.

Peach Melba

Ritz then took over management at the Savoy Hotel, which allowed him to open his own chain chain of renown hotels named, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in which Escoffier joined as his partner. Together, they conquered hospitality serving up brand new menus daily of the finest foods around to people of high class like the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Orleans. Because he needed to create new food menus every day, Escoffier also created some of his most famous dishes that are still currently served all over the world: Peach Melba and Cherry Jubilee just to name a couple.

Aside from making French cuisine world famous and forever changing how the world looked at Culinary Arts, there was also quite the philanthropic side to him. Amongst his many other talented and creative‘firsts,’ Auguste was the first to start programs to feed the hungry and organisations to give retired chefs financial assistance.

Although he’s won many achievement awards like the Legion d’Honneur, a lifetime of recognition means so much more! In today’s culinary line of work, his systematically organised and spotlessly, clean kitchen, called the Brigade de Cuisine, are used in every professional restaurant and run by the Chef de Partie.

All of his revolutionary restaurant management techniques, philosophies and experiences have allowed for Culinary Artist, Georges Auguste Escoffier, to become the legendary master chef that is known and admired in today’s culinary world – and the world has definitely noticed!