Marcel Boulestin
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(Xavier) Maurice Boulestin (1878–1943) was a chef, one of the outstanding French restaurateurs of his generation and the author of several cookbooks that popularized French cuisine in the English-speaking world. His London publisher was Heinemann, his Paris publisher Librairie Dorbon-aîné, which had been founded in 1900 by Louis Dorbon as a bookseller, and ventured into publishing with a very select list of travel books and memoirs.[1]
Under his credo Good meals should be the rule, not the exception Marcel Boulestin went to London as a young man and remained as an expatriate to make a huge success with his famous restaurant, Boulestin's in Covent Garden, which was unrivalled among small establishments between the First and Second World Wars, followed by his cooking courses, and his popular books, with their chatty narrative recipes that introduced British cooks to la cuisine bourgeoise of France. Boulestin's downstairs premises with Art Deco decor opened in 1926. The superb cuisine he served, adjusted to seasonal ingredients from the central market of Covent Garden outside his door, attracted the haut monde of Britain, the Continent and America: connoisseurs of food, famous writers, artists, and diplomats became intimate friends. His The Conduct of the Kitchen (1925) is part of the mainstream history of cuisine. He wrote many occasional pieces on food, in Vogue and The Manchester Guardian. His memoirs, Ease and Endurance (A Londres Naguère) were published in 1948.
Boulestin was the first television chef, appearing on a BBC program in television's earliest experimental days, in 1937.
Most modern readers know Boulestin from the anthology published in 1951, The Best of Boulestin, edited by Elvia and Maurice Firuski. His Boulestin's Round-the-Year Cookbook has been reprinted by Dover press (1975). The similarly-arranged What Shall We Have Today has been republished by Columbia University Press.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Other authors published by the firm included Maurice Des Ombiaux, Claude Farrère, Camille Saint-Saëns, René Boylesve, Jules Lemaître, Claude Debussy, Francis de Miomandre, and the comtesse de Noailles.
