Latest / Ridiculous History / Shame and Fish: The Embarrassing and Tragic Story of François Vatel

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Shame and Fish: The Embarrassing and Tragic Story of François Vatel · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. We are coming to you
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Speaker 1: from a pretty weird place right now. We are in
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Speaker 1: our good friend, uh a good friend, Matt Frederick's hotel
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Speaker 1: room in Orlando during podcast movement, and we are wondering.
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Speaker 1: It's a question for you, folks, what is one of
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Speaker 1: the most embarrassing moments of your life or what's the
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Speaker 1: most embarrassed you've ever been? Hi, I'm Ben, Hey, I'm
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Speaker 1: no Matt. I gotta ask you. Did you take off
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Speaker 1: the top sheet when you got here? Is that a
1:03
Speaker 1: thing you do? What are you talking about? You know?
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Speaker 1: You gotta like for the for the germs. You're seen
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Speaker 1: those videos where they hit it with a black light.
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Speaker 1: You know, the hotel bed, the top sheets apparently where
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Speaker 1: all the nasties live on the comforter, on the comforter.
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Speaker 1: Yeah no, dude, I like I slept right on top
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Speaker 1: of the comforter. I feel like I missed up. Is disgusting. Now,
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Speaker 1: you're our super producer today, so we need a sound
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Speaker 1: cue for you, uh, folks, Welcome super producer Matt Frederick. So,
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Speaker 1: uh so, no, were you going with this top sheet?
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Speaker 1: Is that? Does that lead to an embarrassing story? No,
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Speaker 1: just wondering, just making conversation. Okay, I want to know
1:38
Speaker 1: his hotel room etiquette. You know. Yeah, we've had we've
1:41
Speaker 1: had a crazy week here of folks. Uh we We're
1:45
Speaker 1: going somewhere with this embarrassing moment question, because no matter
1:50
Speaker 1: who you are, you could be the smoothest cucumber on
1:53
Speaker 1: the farm, and you will still occasionally, at least in
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Speaker 1: your adolescence or the puberty year, you will probably have
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Speaker 1: moments that seemed very, very embarrassing, so bad in fact,
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Speaker 1: that you think, oh my god, I wish I died
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Speaker 1: right now, she's never gonna date me, or he thinks
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Speaker 1: I'm a nerd or something like that, and ask part
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Speaker 1: of growing up. But today's story is about embarrassment, about
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Speaker 1: shame that was so profound it led to uh, it
2:27
Speaker 1: led to to suicide. That doesn't sound like very much
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Speaker 1: fun at all, Ben, it was. It was not fun
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Speaker 1: for him. It's a fascinating story. This is this is
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Speaker 1: the story of a cook a ship named Francois Vattel. God. Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: just so so we all know that the like. You
2:47
Speaker 1: know you worked briefly in the service industry, right, I
2:50
Speaker 1: think we both did. I did. Yeah, I worked in
2:53
Speaker 1: a tapas restaurant. It's actually where I got some of
2:55
Speaker 1: my earliest kind of cooking techniques downpat like had a saute.
2:59
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta keep things moving in the pan,
3:02
Speaker 1: otherwise things I'll get clumped up and burn. Right, Okay, okay?
3:05
Speaker 1: T a p A S I thought topless? No, No,
3:09
Speaker 1: definitely not um but that's a joke. Many people in
3:12
Speaker 1: the topas industry here a lot, is it true? Yeah?
3:15
Speaker 1: You know I almost worked in the topless bar one time.
3:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, to tell as a musician, I was gonna
3:20
Speaker 1: play a gig with my buddy Chris. Huh. It didn't
3:24
Speaker 1: work out. You would have been a freelancer for the night.
3:25
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have been a full time employee of the Topless,
3:28
Speaker 1: which probably means you could wear whatever you want. Yeah, okay,
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Speaker 1: Uh so, Matt, did you ever work in the in
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Speaker 1: the service industry? I did. I was a pool service
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Speaker 1: boy at a private club a PSB. Yeah, PSB. So
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Speaker 1: you served rich people pool food, bougie pool food, yeah,
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Speaker 1: almost all Pino Griggio. That was pretty much and some scotch. Oh,
3:51
Speaker 1: and she crabs soup, and she crabs soup with some sherry.
3:55
Speaker 1: Oh you know what else comes on? She crabs soup
3:57
Speaker 1: sometimes some kind of a form of a shintilly dream
4:00
Speaker 1: that sounds delicious, and the chantilly cream that turns out
4:05
Speaker 1: was invented by the chef in question, Francois Vattel. He
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Speaker 1: was a very, very forward thinking and fastidious cook. He
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Speaker 1: worked his way up in the bougie high society of
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Speaker 1: a France um. He was an employee of the household
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Speaker 1: of Nicholas Fouquet, who was the superintendent of finance in
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Speaker 1: France for like the whole country. Yeah, yeah, he was
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Speaker 1: charge of the entirety of finance for the then fifteen
4:33
Speaker 1: year old monarch of France. Uh. Francois himself was not
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Speaker 1: originally French. He was born Fritz Carl Vattel with a
4:41
Speaker 1: W in Switzerland, the son of Charles Vattel, who was
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Speaker 1: a farm worker. Its name is still pretty common in Zurich.
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Speaker 1: Uh and we think he was born like the mid
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Speaker 1: to early sixteen hundreds, six sixteen thirty five, somewhere between there.
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Speaker 1: And like Noel said, he worked his way up as
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Speaker 1: a pastry cook. When he was finally done with his apprenticeship,
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Speaker 1: that he shot straight to the top of the culinary world.
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Speaker 1: He was working for that finance minister, and the weird
5:13
Speaker 1: thing about it was that he was playing the role
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Speaker 1: of a chef. But historians think he may not have
5:21
Speaker 1: actually known how to cook. Wait. Yeah, he was in
5:25
Speaker 1: charge of this office known as the Bush or La Bush,
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Speaker 1: and uh he was responsible for everything from what the
5:34
Speaker 1: Minister of Finance eight during bedtime and what he during
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Speaker 1: bedtime right, his night's next and uh you know these
5:41
Speaker 1: huge opulent banquets. Right, So he was almost more of
5:44
Speaker 1: a glorified event planner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like an administrative role.
5:50
Speaker 1: Yeah he's he's more producing I guess right, and organizing
5:54
Speaker 1: than actually cooking a lot of stuff. I guess that's
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Speaker 1: the thing. A lot of the details of his early
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Speaker 1: life are a little bit disputed, even his actual birthday. Um,
6:03
Speaker 1: and he is credited with with inventing cram Shantilly for
6:07
Speaker 1: one of these opulent soarees. But yeah, it's true. He
6:11
Speaker 1: is a little bit more known, especially in the story,
6:13
Speaker 1: as being kind of the guy who makes things happen,
6:16
Speaker 1: like the Winston Wolf of massive opulent banquets and events,
6:21
Speaker 1: so very much like sort of a prototype to the
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Speaker 1: modern day event planner. He had some kind of signature
6:27
Speaker 1: moves when it came to these big events. He loved
6:30
Speaker 1: things like stage illusions, uh, masks with a queue like
6:35
Speaker 1: eyes wide shut style, you know, um, a masquerade ball
6:38
Speaker 1: like in the Phantom of the Opera or something like that.
6:40
Speaker 1: Loved fireworks that's gonna come into play in a little bit,
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Speaker 1: and water works. I'm guessing he maybe even got out
6:46
Speaker 1: of things like ice sculptures, but I don't know that
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Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, we do know that he definitely made
6:51
Speaker 1: some made some waves. He actually angered the King, King
6:55
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth himself and again Louise like so at
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Speaker 1: this time, uh, and Louis felt jealous of the Minister
7:05
Speaker 1: of Finances displays. The guy was swagging too hard and
7:09
Speaker 1: was flexing on him, and he's like, I'm the king.
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Speaker 1: And he actually threw the Superintendent of Finances, who I
7:16
Speaker 1: earlier called the Minister the Superintendent of Finances into jail
7:19
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty one, just for the crime of being cooler.
7:25
Speaker 1: It's crazy to be king, right, Matt, And so, while
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Speaker 1: He is credited with the invention of Chantilly cream. He
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Speaker 1: is perhaps better known for a very, very tough series
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Speaker 1: of events. At the start of April. Beginning of April
7:42
Speaker 1: in sixteen seventy one, the king announced that he would
7:45
Speaker 1: honor the Prince de Conde by visiting him from the
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Speaker 1: twenty three to April that year. The problem was he
7:54
Speaker 1: would think that was really cool, right, It's like the
7:57
Speaker 1: president of your country says, I'm gonna go kick it, right.
8:00
Speaker 1: The thing is, because this guy is an absolute monarch
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Speaker 1: and he has so much power, it's sort of a
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Speaker 1: dangerous honor to have the king visit as a guest.
8:10
Speaker 1: Because Louis insisted that all of the nobles of France
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Speaker 1: and all of their entourage members travel with him so
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Speaker 1: that he can keep an eye on him, you know
8:19
Speaker 1: what I mean, because a mega entourage, so you know,
8:22
Speaker 1: absolutely optics. But also you're right to keep your friends
8:26
Speaker 1: close and your enemies closer. These were folks that could
8:29
Speaker 1: potentially supplant him or you know, god only knows, plot
8:32
Speaker 1: whatever kind of dirty dealings against him, because it was
8:35
Speaker 1: that kind of time. So he wanted to keep them
8:37
Speaker 1: around so he could make sure that they weren't up
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Speaker 1: to no good exactly. This is also a huge strain
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Speaker 1: on any household. When Louie did finally he did really
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Speaker 1: visit the Prince, he brought along five thousand people. It's crazy.
8:53
Speaker 1: It's actually why he built the Palace of Versailles in
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Speaker 1: the first place, so he could have all these nobles
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Speaker 1: live under essentially on massive, opulent, shiny roof. I really
9:03
Speaker 1: had no idea that that was why that was there.
9:06
Speaker 1: And this is amazing. Guys keep killing versa I is
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Speaker 1: crazy to visit if you, if you have the chance.
9:13
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, like, let's think about the timeline. So
9:15
Speaker 1: we said, we said, the king makes this decision with
9:19
Speaker 1: at the beginning of April, and he's gonna go towards
9:22
Speaker 1: the end of April. This gives Vattel maybe fifteen days
9:27
Speaker 1: to prepare. He had barely slept for twelve nights. He
9:31
Speaker 1: knew that he had to feed the six nobles. The
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Speaker 1: thousands of extra people are coming not for one day,
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Speaker 1: not for one feast, but for three days and everything involved.
9:40
Speaker 1: And so in a very real sense, this was like
9:43
Speaker 1: coordinating an army in terms of number of people. And
9:47
Speaker 1: they didn't have things like Cisco, not that they would
9:51
Speaker 1: use it right. The food supply company. They didn't have
9:53
Speaker 1: airplanes or rail cars, so you had to find enough
9:58
Speaker 1: food locally to feed five thousand people. And people with
10:03
Speaker 1: hotel's job officers of the bush, we're supposed to be
10:08
Speaker 1: on top of this. Three hundred years earlier, there's a
10:12
Speaker 1: guy who had written a book estimating about how much
10:17
Speaker 1: stuff you would need for an event of this magnitude.
10:20
Speaker 1: You know, he's funny. He actually had a title that
10:22
Speaker 1: i'm that I'm I found in research, which is very
10:25
Speaker 1: akin to a position that we know so well, the
10:28
Speaker 1: matre de hotel de hotel. Gosh. I wish Casey was here,
10:32
Speaker 1: he'd be super on the case of that pronunciation. I
10:34
Speaker 1: asked him a little bit about about this stuff earlier,
10:38
Speaker 1: but I didn't ask him about that one. But we have,
10:41
Speaker 1: you know, the position in a restaurant as the maitre d,
10:43
Speaker 1: who is like essentially sort of the waiter captain are
10:46
Speaker 1: kind of in charge of the waite staff or just
10:48
Speaker 1: the production of the event. So I can only guess
10:51
Speaker 1: that matre d is a shortened version of matre d'hotel.
10:56
Speaker 1: Perhaps you're right, Perhaps you're right. You know what I'm
10:59
Speaker 1: gonna double. I bet you are right. The person restaurant
11:02
Speaker 1: who oversees the wait staff. Right. In this book, this
11:06
Speaker 1: guy gives folks like Hotel a really granular estimate of
11:11
Speaker 1: the brass tacks. The nuts and bolts are more directly
11:15
Speaker 1: the number of hams you need for such an event.
11:18
Speaker 1: How much fire would you need, how many hunters you
11:21
Speaker 1: have to send out to uh to capture animals? Because
11:25
Speaker 1: the day was going to begin with a massive hunt.
11:27
Speaker 1: As we know Nobles especially to the episode about Napoleon
11:31
Speaker 1: and his domesticated rabbit hunt that ended in a different
11:34
Speaker 1: kind of disaster, um more cuddly yet terrifying disaster, where
11:38
Speaker 1: he and his men were sworn by these domesticated rabbits.
11:41
Speaker 1: So often that would be the thing. You'd have to
11:43
Speaker 1: spend a day out with the boys, you know, going
11:46
Speaker 1: for a fox hunt or what have you, and then
11:47
Speaker 1: it would all end with a huge feast and then
11:50
Speaker 1: some sort of showy display like a fireworks or something
11:53
Speaker 1: like that. Right, and that's what it's supposed to happen
11:55
Speaker 1: day one. You have this big, big hunt. We're gonna
11:58
Speaker 1: have a grand old time. Will be best friends. The
12:01
Speaker 1: king will think that we're dope and then we'll have
12:04
Speaker 1: a great fireworks display. But right before the big dinner meal,
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Speaker 1: someone comes to Vtel and they say, all right, look
12:14
Speaker 1: there's an extra seventy five guests. And so he falls
12:18
Speaker 1: into the one the worst situations an event planner can have,
12:21
Speaker 1: whether we're talking a wedding or a huge birthday or whatever.
12:24
Speaker 1: They don't have enough food for everybody, right, Uh, there
12:28
Speaker 1: wasn't enough roast meat for two of the six seed tables.
12:32
Speaker 1: And this haunted Vattel. He was sure that this would
12:36
Speaker 1: be a huge, a huge dark mark on his record.
12:40
Speaker 1: And it was like, you know, I'm a office bush.
12:43
Speaker 1: I don't make mistakes like that. And then the Prince
12:46
Speaker 1: himself felt bad for the guy and he was like,
12:49
Speaker 1: you know what, it's it's not really your fault, which
12:52
Speaker 1: I thought was very cool of the Prince he said,
12:54
Speaker 1: and and and the Prince seems like he's got a
12:57
Speaker 1: nice vibe at least at this moment. He's like, you know,
13:00
Speaker 1: by the way, buddy, the roast beef we do have
13:03
Speaker 1: is great, Like good job, you know. So you know,
13:07
Speaker 1: we've all been in those situations right where we think,
13:09
Speaker 1: did I really mess up at work. You know, we
13:11
Speaker 1: get worried about the consequences or something. Uh, and it's
13:15
Speaker 1: always very validating to have your boss say, you know,
13:17
Speaker 1: chill out, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. However,
13:21
Speaker 1: the next day was even worse. So if a tell
13:29
Speaker 1: starts today, probably already a little low from the previous
13:32
Speaker 1: days light embarrassment. Again, didn't seem like it was that
13:36
Speaker 1: big a deal. But this, this guy took this whole
13:38
Speaker 1: business very seriously. Le grond cuisine. It was the kind
13:42
Speaker 1: of pinnacle of French opulence to be able to show
13:46
Speaker 1: off in a culinary display of this kind of This
13:50
Speaker 1: day was gonna be no exception. Here's the thing that
13:52
Speaker 1: was on a Friday that when the banquet was going
13:54
Speaker 1: to be held, the actual banquet, um, so they couldn't
13:57
Speaker 1: serve any like beef, like amal meat, I guess, I
14:01
Speaker 1: don't know. Fish apparently doesn't count, so they would have
14:04
Speaker 1: had to order fish because they were not anywhere near
14:08
Speaker 1: the coast. The Atlantic coast was something in the neighborhood
14:11
Speaker 1: of two forty kilometers to the east, um and it
14:16
Speaker 1: would have taken about going on twelve days to get there. Um.
14:21
Speaker 1: In a in a horse drawn carriage or an ox
14:23
Speaker 1: card is some kind Um you could have gone to
14:27
Speaker 1: Paris because they had fresh fish coming in on the daily, um,
14:31
Speaker 1: you know, on ice and that one only taken a
14:34
Speaker 1: couple of days by boat on the Seine. But they've
14:37
Speaker 1: literally got one day, right, it's that days. No, it's
14:40
Speaker 1: that day. And this is this is a massively clutch operation.
14:44
Speaker 1: And this makes me think of like the most nightmarish,
14:47
Speaker 1: like Gordon Ramsey cooking competition scenario where like, you know
14:52
Speaker 1: the clock is ticking, you know your pork chop is
14:54
Speaker 1: potentially underdone, you haven't even started plating yet. Gives me
14:58
Speaker 1: palpitations just thinking about it. I know they ran out
15:00
Speaker 1: of snapper at the Whole Foods. He is so much
15:04
Speaker 1: nicer in the British shows. By the way, Gordon Ramsey,
15:07
Speaker 1: you gotta watch out for uh, you gotta watch out
15:09
Speaker 1: for TV producers. Let's be honest. There's another point here.
15:12
Speaker 1: So it is possible they could have bought in oysters
15:15
Speaker 1: and muscles, kept them alive and damp straw, right, but
15:19
Speaker 1: moving a lot of fishes, as you guys pointed out,
15:22
Speaker 1: impossible in the same day. Historians today are not completely
15:26
Speaker 1: sure what type of fish they ordered for hotel's last banquet,
15:32
Speaker 1: but they're thinking it would have been freshwater fish, pike, trout, uh,
15:37
Speaker 1: maybe crayfish, and they were brought in physical pools, kept
15:41
Speaker 1: fresh and alive if possible. Of course, the market is
15:46
Speaker 1: also volatile, you know what I mean, This is not
15:49
Speaker 1: These are the days before a bunch of health codes
15:53
Speaker 1: right the way we understand them now, So you kind
15:56
Speaker 1: of get what you get. Caviatemp thor. Let the buyer
15:59
Speaker 1: be air and the Friday, they're trying to get all
16:02
Speaker 1: these fish, trying to move all this fish. They have
16:06
Speaker 1: a hard time finding stuff that is good, and they
16:10
Speaker 1: have a hard time finding enough of anything. So let's
16:13
Speaker 1: not forget. He had already been sleep deprived for like
16:16
Speaker 1: twelve days, just freaking out, you know, stressing out over
16:19
Speaker 1: this event. Um. But he was going to give it
16:22
Speaker 1: his all. But the fish are very late, they're not coming.
16:26
Speaker 1: He's waiting for this delivery. And then there is a delivery,
16:29
Speaker 1: but it is far too few fish to feed even
16:33
Speaker 1: a very small percentage of the guests, Like I think
16:35
Speaker 1: a third or a fourth of the guests could be
16:38
Speaker 1: fed by these He continuously is like pacing around. He's
16:42
Speaker 1: asking for updates. Uh nothing, hours go by, nothing, nothing.
16:47
Speaker 1: There is also no backup plan, right yeah, they're working
16:52
Speaker 1: live and I think it's by four am. They have
16:56
Speaker 1: what only two baskets of fish. That's I believe that's correct.
16:59
Speaker 1: So this is what happens. He's got a coworker who's
17:03
Speaker 1: mocking him. He's like, you you Dingleberry or whatever the
17:07
Speaker 1: popular insults of the day, where du fis or whatever
17:11
Speaker 1: they said at the time. You know, I'm historical re enactments.
17:18
Speaker 1: Dingleberry is not my original work. But this, this may
17:22
Speaker 1: have been one of the final straws. He's ashamed. His
17:27
Speaker 1: peers are mocking him, and at this point we don't
17:29
Speaker 1: know for sure. It might have been one of his employees,
17:32
Speaker 1: and he feels terrible. It's almost dinner time again, we're
17:37
Speaker 1: talking sixty tables of people, the V I P. S
17:41
Speaker 1: of the country. And so he says, you know, I'm
17:43
Speaker 1: gonna take a second, and he goes to his room
17:47
Speaker 1: and he takes his sword. And it wasn't just any sword.
17:50
Speaker 1: It was actually I kind of a ceremonial sword that
17:52
Speaker 1: was given to him by the French court, right yeah,
17:56
Speaker 1: And he had the permission, like having the right to care.
18:00
Speaker 1: He a sword was a mark of great esteem. So
18:04
Speaker 1: he wedges this sword, which is almost a badge of
18:08
Speaker 1: honor at this point in the door of his quarters.
18:11
Speaker 1: It's also a big deal that he had his own quarters,
18:14
Speaker 1: and he literally fell on his sword on purpose, jumped
18:20
Speaker 1: onto the point of the sword. That's the idea. Here's
18:24
Speaker 1: the crazy part. According to this story, the rest of
18:27
Speaker 1: the fish that he ordered did show up that night
18:32
Speaker 1: two hours after, and the prince and the king both
18:37
Speaker 1: were mourning the loss of this guy that they saw
18:40
Speaker 1: a peculinary paragon. And for one reason or another, that
18:44
Speaker 1: fish that shamed him so bad was never eaten. Maybe
18:49
Speaker 1: people felt it was inappropriate, right, Maybe they felt uh,
18:54
Speaker 1: maybe they just felt their appetites were gone. But Matt,
18:58
Speaker 1: you noticed how we said, according to the story, a
19:01
Speaker 1: couple of times here, Yes, I've clocked this. So now
19:06
Speaker 1: we're gonna do maybe what do you think you want
19:08
Speaker 1: to do? Like a reverse quister here? Why not? I
19:10
Speaker 1: would love that alright, Any quister segment that doesn't involve
19:14
Speaker 1: the actual quister I fully support. So, so, Matt, what
19:20
Speaker 1: is the quister sound like? That's the one okay, makes
19:26
Speaker 1: it checks out? King same, Yeah, I'm not. I'm not.
19:33
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that. Can you do your southern gentleman voice?
19:37
Speaker 1: Yeah voice? Speaking of voices, I have lost mine or
19:40
Speaker 1: Harry carry, It's up to you. I'm most short and okay,
19:42
Speaker 1: and let's let's do this. I like it, alright, Uh,
19:46
Speaker 1: Colonel Frederick, just call me Jeff throw. Alright, Jeff Throw.
19:55
Speaker 1: So if you're familiar with the long running, uh, the
20:00
Speaker 1: long running antagonist of our show, Jonathan Strickland a k.
20:03
Speaker 1: The Quister, you will know that he does what has
20:07
Speaker 1: been described by him as the most cringe worthy segment
20:10
Speaker 1: and podcasting. In this segment, he will typically harass, emotionally
20:17
Speaker 1: and verbally abused Nolan, I and Casey to occasionally by
20:21
Speaker 1: telling us an anecdote a snari there we go perfect
20:27
Speaker 1: and uh, this guy shows up at the weirdest times,
20:30
Speaker 1: like we know his thing now, uh, And our job
20:33
Speaker 1: will be to ask him questions to figure out whether
20:38
Speaker 1: it's true being a crew of guys who are not
20:42
Speaker 1: into verbally emotionally abusing people. Instead of making you jump
20:47
Speaker 1: through all the quister hoops, we are going to ask you,
20:51
Speaker 1: do you think this story is true. Well, currently story,
20:55
Speaker 1: the whole story yeah wait wait, that's we. We wouldn't
20:59
Speaker 1: have present at all is an episode. Here's my thing,
21:02
Speaker 1: I trust you, gentlemen. And if if this was just
21:05
Speaker 1: an out and out lie, I would not only be hurt,
21:10
Speaker 1: I'd also be a little bit pissed. Colonel that's Colonel Jethro.
21:14
Speaker 1: That's that's quite uh you tell me, you telling me?
21:18
Speaker 1: I sat here in this entire episode. And there's a
21:21
Speaker 1: possibility that this is some bulls. So here's the thing.
21:27
Speaker 1: We don't know a whole bunch about hotel for sure,
21:31
Speaker 1: And the suicide story primarily comes from some really gossipy
21:37
Speaker 1: letters from the Marquise de Seville to her daughter. She
21:42
Speaker 1: this was a prolific letter writer, and most of the
21:46
Speaker 1: information in this story that we've all just heard was
21:50
Speaker 1: from her account. The thing was, she was not there
21:55
Speaker 1: to see the events. She heard about its second hands
21:58
Speaker 1: as a game of telephone. He said, she said, he said,
22:00
Speaker 1: she said, kind of stuff, and tell me there's a
22:02
Speaker 1: messenger pigeon or some sort. Well, it was also mentioned
22:05
Speaker 1: in other places. To right, it's it's we primarily get
22:08
Speaker 1: it from this story, but other people, at least including
22:12
Speaker 1: the prince said that it happened, so we think it
22:16
Speaker 1: could be true. But how much of it was embellished?
22:20
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? I need I need
22:22
Speaker 1: an account of someone who was in the room where
22:24
Speaker 1: it happened. Well, you're not going to get that, Colonel.
22:26
Speaker 1: We don't have that. We do have. Um is a twist,
22:31
Speaker 1: a sad, devastating twist, according to these gossipy letters, was
22:36
Speaker 1: that the remainder of the shipment of fish arrived mere
22:39
Speaker 1: hours after our hero has run himself through on said
22:44
Speaker 1: ceremonial sword. Um. And there is actually a film about
22:49
Speaker 1: the life of Francois Votel. Um played in the film
22:53
Speaker 1: which is directed by Roland Joffe by one of my
22:56
Speaker 1: favorite French actors, Gerard Depastually. And in the film, it's
23:03
Speaker 1: much more uh study on the awful behavior of aristocrats,
23:09
Speaker 1: and it kind of paints votel as being like this potential,
23:12
Speaker 1: like nobody unless he had had these patrons and was
23:16
Speaker 1: sort of lifted up, you know, out of obscurity by
23:19
Speaker 1: these members of the royal court. And as opposed to
23:23
Speaker 1: responding to a late fish delivery, he kind of caves
23:28
Speaker 1: under the pressures Um and the treatment that he receives,
23:31
Speaker 1: you know, as being a part of this system. Um.
23:34
Speaker 1: I have not seen the film myself, but I very
23:36
Speaker 1: much look forward to checking it out. Heavy is the
23:38
Speaker 1: head that wears the crowd right of culinary responsibility at least,
23:44
Speaker 1: so we we definitely know something happened. We just don't
23:47
Speaker 1: know all of the details. This is strange because even
23:52
Speaker 1: centuries later, it's a very understandable shame, the ignomy right
23:58
Speaker 1: of it all, Like a mad jen If you are
24:01
Speaker 1: the head of the dining industry at the White House,
24:06
Speaker 1: right and you mess something up. I don't know what
24:09
Speaker 1: that would be now exactly. I don't know if that
24:11
Speaker 1: would be like you get the wrong Hamburgers, but whatever
24:14
Speaker 1: it is, oh these days, yeah, whatever it is. This
24:18
Speaker 1: these could easily be situations where it feels like the
24:22
Speaker 1: one bad thing that goes wrong matters more than the
24:25
Speaker 1: one hundred things you did well, you know what I mean. Yeah,
24:28
Speaker 1: but not to mention like nowadays you might be dealing
24:31
Speaker 1: with entourages of a hundred maybe yeah, back then, I mean,
24:35
Speaker 1: like, like like, you know, so this is Los Angeles Times article.
24:38
Speaker 1: The subject is a very beautifully dismissive votel. The fish
24:43
Speaker 1: Suicide Guy by Charles Perry from February of two thousand one,
24:47
Speaker 1: and it's talking about the films the year that came
24:49
Speaker 1: out Um that he likens Vtel and his um depiction
24:54
Speaker 1: in the film by day Pardieu to a general because
24:57
Speaker 1: his organizational skills had to be so finely tuned UM
25:03
Speaker 1: to get all of these all of this food. I mean,
25:05
Speaker 1: because again it had to be local most of the time.
25:07
Speaker 1: So when you have five thousand people, it's the equivalent
25:10
Speaker 1: of an army marching into town, and you have to prepare,
25:13
Speaker 1: I get to strategize. And he was given not enough
25:15
Speaker 1: time to do it correctly, and he paid for it
25:19
Speaker 1: with his life, according to the accounts that we do have.
25:26
Speaker 1: But we don't want this to end on an entirely
25:30
Speaker 1: low note, you know what I mean. Let's we We've
25:33
Speaker 1: teased a little bit about Shantilly creams, so maybe we
25:36
Speaker 1: can end on a sweet note. Oh, I said a
25:38
Speaker 1: dumb thing on the top of the show by They
25:40
Speaker 1: don't put Shantilly cream on chee crab soup. It is
25:42
Speaker 1: a dessert cram. But you can still go for it
25:45
Speaker 1: if you want it. It's it's interesting. So let's talk
25:47
Speaker 1: a little bit about what it is. For some reason, Uh,
25:50
Speaker 1: Matt in your other incarnation, Colonel Jethro, Uh, Shantilly cream
25:55
Speaker 1: sounds like something you would say on a day to
25:57
Speaker 1: day basis. M I Hintilly sweet cream right next to
26:02
Speaker 1: my men, Julip sitting on the blotch. You know, it's
26:06
Speaker 1: a day like today, we walk outside and that heat
26:09
Speaker 1: just hits you like a blanket right on your crotch.
26:12
Speaker 1: Then you proceed to pull down some Wait, what are
26:16
Speaker 1: we talking about. We're talking about Shantilly cream, which is
26:18
Speaker 1: a freshly whipped cream sweetened with sugar. It's got a
26:22
Speaker 1: vanilla flavor, and whipped cream was already around at the time,
26:26
Speaker 1: but sugar was expensive, so sweetening whipped cream with sugar
26:31
Speaker 1: and then vanilla, which was even more costly. That could
26:34
Speaker 1: be an episode all its own. Uh. That was another
26:38
Speaker 1: enormously profound flex right. Also, you know what, now I
26:43
Speaker 1: think about it, it's weird how out of all the
26:46
Speaker 1: ice cream flavors, vanilla became the most common in the
26:50
Speaker 1: AK Boring. It's kind of a success story. Really interesting, Ben,
26:56
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going nowhere with that, but it would be
26:59
Speaker 1: cool to see how vanilla became like the ubiquitous story.
27:03
Speaker 1: And when people are described where situations are described as
27:06
Speaker 1: vanilla like back then that would mean expensive and from
27:10
Speaker 1: far away only for the absolute creme de la creme
27:15
Speaker 1: of of of high society exactly. So you know, all
27:20
Speaker 1: the vanilla that reached Europe at this time came from
27:23
Speaker 1: South America, so there was it was. It was pretty
27:27
Speaker 1: rare until the eighteen hundreds. So Vtel does have a legacy.
27:33
Speaker 1: And it's also a legacy that he might not have
27:35
Speaker 1: been entirely on board with because the words chantilly is
27:39
Speaker 1: often used for any like creation of fruit or vegetables
27:44
Speaker 1: that has some froth to it, no connection to cream
27:48
Speaker 1: or vanilla, and there are all kinds of arguments over
27:51
Speaker 1: who actually was the first person to say, hey, drop
27:55
Speaker 1: some vanilla. In this chantilly cannot be taken away from
27:59
Speaker 1: the chateau's name or their mutual history. So he did
28:03
Speaker 1: leave a legacy. He just had to pay, Uh, he
28:06
Speaker 1: had to pay the highest price. Yeah, And a big
28:08
Speaker 1: part of that legacy is almost serving like he literally
28:11
Speaker 1: died for his art, if if the stories are to
28:13
Speaker 1: be believed, he was almost a martyr for the French
28:17
Speaker 1: tradition of hot cuisine um and is also credited as
28:22
Speaker 1: being one of the earliest adopters and inventors, you know,
28:26
Speaker 1: kind of a tastemaker of these massive, opulent banquets. We
28:30
Speaker 1: talked about some of his flourishes as creative touches that
28:34
Speaker 1: he was known for, like the fireworks, the water works,
28:37
Speaker 1: all of that. But then I think you found a
28:38
Speaker 1: couple of really cool examples. Yes. Uh. The thing about
28:41
Speaker 1: these events was that the the art of the banquet
28:46
Speaker 1: goes far beyond what is actually on the plate. That's
28:50
Speaker 1: incredibly important, But there are also gonna be uh festivities,
28:55
Speaker 1: They're gonna be plays, poetry, recitations. There was gonna be
28:59
Speaker 1: lot I have music, you know what I mean, which
29:01
Speaker 1: is also a sensitive topic because everything is political at
29:05
Speaker 1: this point, so choosing the songs that get played as
29:09
Speaker 1: also an art. Are you saying he invented dinner theater? No,
29:14
Speaker 1: I don't you know what. I'm not saying that yet.
29:17
Speaker 1: I am saying I hope that's true. Uh. It's strange
29:20
Speaker 1: because the way they found him, the way they found
29:23
Speaker 1: his body, was when they came to tell him that
29:26
Speaker 1: everything would be okay, and the fish arrived. So there's
29:28
Speaker 1: there's almost this oh, Henry kind of moment. And in
29:32
Speaker 1: a way he's also a like your point and all
29:35
Speaker 1: about him being a general, in a way, he's also
29:37
Speaker 1: a diplomat. He has to make all of these things,
29:41
Speaker 1: and all of these departments, which sometimes are going to
29:44
Speaker 1: come into conflict with each other. Function is one smooth,
29:47
Speaker 1: coherent whole. And chefs at the time also practice things
29:52
Speaker 1: like disguising food for consumption so that it didn't seem
29:56
Speaker 1: like leftovers. So he had already thought through that. And
30:00
Speaker 1: he's somewhat noble, you know, he tried everything, and you
30:03
Speaker 1: can look to him as an inspirational figure if the
30:06
Speaker 1: story is completely true, because he is a man who
30:09
Speaker 1: is so passionate about what he does that he would
30:12
Speaker 1: rather die than disappoint the king and dishonor the art.
30:17
Speaker 1: And there is where our story ends today, just talking
30:21
Speaker 1: about this, I was looking up pictures of all these amazing,
30:24
Speaker 1: really complicated dishes. Uh, it's I'm starving. We should you
30:28
Speaker 1: guys want to go get something to eat? Yes? Please,
30:30
Speaker 1: I'm quite hungry. And if you're fascinated by this stuff
30:32
Speaker 1: like we are, um, I recommend a show for you
30:36
Speaker 1: guys to check out. There's a really cool celebrity chef
30:38
Speaker 1: named Heston blumenthality as a restaurant I believe its formational
30:42
Speaker 1: in stars called the Fat Duck. He has several restaurants
30:45
Speaker 1: now for sure, but that was the one that I
30:46
Speaker 1: was familiar with. UM known for kind of doing weird
30:50
Speaker 1: spins on things where he he makes like fruit out
30:54
Speaker 1: of meat and disguises it so it looks. It's like
30:56
Speaker 1: this whole idea of this disconnect between flavor and texture
30:59
Speaker 1: and what you're expecting to get. And that's an old tradition.
31:02
Speaker 1: That's a very very old tradition, absolutely is. And he
31:06
Speaker 1: has a series called Heston's Feasts where in each episode
31:10
Speaker 1: he uh does a different era. So there's Heston's Victorian Feast,
31:15
Speaker 1: Medieval Tutor Roman, Heston's Christmas Feast where he makes like
31:20
Speaker 1: this insane uh. There's one episode remakes this insane like
31:23
Speaker 1: pigeon pie or birds actually fly out, And there's actually
31:27
Speaker 1: one in the Roman Feast where the main course are
31:30
Speaker 1: the the dessert is called the ejaculating Cake. I'm in
31:35
Speaker 1: I I would love to see you in a room
31:37
Speaker 1: where that pigeon pie is released. I would be terrified,
31:41
Speaker 1: But I really do recommend the show. It's a lot
31:44
Speaker 1: of fun. You can probably stream it on YouTube, I think,
31:46
Speaker 1: but it'll give you a sense. He really tries to
31:48
Speaker 1: recreate the feel um and of these really opulent feasts
31:53
Speaker 1: that that Vtel would have been kind of one of
31:56
Speaker 1: the early adopters of. And if you're a fan of
31:59
Speaker 1: food history, food science, traveling more, we highly recommend you
32:04
Speaker 1: check out our peer podcast SABOR, hosted by Annie Reese
32:09
Speaker 1: and Lauren Voguel Bomb. Everyone, thank you so much for
32:13
Speaker 1: tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this strange dive into
32:17
Speaker 1: the rarefied air of Hote cuisine. And I want to
32:21
Speaker 1: do uh, I want to do an episode just on
32:24
Speaker 1: all the crazy top notch restaurants like l W which
32:28
Speaker 1: is closed, or noma Um Matt Frederick a k. Colonel Chethrow,
32:34
Speaker 1: thank you so much for hanging out with us on
32:36
Speaker 1: the podcast today. Thanks for having me. I did not
32:39
Speaker 1: contribute anything, and I disregard any compliment you would give me,
32:44
Speaker 1: so thanks for letting me be here. That's oh, check
32:48
Speaker 1: out my show. It's called Stuff They Don't Want You
32:49
Speaker 1: to Know. Yeah, where do people learn more about you?
32:52
Speaker 1: It's find us at Conspiracy Stuff or at Conspiracy Stuff Show.
32:57
Speaker 1: Thank you also to our super producer, Casey Agram here
33:00
Speaker 1: in spirit. Thank you to our friend of the show
33:04
Speaker 1: who may be returning for a second soon while I'm
33:08
Speaker 1: off on some completely non sketchy uh adventures and pursuits,
33:12
Speaker 1: Christopher Haciotis. Thanks Jolex Williams who composed our theme, and
33:16
Speaker 1: and begrudging thanks to Jonathan strickland Um for you know,
33:21
Speaker 1: being a nemesis. You gotta have an nemesis. It's important
33:24
Speaker 1: give you something to strive for. And thanks to Cheryl
33:26
Speaker 1: Crowe as well in that regard. This ends today's episode,
33:30
Speaker 1: but not our show. We kindly invite you to check
33:34
Speaker 1: us out on the social meads. You can find us
33:37
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the hits, all the good ones.
33:42
Speaker 1: Just go over to Facebook check out our group page,
33:45
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, where you can meet our favorite part of
33:48
Speaker 1: the show, your fellow listeners. You can also follow us
33:52
Speaker 1: individually on Instagram if you want to see what we
33:55
Speaker 1: get up to when we are not hanging out here together.
34:00
Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bowling, I am at how Now
34:02
Speaker 1: Noel Brown, We'll see you next time. Cooks. For more
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Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.