It is, however, not till the Renaissance, and then too with Italy as the starting-point, that the history of modern cookery really begins. Meanwhile cookery may be studied rather in the architecture of kitchens, and the development of their appurtenances and personnel, than in any increase in the subtleties of the art; the ideal was inevitably gross; the end was feeding--inextricably associated in all ages with cooking, but as distinct from its _fine fleur_ as gluttony from gastronomy.
Montaigne's references to the revival of cookery in France by Catherine de' Medici indicate that the new attention paid to the art was really novel. She brought Italian cooks to Paris and introduced there a cultured simplicity which was unknown in France before. It is to the Italians apparently that later developments are originally due. It is clearly established, for instance (says Abraham Hayward in his _Art of Dining_), that the Italians introduced ices into France. Fricandeaus were invented by the _chef_ of Leo X. And Coryate in his _Crudities_, writing in the time of James I., says that he was called "furcifer" (evidently in contemptuous jest) by his friends, from his using those "Italian neatnesses called forks." The use of the fork and spoon marked an epoch in the progress of dining, and consequently of cookery.
Under Louis XIV. further advances were made. His _maître d'hôtel_, Béchamel, is famous for his sauce; and Vatel, the great Condé's cook, was a celebrated artist, of whose suicide in despair at the tardy arrival of the fish which he had ordered, Madame de Sévigné relates a moving story. The prince de Soubise, immortalized by his onion sauce, also had a famous chef.
In England the names of certain cookery-books may be noted, such as Sir J. Elliott's (1539), Abraham Veale's (1575), and the _Widdowe's Treasure_ (1625). The _Accomplisht Cook_, by Robert May, appeared in 1665, and from its preface we learn that the author (who speaks disparagingly of French cookery, but more gratefully of Italian and Spanish) was the son of a cook, and had studied abroad and under his father (c. 1610) at Lady Dormer's, and he speaks of that time as "the days wherein were produced the triumphs and trophies of cookery." From his description they consisted of most fantastic and elaborately built up dishes, intended to amuse and startle, no less than to satisfy the appetite and palate.
