How Louis XIV, France's Greatest Glutton, Had His Breakfast

The breakfast of the Sun King, Louis XIV, became a real ritual at the Palace of Versailles. This French monarch, known for his love of sumptuous lunches and dinners, began his day with a rich and luxurious meal, which, according to chronicles, could amaze even the most sophisticated gourmet.

French culinary traditions have a long history. To trace it, we must travel to Versailles, the residence of the French kings of the absolutist era. For this monument, built during the Bourbon dynasty of the seventeenth century, became the center of French culinary art. During the reign of Louis XIV, it reached its peak, freeing itself from the shackles of the Middle Ages…

It's 8:20. The Sun King opens his eyes and sees the chamberlain, who asks if His Majesty intends to wake up. Then, about five minutes later, the surgeon of the Life Guard examines the king for ailments, and only after that does the physician-in-waiting change the monarch's shirt.

At exactly 8:40 the king prays, and then drinks sage tincture or a cup of broth on an empty stomach. However, his appetite is only just beginning to awaken.

Let us digress for a moment from the royal bedroom to note a very important fact directly related to Louis's meals.

When he was first born, everyone was pleasantly surprised that the baby already had two teeth, as this was considered a lucky sign. But the king's wet nurse was in no mood to smile.

In the first months her breasts were disfigured by the baby's teeth, and considering the king's excellent appetite, one can only sympathize with the poor woman and the subsequent wet nurses after her. However, the king's teeth were not as healthy as his appetite.

By the age of 40, Louis XIV's jaw was already exposed. It was impossible to chew food under such circumstances. And this was the reason why Louis began to swallow it in pieces. But this did not mean that in his maturity the king became moderate in food. Quite the opposite. Louis XIV's meals were called "Rabelaisian" for their comparison with the meals of the gluttonous giants from F. Rabelais's satirical novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel".

The king would throw a fit with anyone who tried to reproach him for his excessive gluttony. And those around him can be understood, since meat was not a daily food in France even in high society at that time, and the king's table, as we will see later, was simply bursting with a variety of meat dishes.

By 12 o'clock, the kitchen is already in full swing preparing for the toothless king's meal. The Chief Master of Ceremonies of the Court is responsible for setting the table and the menu for one person. It is no coincidence that the menu for one person is mentioned here, because Louis loved to eat alone.

The menu of the royal meal is truly amazing! For the main course, His Majesty was served soup made from two large capons (i.e. castrated roosters specially fattened for meat), called dietary, and soup made from four partridges, seasoned with cabbage.

Broth from six aviary pigeons, broth from cockscombs and tender meats. And finally, two soups for starters (!): capon and partridge.

The first courses consisted of a quarter of a calf and a piece of hawk, each weighing 28 pounds, which translates to 12.7 kilograms, as well as a pate of twelve pigeons.

The starters were a fricassee of six hens and two chopped partridges. Then came four intermediate courses, namely: a sauce of three partridges, six pates baked on a brazier, two roast turkeys and three fat chickens with truffle sauce. But that's not all!

The roast consisted of two fat capons, nine roast chickens, nine pigeons, two young hens, six partridges and four pates. And for dessert? Fresh fruit, filling two porcelain bowls to the brim, two similar bowls with dried fruit and four bowls with compotes or jams.

For comparison, let's look at the breakfast menu of the king's father, Louis XIII, which ended at half past nine. It consisted of broth served on silver plates, a soft-boiled egg, and fruit - baked apples or cherries. How unlike his son.

After the first meal, Louis XIV had his second, at five o'clock. It is quite possible that the monarch did not touch all the dishes, but the fact that the king often asked for more and sent notes to the kitchen with the addition of this or that dish to the table speaks of his truly monarchical appetite.

Moreover, Louis loved it when those around him at the table at formal dinners had an equally healthy appetite and ate, for example, a pig’s head in one sitting.

Such vivid episodes, describing one of the dinner parties of the still young Louis, can be found in Alexandre Dumas's novel "The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or Ten Years Later." We see how the king favors Porthos, seeing an eater as insatiable as himself.

The author notes that the king sat at a separate "table" that towered over the neighboring ones and was larger than the rest. Dumas also lists the dishes placed on the royal table: fish, game, meat, fruits, vegetables and jams.

First the king ate several soups, either pouring them together to make a kind of macedoine, or tasting them separately and alternating them with a glass of old wine." And adding: "He ate quickly and rather greedily."

Appetizers were not always mentioned on the menu, and they are not the light dishes we are used to to whet the appetite. Not everyone's stomach can handle the "appetizers" that were served to Louis: sausages, white blood sausage, truffle pates, myrtleton. The history of the creation of the latter dish is quite fascinating.

Myroton was similar in appearance to pilaf, but was very different in the method of preparation. This is explained by the fact that French diplomats of the 17th century, having arrived in Istanbul, were delighted with Turkish pilaf, but were never able to learn the secret of its preparation, carefully hidden by eastern cooks.

They only found out that pilaf consists of melt-in-your-mouth rice with a stable yellow color, which they wrote about in their dispatches. Only on this description did the French cooks create miroton, which only visually resembled its eastern counterpart. They decided to cook it from veal or tender beef, which was fried in butter to make it more tender.

The yellow color was achieved by soaking the cooked rice in milk with hard-boiled yolks. After all, they did not yet know such Turkish spices as saffron or turmeric. As a result, they got a very expensive and labor-intensive dish, the taste of which vaguely resembles Turkish pilaf.

Only during Lent did the king slightly reduce his appetite. And in order not to feel too weak, he ordered capon soup, four pounds of beef, the same amount of veal and the same amount of mutton to be brought to him.

Now Louis could begin to abstain by ordering one carp, a hundred shrimps, milk soup, two turtles, vegetable soup, flounder, a stew cooked in water, a large pike, four medium-sized flounders, two perches, two more flounders, a hundred oysters, six "Petrov's fish" and for the roast - half a large salmon and six flounders. That was the Lenten menu.

Louis XIV was undoubtedly a multifaceted personality and left a deep mark on history. Including in the development of culinary art in France. For example, during his time, the menu was designed as note-cards with orders for dishes on thick paper.

It was under Louis that the etiquette of eating became a real ceremony. Let us now leave the king alone at his "Rabelaisian" meal, because tomorrow there will be a similarly difficult test for his royal stomach.