Page 150 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

REMINISCENCES

KITCHEN AND PANTRY

1867

Emil GEISER

‘The season has begun; from morning until 11.30, we hear the bell ringing to announce that
guests have arrived. At around 5 o’clock, 120 people eat at the table d’hôte and then, about an hour
later, for example today [we had to serve] up to 40 dinners. Imagine the scene –
we literally jump around ovens as hot as volcanoes where the floor is burning. It is something you ‘Recently, the hotel and the chalet [built in 1864] have been full to bursting point.

simply cannot picture: five or six waiters jostling each other so as to be served first, while cooks Today, sixty people left but forty have already arrived, although the important guests are not here
call out and run around yelling. We have to concentrate with all our strength before the waiters yet. It is very busy. All day teams of horses, coaches, phaetons, etc. pass by the kitchen windows.
do us the favour of disappearing somewhere else. They always want one thing or another.
There are often fist fights. It is as though we had St Vitus’s dance. One sauce chef was sacked, There are always families promenading themselves in the grand style, to the sound of tinkling silver
bells. To give you some idea of the magnificence of the service, the soup spoons alone cost 280
another is leaving in eight days’ time, just like the kitchen boy and the housekeeper in charge of francs, a decorated silver tray 680 francs. It must be worth the expense. Poultry from Alamartine
the pantry, who were like parents to me. She used to give me everything I wanted and was full
of good advice, etc., which I still treasure. In the past few days I have twice prepared Heuberibrey in Geneva just for last week cost 8600 francs. Every day we receive 100 to 200 kilos of meat.
As for coffee, we receive fifty kilos every three days.’
[a compote of berries] for my 65 [?]. Just imagine, a frying pan I could barely lift… Even

the manager ate some and was full of praise. I simply steamed it with sugar and a tankard of water
and nothing else but a small spoonful of flour.’

Emil GEISER, letter to his parents, 6 August [1867].
Emil GEISER, letter to his parents, 24 July [1867]. These quotations are reproduced from an unpublished collection of letters by kind permission of Mr Peter GEISER.

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