André Noël (chef)

André Noël, born in Périgueux in 1726 and died in Berlin on May 4, 1801, was a French chef in the service of King Frederick II of Prussia. He created famous dishes for the royal table, such as a "bombe de Sardanapale", but is also credited with making a pheasant pâté that La Mettrie is said to have enjoyed to the point of dying of indigestion. In 1772, King Frederick II dedicated a long poem to him. After his death, he appeared in several novels.

From Périgueux to Potsdam
André Noël - or Nouël - was born in Périgueux in 1726, in the Limogeanne district. His father was a flourishing confectioner with "prodigious talent for pâtés", which he shipped all over Europe. Almost nothing is known of his career prior to his departure for Prussia, Philippe Meyzie cautioning against any a posteriori reconstruction of a "mythologized past" and Hans-Uwe Lammel suggesting that Noël's father's fame may have played a role in his son's career.

In 1755, André Noël was hired as a cook at the court of King Frederick II of Prussia, at the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam. This can be contextualized in two ways:


 * At the time, it was considered best to "only cook with French cooks". French chefs like Vincent La Chapelle were sought after by European princes. Some of them, such as Frederick II, "to amuse themselves, do not disdain to speak sometimes about cooking", as stated in the warning to Les Dons de Comus, a manual of "nouvelle cuisine" published in 1739 by François Marin. Frederick II had also read Les Dons de Comus, even though French and German cuisine coexisted at his table. He employed French chefs, such as the "famous Duval", who entered his service in 1731. In 1744, another French chef, Émile Joyard from Lyon, son-in-law of Antoine Pesne, joined Frederick's staff; he remained maître d'hôtel for thirty years.
 * In the 18th century, pâtés du Périgord, particularly those from Périgueux, were "the most expensive of entremets" and a renowned noble gift. However, the reference to Périgord most often refers not to the geographical origin of the dish, but to its preparation "à la Périgord", i.e. with the incorporation of truffles. As early as 1743, Frederick II's correspondence attests to his fondness for these pâtés. He "loved truffles and sent for a pâté from Périgord every year",  in particular those from Courtois, a pastry-maker in Périgueux, of which he "was particularly fond". He also sent them as gifts. The king remained "particularly" attached to pâtés throughout his life, a French diplomat noting that as he neared death, he ate nothing but "pâtés of eel and Périgueux".

Career and end of life in Berlin
Casanova met André Noël at Madame Rufin's in 1764, during a stay in Berlin. As early as 1761, Frederick II expressed his satisfaction with Noël, writing to the Marquis d'Argens that "Noël was able to satisfy the most gourmet epicurean in Europe". According to B. Maether, second head chef in 1767. In 1784, on the death of Joyard, he was appointed Joyard's successor as maître d'hôtel". Noël headed a team of twelve cooks to provide royal service at the palace. When Frederick II invited a foreign guest to his table, André Noël could serve up to eighty dishes. The king's meals often gave rise to a ceremonial, with Frederick II composing verses to celebrate the occasion.
 * The great Noël [who] with his inventive hands,
 * Tonight surpasses his feats.

Jean-Charles Laveaux, who recounts these events, adds: "After declaiming these verses, the king flicked his wand, and dinner was served".

On September 9, 1786, Noël attended the funeral of Frederick II and took part in the procession. Until 1801, he remained the first master chef to his successor, Frederick William III. He died in Berlin on May 4, 1801, aged 75.

Bombe de Sardanapale
According to Friedrich Nicolai, the "bombe de Sardanapale" was Frederick II's favorite dish which was frequently served at the royal table between 1772 and 1779. It is mentioned in a 137-verse poem by Frederick II, Epître au sieur Noël maître d'hôtel par l'Empereur de la Chine, published in Potsdam in 1772.


 * I'm not laughing; really, Mr. Noël,
 * Your great talents will make you immortal



Sources differ as to the attribution of the recipe. For Jean-Robert Pitte, André Noël is the inventor. Heidi Driesner suggests that André Noël invented it, but that Frederick II chose the name of the dish. Pierre René Auguis proposes a third version: according to him, the king, tasting what Carlo Denina called "infernal cuisine", chose the ingredients, or rather demanded the incorporation of some, and Noël named the dish:

"He imagined a combination of ingredients so violent as to outrage any other man: Noël protested against such an unhealthy dish, but obeyed repeated orders. The King, delighted with his cooking, spoke up and said: Noël, I have had the glory of creating a delicious dish, and I leave you the honor of naming it. At first, the maître d'hôtel apologized, but then, in a hurry, he replied brusquely: 'Call it bombe à la sardanapale'. The King laughed and said to the Count of Schullenbourg: 'It's out of affection for me that he's getting angry!'."

According to Friedrich Nicolai, the "bombe de Sardanapale" is a head of cabbage or savoy cabbage, stuffed with spicy meat, olives, capers, anchovies and "other fine ingredients", "cooked or roasted with particular care". Lucien Noël also names bacon, garlic and saffron among the ingredients. Friedrich Nicolai reports having seen the king annotate his "bombe" menus with a "bravo Noël!" on several occasions, and adds that the king ate so much of it that he developed indigestion. The same Nicolai assures that he asked Noël for his recipe and tried to reproduce the dish in his own kitchen, but never succeeded, despite "weeks of preparation and instruction from the cook".

However, a contemporary attempt was made to reproduce the famous recipe on the occasion of the tercentenary of the birth of Frederick II.

Pâté du Périgord de Magdebourg
Aware of the king's predilection for truffles, Baron de La Motte Fouqué sent for some dogs from Croatia, trained to find them. Truffles were found in the vicinity of Magdeburg, and Fouqué had a pâté prepared and sent to the king. Noël was then commissioned to make a "pâté du Périgord de Magdebourg" with these truffles, which he did.

Arrière-faix de Marie-Antoinette
In his Memoirs, Charles of Hesse-Kassel wrote about André Noël, whom he met in 1779. He notes that Frederick II's cook prepared "admirable" soups, dishes "mostly in the French style and some of extraordinary strength", made with "all sorts of extremely delicate things". Among the dishes served to him, in addition to "bombe de Sardanapale", he cites a dish called "arrière-faix de Marie-Antoinette", which he describes as a "very curiously prepared stew".

Roulette
Although no pastry recipe is specifically attributed to André Noël, as fruit played an important role at Frederick II's table, he was fond of pastries. Pierre Lacam and Antoine Charabot credit André Noël with the invention of the pastry wheel: Wanting to make a frangipane tart without "banding it as usual", he took "a scrap spur from the stables" and made "fluted strips to toast it on and around". The king was pleased, and Noël had "an ironmonger make [...] a roulette wheel fluted on both sides with a handle". This, they say, "toured Germany and Austria", before being adopted in France by the great pastry chef Carême.

Pâté de La Mettrie
Casanova reports that "Without Noël [...] or rather without the skill of this culinary artist, the famous Lamettrie, that atheist doctor, would not have died of indigestion; for the pâté he ate to excess at Lord Tyrconel's [Richard-François Talbot, comte de Tyrconnel, French ambassador to the Prussian court] had been made by Noël."In his edition of Casanova's Memoirs, Raoul Vèze gives a variant of this passage in another state of the manuscript: the dish responsible for Lamettrie's death could, according to Casanova, have been "bombe de Sardanapale", a conjecture the editor also attributes to Lord Dover. Although other authors credit Lord Rover with this assertion, he reported that La Mettrie died of indigestion after eating a truffle pâté. Friedrich Wilhelm Barthold, one of the first to refer to La Mettrie's death as a "bombe de Sardanapale", adds, however, that only Casanova seems to have known that Noël was the cook of the dish. This is an anachronism on Casanova's part: It was in 1751, before Noël arrived in Potsdam, and not in 1764, that La Mettrie died of having eaten a pâté that Madeleine Ferrières wondered was from Périgueux, Antoine Louis Paris asserted that it was made by "a cook who passed for very skilful" who had arrived from Paris, Voltaire, that it was "sent from the North", Frederick II, that it was "a whole pheasant pâté", and Voltaire, again, that the ginger masked the presence of spoiled meat.

Menus
Frederick II's meal menu generally consisted of eight courses, four of which were French-inspired, two Italian-inspired and two other ones. Vehse gives the menu for one of his last meals, arranged with Noël on August 5, 1786, twelve days before his death, where the king signified his approval of the dish with a cross (†):

Posterity
On March 12, 1804, an actor played André Noël at a Berlin masked ball in honor of Queen Louise:

"The spirit of the late Noël, Frederick II's famous cook, appeared. Not to depart from his eternal habit, he didn't appear without his umbrella, from which, to characterize the spirit, a light crêpe dangled. He confessed that one of the principal organs of a good cook, the nose, had brought him out of the underworld, and apostrophized the company with these words: The smell of pheasants and truffles draws me from Paradise. I've come to offer my most humble services for this evening, because there are no good feasts without old Noël."

André Noël is one of the characters in the historical novel Potsdam und Sans-Souci (1848), written by Eduard Maria Oettinger. In this novel, set in 1750 at the Château de Sans-Souci, Noël - who goes by the name Jacques Narcisse - reads Le Comte de Gabalis and frequents Voltaire and La Mettrie.