The Cooking Animal: Economic Man at the Great Exhibition

WHEN CALLED UPON TO HOST a banquet celebrating the forthcoming Great Exhibition of 1851, the world’s first display of international industry, the Mayor of York turned to the period’s most renowned chef for the catering. The Frenchman Alexis Soyer, who had recently resigned from his position at the Reform Club in Pall Mall, had made a name for himself in Britain through a combination of extravagant culinary endeavours and popular household cookery books. The banquet at York was an important occasion; joining Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s Consort, was a long list of national luminaries from Victorian high society and the political world. Soyer did not disappoint the Mayor, or his guests. The Times commented that amongst the vast array of international cuisines on offer was featured “one dish, to which turtles, ortolans, and other rich denizens of land and sea had contributed, [which] cost not less than 100l.” The paper noted with satisfaction that the feast was consumed before an “emblematical device representing Britannia in her conventional attire receiving the industrial products of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America” (“The Banquet at York” 5). That this emblem provided the backdrop to such cosmopolitan fare was salient: it spoke to the way in which the production and consumption of food would become a crucial motif in the positive representation of globalisation as it was understood at the Exhibition; it also highlighted the important role that the Victorian metropolis would fulfil in the realisation of this new world order. Certainly, the internationalist bent of Soyer’s cooking seemed entirely appropriate to the luminaries gathered at the York banquet, and it was no doubt with the French chef’s culinary scope in their minds as well as their stomachs that the Exhibition’s organisers invited Soyer to submit a tender to provide refreshments at the display itself (Soyer 197). Soyer, however, refused the offer. The Royal Commission had laid down particular stipulations concerning the nature of consumables to be served within the Palace, including a ban on alcohol. “It would be inconsistent with the nature of the Exhibition,” the Commission pronounced, “to allow the building to assume the character of an hotel, tavern, or diningrooms” (J. Davis 100). Seemingly affronted by these restrictions, the entrepreneurial chef had, in any case, spotted an alternative opportunity to use his skill and fame to capitalize on the event. Working with the young artist and writer George Augustus Sala, Soyer took over Gore House, previously the salon of the notoriously extravagant Countess Blessington and conveniently situated just opposite the Crystal Palace. With the aim of profiting