Taillevent

Guillaume Tirel (French pronunciation: [ɡijom tiʁɛl]), known as Taillevent ([tajvɑ̃] (ca. 1310 – 1395) was an important figure in the early history of French cuisine. He was cook to the Court of France at the time of the first Valois kings and the Hundred Years' War. He was the author of one of the earliest known French cookery books and the first to be printed.

Life and career

The food historian Anne Willan has remarked that Taillevent "must have been quite a character" because "a remarkable amount is known about him in an age when most craftsmen, like the builders of the Gothic cathedrals, passed forgotten into history". Nevertheless, the dates of events in his early years are uncertain. His birthplace is believed to have been Pont-Audemer in Normandy, but his year of birth is not precisely known and writers have proposed dates from 1310 to 1326 – the former or something approximating is now thought more likely. It is also unknown when he acquired the sobriquet of "Taillevent" (literally "Wind-cutter"); Willan comments that many apprentices in those days picked up nicknames that they never outgrew. Nor is the significance of the nickname clear: according to a seventeenth-century writer it signifies an idle swaggerer; a 2020 article suggests that the word meant a light sail on a small boat and was a reference to his large, pronounced, aquiline nose.

Taillevent's first position was happelapin or enfant de cuisine (kitchen boy) to Queen Jeanne d'Évreux of France in 1326, with the task of turning the large roasting spits before the open fire. By 1346 he had risen to be a keu (cook) to the French King Philip VI, and in 1349 he was granted a house in consideration of the good and pleasant service the king had received. He was raised to the rank of écuyer or squire as Ecuyer de l’Ostel de Mons, and his master was the Dauphin de Viennois – the heir to the French throne. Taillevent served several members of the royal family: In 1359 he was in the service of the Duke of Normandy; in 1368 the latter became Charles V and Taillevent continued in his service, becoming premier keu or chief cook in 1373. In 1381 he became écuyer de cuisine to Charles VI and from 1388 to 1392 he was premier écuyer of the royal kitchens, heading the half-dozen kitchens of the queen and the various royal dukes as well as those of the king.