save room for pudding

Listening to a book read on the radio, on one of the first celebrity chefs, Antonin Careme, who floreated in post-revolutionary Paris. Pre the revolution, restaurants served only soup, which was thought to have restorative medical qualities, to those who could afford it. In the new democratic age they became more generalized eating houses, and chefs rose from their kitchens to become cooks to the stars, or at least to royalty.
Anyway, Careme was one such character, specializing in extraordinaires, vast desserts several feet high, representing buildings, gardens, fantastic landscapes or sculptures. The most interesting/bizarre of these was a christening cake for the grandson of Louis XIV, made from pastry, almond paste and clockwork. It depicted the labour pains of the baby Duc d'Angoulême's mother, and his entry into the world via a marzipan vagina.

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