A guide to modern cookery: Volume 1

A guide to modern cookery is Escoffier’s 1903 French restaurant cuisine cookbook. Escoffier developed the recipes while working at the Savoy, Ritz and Carlton hotels from the late 1880s to the time of publication. The hotels and restaurants Escoffier worked in were on the cutting edge of modernity, doing away with many overwrought elements of the Victorian era while serving the elite of society. Many of the recipes Escoffier developed while working at the Savoy in London, and later the Ritz in Paris. He kept notes on note cards. Recipes were often created and named for famous patrons including royalty, nouveau riche, and artists. After leaving the Savoy in 1898, he began work on the book.