Crimean

The son of a grocer, appropriately enough, Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) became a famous chef, indeed perhaps the first-ever “celebrity chef.”  Apprenticed at a restaurant in Paris, he quickly rose in the profession to become the chef for several French and English aristocrats and subsequently cemented his reputation as the chef de cuisine at the Reform Club in London.  Impressively – considering his clientele – he took an active interest in providing soup kitchens for the poor during the Irish famine of 1847 and worked with the British Army in the Crimea to improve the provisioning of army hosp