Louis Diat

Louis Felix Diat (May 5, 1885 – August 29, 1957) was a French-American chef and culinary writer. It is also believed that he created vichyssoise soup during his time at the Ritz-Carlton.

Biography

Childhood Diat was born in 1885 in France, where his father managed a shoe store. During the summer, when Diat and his siblings desired a cold snack, Diat's mother Annette (potage bonne femme).

At age five, Diat learned to cook. His mother taught him tarts, while his grandmother demonstrated how to broil chicken over charcoal.

On October 8, 1910, aged 25, Diat immigrated to New York, becoming the chef of Carlton House on 23 October 1910

salign = right tall, slim, handsome man with thick gray hair and wide, bushy eyebrows. He was a master in the kitchen who was always willing to stop cooking long enough to talk about it in an interpretive and fascinating manner. and on one occasion, the exclusive wine club Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin ("Knights of the Wine Cup"). He "worked fourteen hours a day, six days a week, and spent seven or eight hours at the hotel on Sunday, his day off". Diat was included in a list of chefs with annual salaries of $10,000 to $25,000.

Later years quote=I have been invited to go to the new Carlton House as supervising chef, but I don't know. I will go away for at least six months, either to California or to France, to forget about the Ritz. I don't want to be in New York when they break this place up. When Queen Marie of Romania came here for a supper party in the Oval Room, she said, "Oh, it is like my palace!" Diat retired, returning to his home in Hartsdale, seeking to "invent some new and startling cold soup" for the menu at the Ritz-Carlton, he recalled his mother's soup. His experimenting soon led to a combination of "leeks, onions, potatoes, butter, milk, cream and other seasonings". after Vichy, a spa town near his birthplace in France that is famous for both its exceptional food and its springs. The new item enjoyed "instant success". and requested another serving.

Vichyssoise was served the rest of the summer and the following summers. During the colder seasons, he did not include it in the menu, but so many people asked for it, in 1923, Diat placed it on the menu full-time. Diat recalled that Sara Roosevelt had had vichysoisse and "once called me up at five in the afternoon and asked me to send eight portions to her house".

Personal life Diat and his wife Suzanne had one child, a daughter, Suzette.

Suzette Diat married George J. Lawrence, with whom she had two children. In an interview, Suzette Diat Lawrence described her father as "a gentle, humble man, simple in his tastes. ... He enjoyed good cooking. It didn't have to be fancy as long as it was prepared well without too much seasoning and not too rich". She considered her father a patient instructor, "He would answer any question concerned with cooking. He had no secrets." Additionally, Diat "taught his family the art of using leftovers" to create new dishes.

Diat's two brothers also distinguished themselves in the culinary field. Jules Diat was a teacher. His son (Louis's nephew) was chef saucier (sauce chef) at the 1939 New York World's Fair. A participant in the French Resistance during World War II, he was killed by the Germans.

Writer

Aside from writing magazine features for Gourmet, a home economist and administrator of the J. Walter Thompson Company.#tag:ref|The J. Walter Thompson Company was the publicity firm for the Ritz. It is no longer in print. Diat alleged that American women cannot cook since they "often ruin good food trying to save" money or time. In response to this dilemma, Diat wrote a book entitled La Cuisine de Ma Mère to divulge all his "cooking secrets". Ascribing his culinary finesse to his mother, Diat dedicated the book to his mother, "Annette Alajoinine Diat, who guided the early years, inspired the later ones and whose memory is still a spur".

Notes and references