Robert Carrier (chef)
Encyclopedia
Robert Carrier OBE was an American chef
, restaurateur
and cookery writer, whose success came in England, where he was based from 1953 to 1984, and then from 1994 until his death.
, the third son of an Irish
descended wealthy property lawyer father, while his mother was the Franco
-German daughter of a millionaire. After his parents went bankrupt in the 1930s Great Depression
, they maintained their own lifestyle through removing the servants and preparing their own elaborate dinner parties.
Educated in New York City, Robert took part-time art courses, and trained to become an actor. He eventually took a place in the Broadway revue
of New Faces
, before touring Europe with a rep company, singing the juvenile lead in American musicals. After returning to America, Robert often stayed at weekends with his beloved French grandmother in upstate New York, and she taught him to cook, making biscuits and butter-frying fish caught in a nearby stream.
during World War II, as an intelligence officer in the Office of Strategic Services
, a wartime forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency
. Speaking fluent French and understanding German thanks to his parentage, Carrier arrived in England in 1943, and served in Paris post D-Day
as a cryptographer in General Charles de Gaulle
's headquarters.
Thanks to his Gaullist connections, Carrier choose to remain in Paris as a civilian after the cessation of hostilities, dropping the patronymic
surname McMahon: "It (Robert Carrier) sounds good in French and it looks well visually." Carrier initially working for a US forces radio station and a Gaullist newspaper/magazine Spectacle, set up to support de Gaulle's RTF party in its failed bid for post-war power.
After a theatrical magazine he was editing and part owned was shut down in 1949, he moved to St. Tropez to work in a friends restaurant called Chez Fifine's, where he found relief from a bout of depression. Starting to write about food as ration-restricted Europe got used to flavour again, Carrier moved to Rome, Italy to improve his cookery repertoire, and undertake work as a cowboy in an Italian musical revue.
After a friend invited him to Great Britain for the 1953 coronation
of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
, he decided to relocate to London working in the developing industry of public relations
marketing various food products, including: stock cubes, cornflour
, New Zealand apples – a vegetarian dog food. With Oliver Lawson-Dick, Carrier wrote The Vanishing City, an historical perspective of London illustrated with reproductions of old engravings.
editor Eileen Dickson. He was soon writing regularly for the magazine before becoming a contributor to Vogue and then writing a weekly column for the colour supplement of the Sunday Times
. This column brought him celebrity, which he used to promote his first and lavishly illustrated cookery book Great Dishes of the World in 1963, which although priced at the present day equivalent of around £100, sold 11 million copies.
Assured of publicity, Carrier opened the eponymous restaurant Carriers in 1959 in Camden Passage, Islington
; and then developed an international chain of cookshops, with the first in Harrods
in 1967. His development of wipe-clean recipe cards were bought by housewives, and being more specific and easier to follow than the recipes of Elizabeth David
, and made it easily possible to prepare food that would fully satisfy the eye and palate of any dinner guests.
In 1971, he saw a full-page advertisement in Country Life
for Hintlesham Hall near Ipswich
, Suffolk and bought it, unsurveyed, for £32,000. He planned to renovate it slowly as a country retreat but, realising its vulnerability and near dereliction with rotten floors and ceilings, he decided to save it all immediately. He employed 60 people to restore the house and opened it as a hotel and restaurant in August 1972. He also revived the Hintlesham
Festival.
A few years later, Carrier met a woman who lived near his Paris apartment. He thought her a remarkable cook but a poor business woman; so, when she got into financial difficulties over non-payment of tax, he offered to set her up as a cookery teacher at Hintlesham if she would learn to speak English. He invested about £300,000 converting the 16th century outbuildings into a modern school. The school had a double auditorium and two classrooms each with 12 cooking stations. The woman never learned English so he ran the school himself. He presented beginners' and intermediate courses. The mornings were devoted to generic cooking skills and, in the afternoons, students cooked recipes from the Hintlesham Hall restaurant menu. The school attracted people from throughout the anglophone world, but Carrier was disappointed to find that many were attracted more by his celebrity than by an interest in cookery. He found the repetitive work onerous and dull.
In the late 1970s, Carrier began presenting a television series Carrier's Kitchen based on the cooking cards from his Sunday Times articles. After the plain British fair of Fanny Cradock
presented in black and white, Carrier in colour television format introduced luxurious Continental cooking to a nation in which ingredients such as garlic
and spaghetti
were treated with deep suspicion. With a highly theatrical and camp style, and a penchant for superlatives ("Gooorgeous… Adooorable… Faaabulous!"), he attracted viewers as much for his drawling American vowels and shameless self-promotion, and resultantly became the first celebrity chef on British television. His later followed this with three other series, titled Food, Wine and Friends, The Gourmet Vegetarian and Carrier's Caribbean. From this greater publicity, flowed a substantial magazine partwork published weekly by Marshall Cavendish
between 1981 and 1983.
, Carrier closed the Michelin two starred
Hintlesham Hall in 1982, and sold it the following year to English hotelier Ruth Watson
and her husband. After closing the also Michelin two starred Camden Passage restaurant, Carrier took a short stay in New York, and from 1984 went to live in France and at his restored villa in Morocco
, regularly accompanied by his friend Oliver Lawson-Dick.
On January 19, 1983, Carrier was the subject of the United Kingdom television show This Is Your Life
. He became popular in the United States in the 1980s, writing a weekly European food column for a popular US magazine. In 1984 he became the face of the British restaurant industry, arguing vigorously and vocally for changes to the licensing laws. His efforts were rewarded by appointment as honorary OBE
.
Having lived in Marrakesh for several months of each year since the 1970s, Carrier used his Moroccan
experiences as the basis for another cookbook in 1987, which further funded his retirement. His 1999 rewrite of Great Dishes of the World didn't sell, because he replaced rich and calorific Carrier classics with modern pared-down Nouvelle Cuisine
.
By 1994 Carrier had returned to London, realising that most of his friends were in Great Britain from looking at where the postage stamp
s on the Christmas card
s had originated. He also returned to television with GMTV
, proclaiming the virtues of economical and vegetarian eating. Having sold his villa in Morocco, he owned a property in Provence
where he spent his time painting pictures, tended by good friend Liz Glaze after the death of Oliver Lawson-Dick. Having been admitted to hospital that morning in the South of France, Carrier's death was announced by Liz Glaze on the afternoon of the June 27, 2006 to the Press Association
.
Chef
A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...
, restaurateur
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
and cookery writer, whose success came in England, where he was based from 1953 to 1984, and then from 1994 until his death.
Biography
Born Robert Carrier McMahon in Tarrytown, New YorkTarrytown, New York
Tarrytown is a village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, about north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line...
, the third son of an Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
descended wealthy property lawyer father, while his mother was the Franco
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
-German daughter of a millionaire. After his parents went bankrupt in the 1930s Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, they maintained their own lifestyle through removing the servants and preparing their own elaborate dinner parties.
Educated in New York City, Robert took part-time art courses, and trained to become an actor. He eventually took a place in the Broadway revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
of New Faces
New Faces
New Faces was a British television talent show popular in the 1970s and 1980s, presented originally by Derek Hobson. It was produced by ATV Network Limited for the ITV Network. The first run of the show was from 29 September 1973 to 2 April 1978 and was recorded at the ATV Centre, Birmingham...
, before touring Europe with a rep company, singing the juvenile lead in American musicals. After returning to America, Robert often stayed at weekends with his beloved French grandmother in upstate New York, and she taught him to cook, making biscuits and butter-frying fish caught in a nearby stream.
Post World War II
Carrier volunteered to serve in the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during World War II, as an intelligence officer in the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
, a wartime forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. Speaking fluent French and understanding German thanks to his parentage, Carrier arrived in England in 1943, and served in Paris post D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
as a cryptographer in General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's headquarters.
Thanks to his Gaullist connections, Carrier choose to remain in Paris as a civilian after the cessation of hostilities, dropping the patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
surname McMahon: "It (Robert Carrier) sounds good in French and it looks well visually." Carrier initially working for a US forces radio station and a Gaullist newspaper/magazine Spectacle, set up to support de Gaulle's RTF party in its failed bid for post-war power.
After a theatrical magazine he was editing and part owned was shut down in 1949, he moved to St. Tropez to work in a friends restaurant called Chez Fifine's, where he found relief from a bout of depression. Starting to write about food as ration-restricted Europe got used to flavour again, Carrier moved to Rome, Italy to improve his cookery repertoire, and undertake work as a cowboy in an Italian musical revue.
After a friend invited him to Great Britain for the 1953 coronation
Coronation of the British monarch
The coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...
of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
, he decided to relocate to London working in the developing industry of public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
marketing various food products, including: stock cubes, cornflour
Cornstarch
Corn starch, cornstarch, cornflour or maize starch is the starch of the corn grain obtained from the endosperm of the corn kernel.-History:...
, New Zealand apples – a vegetarian dog food. With Oliver Lawson-Dick, Carrier wrote The Vanishing City, an historical perspective of London illustrated with reproductions of old engravings.
Cookery career
In 1957 Carrier wrote his first article on food, which he sold to Harper's BazaarHarper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
editor Eileen Dickson. He was soon writing regularly for the magazine before becoming a contributor to Vogue and then writing a weekly column for the colour supplement of the Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
. This column brought him celebrity, which he used to promote his first and lavishly illustrated cookery book Great Dishes of the World in 1963, which although priced at the present day equivalent of around £100, sold 11 million copies.
Assured of publicity, Carrier opened the eponymous restaurant Carriers in 1959 in Camden Passage, Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
; and then developed an international chain of cookshops, with the first in Harrods
Harrods
Harrods is an upmarket department store located in Brompton Road in Brompton, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air...
in 1967. His development of wipe-clean recipe cards were bought by housewives, and being more specific and easier to follow than the recipes of Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David CBE was a British cookery writer who, in the mid-20th century, strongly influenced the revitalisation of the art of home cookery with articles and books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes.Born to an upper-class family, David rebelled against social norms of the...
, and made it easily possible to prepare food that would fully satisfy the eye and palate of any dinner guests.
In 1971, he saw a full-page advertisement in Country Life
Country Life (magazine)
Country Life is a British weekly magazine, based in London at 110 Southwark Street, and owned by IPC Media, a Time Warner subsidiary.- Topics :The magazine covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people...
for Hintlesham Hall near Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
, Suffolk and bought it, unsurveyed, for £32,000. He planned to renovate it slowly as a country retreat but, realising its vulnerability and near dereliction with rotten floors and ceilings, he decided to save it all immediately. He employed 60 people to restore the house and opened it as a hotel and restaurant in August 1972. He also revived the Hintlesham
Hintlesham
Hintlesham is a small village in Suffolk, England, situated roughly halfway between Ipswich and Hadleigh.The village is notable for Hintlesham Hall, a 16th Century Grade I listed country house that was restored and turned into a hotel by the famous chef, restaurateur and food writer Robert Carrier...
Festival.
A few years later, Carrier met a woman who lived near his Paris apartment. He thought her a remarkable cook but a poor business woman; so, when she got into financial difficulties over non-payment of tax, he offered to set her up as a cookery teacher at Hintlesham if she would learn to speak English. He invested about £300,000 converting the 16th century outbuildings into a modern school. The school had a double auditorium and two classrooms each with 12 cooking stations. The woman never learned English so he ran the school himself. He presented beginners' and intermediate courses. The mornings were devoted to generic cooking skills and, in the afternoons, students cooked recipes from the Hintlesham Hall restaurant menu. The school attracted people from throughout the anglophone world, but Carrier was disappointed to find that many were attracted more by his celebrity than by an interest in cookery. He found the repetitive work onerous and dull.
In the late 1970s, Carrier began presenting a television series Carrier's Kitchen based on the cooking cards from his Sunday Times articles. After the plain British fair of Fanny Cradock
Fanny Cradock
Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey , better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television cook and writer who mostly worked with her then common-law husband Johnnie Cradock, adopting his surname long before they married. She was the daughter of the novelist and lyricist Archibald...
presented in black and white, Carrier in colour television format introduced luxurious Continental cooking to a nation in which ingredients such as garlic
Garlic
Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...
and spaghetti
Spaghetti
Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...
were treated with deep suspicion. With a highly theatrical and camp style, and a penchant for superlatives ("Gooorgeous… Adooorable… Faaabulous!"), he attracted viewers as much for his drawling American vowels and shameless self-promotion, and resultantly became the first celebrity chef on British television. His later followed this with three other series, titled Food, Wine and Friends, The Gourmet Vegetarian and Carrier's Caribbean. From this greater publicity, flowed a substantial magazine partwork published weekly by Marshall Cavendish
Marshall Cavendish
Marshall Cavendish is a subsidiary company of Times Publishing Group, the printing and publishing subsidiary of Singapore-based conglomerate Fraser and Neave and at present is a publisher of books, directories and magazines. Marshall Cavendish was established in the United Kingdom in 1968 by Norman...
between 1981 and 1983.
Retirement
By the early 1980s, Carrier's television style was considered kitch and too old-fashioned, and his food too complex. Ejected from his television show and bored of the celebrity cultureCelebrity culture
A celebrity culture is the structure that influences those deemed to be celebrities.-Brief history of celebrity culture:Any medium can be viewed as a vehicle for creating a celebrity culture. The famous religious books of the world's faiths are replete with examples of individuals who are well...
, Carrier closed the Michelin two starred
Michelin Guide
The Michelin Guide is a series of annual guide books published by Michelin for over a dozen countries. The term normally refers to the Michelin Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant guide, which awards the Michelin stars...
Hintlesham Hall in 1982, and sold it the following year to English hotelier Ruth Watson
Ruth Watson
Ruth Watson , is an English hotelier, broadcaster and food writer.-Early life and career:Born in London, Ruth Watson was educated in London and at Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire...
and her husband. After closing the also Michelin two starred Camden Passage restaurant, Carrier took a short stay in New York, and from 1984 went to live in France and at his restored villa in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, regularly accompanied by his friend Oliver Lawson-Dick.
On January 19, 1983, Carrier was the subject of the United Kingdom television show This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
. He became popular in the United States in the 1980s, writing a weekly European food column for a popular US magazine. In 1984 he became the face of the British restaurant industry, arguing vigorously and vocally for changes to the licensing laws. His efforts were rewarded by appointment as honorary OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
Having lived in Marrakesh for several months of each year since the 1970s, Carrier used his Moroccan
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
experiences as the basis for another cookbook in 1987, which further funded his retirement. His 1999 rewrite of Great Dishes of the World didn't sell, because he replaced rich and calorific Carrier classics with modern pared-down Nouvelle Cuisine
Nouvelle Cuisine
Nouvelle cuisine is an approach to cooking and food presentation used in French cuisine. By contrast with cuisine classique, an older form of French haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased emphasis on presentation.-History:The term...
.
By 1994 Carrier had returned to London, realising that most of his friends were in Great Britain from looking at where the postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s on the Christmas card
Christmas card
A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to the Christmas and holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during the weeks preceding Christmas Day by many people in Western...
s had originated. He also returned to television with GMTV
GMTV
GMTV was the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc. in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end...
, proclaiming the virtues of economical and vegetarian eating. Having sold his villa in Morocco, he owned a property in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
where he spent his time painting pictures, tended by good friend Liz Glaze after the death of Oliver Lawson-Dick. Having been admitted to hospital that morning in the South of France, Carrier's death was announced by Liz Glaze on the afternoon of the June 27, 2006 to the Press Association
Press Association
The Press Association is the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland, supplying multimedia news content to almost all national and regional newspapers, television and radio news, as well as many websites with text, pictures, video and data content globally...
.
Television
- c1975 Carrier's Kitchen
- 1980 Food, Wine & Friends
- 1994 The Gourmet Vegetarian
- 1996 Carrier's Caribbean, BBC2 12-part series
External links
- Carrier's recipe for Moroccan hariraHariraHarira is the traditional soup of Morocco. It is usually eaten during dinner in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to break the fasting day. It is considered as a meal in itself....
at the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Good Food Guide