Carême wrote a series of books, lavishly illustrated, intended to pass his skills on to other chefs providing grande cuisine for the elite of French, and other, society.

[6] The French Revolution, starting in 1789, brought large-scale building work in Paris to a temporary halt, leaving Carême's father struggling to feed the family.

Carême went to work at an early age at a Parisian gargote[n 2] – the most basic and modest kind of restaurant – thought to have been called À la fricassee du lapin.

Some biographers portray him as remaining at the gargote for more than five years, sweeping, washing, running errands, serving at table, and later, when he was considered mature enough, helping in the preparation of food.

[8] A contemporary recorded after Carême's death that the boy was to be seen hurrying through the streets delivering his employer's wares, before returning in the evening to Ducrest's kitchen, where he slept.

[13] This was a step up, in career terms, as in post-revolutionary Paris, patisserie was the most prestigious branch of the culinary arts,[14] and Bailly was among its most fêted practitioners, recommended by the influential Almanach des Gourmands,[15][n 4] and with customers including the French foreign minister, Talleyrand.

[6] As an apprentice pastry-cook Carême began as a tourier, or turner, working the dough and repeatedly folding and rolling it to achieve the perfect puff pastry.

[17] In tandem with running his shop he built what one biographer calls "an intermittent but spectacular career", first as a specialist pastry-cook and later as chef de cuisine, at the great imperial, social, and governmental banquets.

[28] He continued to learn about the arts of cookery in general, and was engaged to cater for special events such as the festivities for the marriage of Jérôme Bonaparte to Catharina of Württemberg (1807) and of that of Napoleon to Marie-Louise of Austria (1810).

Talleyrand, anxious to be on friendly terms with the allies, invited Tsar Alexander I to stay with him and tasked Carême with delighting his guest with a continual series of fine meals.

According to the biographer Marie-Pierre Rey, "Talleyrand's generous hospitality undoubtedly had positive effects on the tsar's mood and the magnanimity that he showed to the French state".

Already a renowned pastry-cook, he had risen further, to be chef de cuisine to the most powerful man in Europe, reflecting his employer's status with suitable culinary magnificence.

[35] There were few supplies available locally and food, wines, linens, glassware and even herds of cattle and flocks of sheep had to be transported from Paris, over 80 miles (130 km) away.

Le Pâtissier pittoresque focused on piéces montées, with over 100 of Carême's drawings of designs, together with what the food writer Barbara Wheaton calls "more or less sketchy instructions" for executing them.

[40] He found the prince's domestic staff unfriendly, even the French footmen, and he later wrote that he endured l'ennui extrême and mal du pays – he was bored and homesick.

[44] After briefly working in Austria and England for Lord Stewart, the British ambassador to Vienna, Carême decided to take up the tsar's offer,[n 7] and he went by sea to St Petersburg in mid-1819.

Carême enjoyed working for the princess, who lived in style and had a discerning appreciation of food, but poor health prevented her from entertaining on the extensive scale that would fully occupy a chef of his standing.

[49] The following year he returned to the subject of catering in his Le maître d'hotel français, comparing old and new cuisine and detailing seasonal menus that he had presented in Paris, St Petersburg, London and Vienna.

[56] He declined a final effort by the former Prince Regent, now George IV, to tempt him back to England, and retired to his house in the rue Neuve-Saint-Roch near the Tuileries.

[57] In retirement, Carême worked on his last project, L'Art de la cuisine française au XIX siécle – "The Art of French Cookery in the 19th Century".

"Gastronomes and food writers have praised him as a great genius of haute cuisine", and have held him up as "an outstanding example of how a lowly apprentice, of a humble background, could rise to the topmost pinnacle of his profession".

The food writer Stephen Mennell writes that Carême's cuisine was not merely haute but grande, and in one of his books the chef advised people of lesser means not to attempt his elaborate style of cooking: "Better to serve a simple meal, well-prepared, and not try to cover the bourgeois table with an imitation of the rich".

[63] He reacted against some traditional practices, such as garnishing meat with fish and vice versa,[64] and he either invented or refined several features of French cookery, including choux pastry,[65] vol-au-vents,[66] profiteroles,[67] and mille-feuilles.