Robert Carrier (chef)
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Robert Carrier McMahon, OBE (November 10, 1923 – June 27, 2006), usually known as Robert Carrier, was an American
chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...
,
restaurateur A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspec ...
and
cookery Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in vario ...
writer. His success came in England, where he was based from 1953 to 1984, and then from 1994 until his death.


Biography

Robert Carrier McMahon was born in
Tarrytown, New York Tarrytown is a village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, approximately north of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North ...
, the third son of a wealthy property lawyer father of Irish descent; his mother was the
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-German daughter of a millionaire. After his parents went bankrupt in the 1930s
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, they maintained their lifestyle by firing their servants and preparing their own elaborate
dinner parties A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...
. Educated in New York City, Robert took part-time art courses and trained to become an actor. He had a part in the Broadway
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 popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own duri ...
''
New Faces ''New Faces'' is a British television talent show that aired in the 1970s and 1980s. It has been hosted by Leslie Crowther, Derek Hobson and Marti Caine. It was produced for the ITV network by ATV, and later by Central. Original series: 197 ...
,'' 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. 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 Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
during World War II as an intelligence officer in the
Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
, a wartime forerunner of the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
. Speaking fluent French and understanding German thanks to his parentage, Carrier arrived in England in 1943, and after
D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
served in Paris as a
cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
in General
Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
's headquarters. Carrier chose to remain in Paris as a civilian after the cessation of hostilities, and dropped his surname McMahon: "It (Robert Carrier) sounds good in French and it looks well visually." Carrier initially worked for a US forces radio station and for a
Gaullist Gaullism (french: link=no, Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle withd ...
publication, ''Spectacle'', set up to support de Gaulle's RPF party in its failed bid for post-war power. After a theatrical magazine that he edited and partly owned was shut down in 1949, Carrier moved to St. Tropez to work in a friend's restaurant, Chez Fifine, 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 take the role of a cowboy in an Italian musical revue. After a friend invited him to Great Britain for the 1953
coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
of
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during h ...
, he decided to relocate to London. He worked in the developing industry of
public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...
, marketing various food products including
stock cube A bouillon cube (Canada and US), stock cube (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and UK), or broth cube (Asia) is dehydrated broth or stock formed into a small cube about wide. It is typically made from dehydrated vegetables or me ...
s,
cornflour Cornflour may refer to: * Cornflour (in the UK), corn starch, from the endosperm of the kernel of the corn (maize) grain * Corn flour (in the US and elsewhere), very finely ground cornmeal, ground from dried maize See also * Flour * Starch * Gl ...
, New Zealand apples and a vegetarian dog food. With Oliver Lawson Dick, Carrier wrote ''The Vanished City,'' a 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 Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...
'' editor Eileen Dickson. He was soon writing regularly for the magazine before becoming a contributor to ''
Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...
'' and then writing a weekly column for the colour supplement of the ''
Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
''. This column brought him celebrity; the articles were collected and expanded to create his first cookery book, the lavishly illustrated ''Great Dishes of the World'', in 1963.Robert Carrier, ''Great Dishes of the World'', with drawings by Sophie Granval. (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963). Back end-paper, Although priced at 70 /-, the present day equivalent of around £100, it sold 11 million copies. Assured of publicity, Carrier opened the eponymous restaurant ''Carrier's'' in 1966 in Camden Passage,
Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...
, then developed an international chain of cookshops, with the first in
Harrods Harrods Limited is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to other ...
in 1967. His recipes were printed on wipe-clean cards (a convenient innovation), and were more specific in their quantities and directions than some of those of his competitor
Elizabeth David Elizabeth David CBE (born Elizabeth Gwynne, 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was a British cookery writer. In the mid-20th century she strongly influenced the revitalisation of home cookery in her native country and beyond with articles and bo ...
; they made it feasible for an amateur to prepare food that would satisfy the eye and palate of even demanding dinner guests. In 1971, he saw a full-page advertisement in '' Country Life'' for
Hintlesham Hall Hintlesham is a small village in Suffolk, England, situated roughly halfway between Ipswich and Hadleigh. It is in the Belstead Brook electoral division of Suffolk County Council. The village is notable for Hintlesham Hall, a 16th-century ...
near
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
, 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 is a small village in Suffolk, England, situated roughly halfway between Ipswich and Hadleigh. It is in the Belstead Brook electoral division of Suffolk County Council. The village is notable for Hintlesham Hall, a 16th-century Grad ...
Festival. A few years later, Carrier met a woman who lived near his Paris apartment. He thought her a remarkable cook but a poor businesswoman; 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 of teaching 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 more traditional British fare often presented by British TV cooking programme host
Fanny Cradock Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television chef and writer. She frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with h ...
in her
black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
shows, Carrier in colour television format introduced British TV viewers to a more exotic range of Continental cooking. With a highly theatrical and camp style, and "a penchant for
superlatives Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages ...
("Gooorgeous… Adooorable… Faaabulous!"), he "attracted viewers as much for his drawling American vowels and shameless self-promotion". 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 published weekly by
Marshall Cavendish Marshall Cavendish is a subsidiary company of Times Publishing Group, the printing and publishing subsidiary of Singapore-based conglomerate Fraser and Neave (which in turn currently owned by ThaiBev, the beverage company in Thailand), and at p ...
between 1981 and 1983.


Retirement

By the early 1980s, Carrier's television style was considered kitsch and too old-fashioned, and his food too complex. Ejected from his television show and bored with the
celebrity culture Celebrity culture is a high-volume exposure to celebrities' personal lives on a global scale. It is inherently tied to consumer interests where celebrities transform their fame to become product brands. Whereas a culture can usually be physically ...
, Carrier closed the Michelin two starred Hintlesham Hall in 1982, and sold it the following year to English hotelier
Ruth Watson Ruth (or its variants) may refer to: Places France * Château de Ruthie, castle in the commune of Aussurucq in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France Switzerland * Ruth, a hamlet in Cologny United States * Ruth, Alabama * Ruth, Ar ...
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 (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
, 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 Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...
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'' did not sell, because he replaced rich and calorific Carrier classics with modern pared-down
Nouvelle Cuisine ''Nouvelle cuisine'' (; ) is an approach to cooking and food presentation in French cuisine. In contrast to cuisine classique, an older form of haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased e ...
. By 1994 Carrier had returned to London, realising that most of his Christmas cards were from Britain. He also returned to television with
GMTV GMTV (an acronym for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 ...
, proclaiming the virtues of economical and vegetarian eating. Having sold his villa in Morocco, he owned a property in
Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...
where he spent his time painting pictures, tended by good friend Liz Glaze after the death of Oliver Lawson Dick. Carrier was admitted to hospital in the South of France on the morning of June 27, 2006; his death was announced to the
Press Association PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and re ...
by Liz Glaze on the afternoon of the same day.


Television

* 1975 ''Carrier's Kitchen'' * 1980 ''Food, Wine & Friends'' * 1994 ''The Gourmet Vegetarian'' * 1996 ''Carrier's Caribbean'',
BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
12-part series


Bibliography

* Robert Carrier, ''Great Dishes of the World'', with drawings by Sophie Granval, (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963) * Robert Carrier, ''The Robert Carrier Cookbook'', (London: Nelson, 1965) * Robert Carrier, ''The Connoisseur's Cookbook'', (London: Random House, c 1965) * Robert Carrier, ''Great Dishes of the World'', (London: Sphere, 1967) * Robert Carrier, ''Cooking for you'', (London: Hamlyn, 1973) * Robert Carrier, ''The Robert Carrier Cookery Course'', (London: W. H. Allen & Co, 1974) * Robert Carrier, ''Great Desserts and Pastries'', (London: Hamlyn, 1978) * Robert Carrier, ''Food, Wine & Friends'', (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980) * Robert Carrier (ed.), ''Robert Carrier's Kitchen'', (London: Marshall Cavendish, 1981–1983) magazine partwork * Robert Carrier, ''Robert Carrier's Entertaining'', (1982) * Robert Carrier, ''Robert Carrier's Quick Cook'', (London: Hamlyn, 1984) * Robert Carrier, ''Cooking With Carrier'', (London: Galahad Books, 1984) * Robert Carrier, ''Robert Carrier's Kitchen – Making the most of Lamb & Pork'', (London: Marshall Cavendish, 1985) * Robert Carrier, ''A Taste of Morocco'', (London: Crown Publishing, 1987) * Robert Carrier, ''Robert Carrier's Menu Planner'', (London: Little Brown, 1988) * Robert Carrier, ''Feasts of Provence'', (London: Rizzoli International Publications, 1993) * Robert Carrier, ''The Best of Robert Carrier'', (London: Bloomsbury, 1994) * Robert Carrier, ''The Gourmet Vegetarian'', (London: Boxtree, 1994) * Robert Carrier, ''Carrier's Kitchen'', (London: Boxtree, 1995) * Robert Carrier, ''Robert Carrier's Cookery Cards: Classic Carrier'', (London: Boxtree, 1995) * Robert Carrier, ''Robert Carrier's Cookery Cards: Carrier Entertains'', (London: Boxtree, 1995) * Robert Carrier, ''A Million Family Menus'', (London: World Publications, 1996) * Robert Carrier, ''new Great Dishes of the world'', (London: Boxtree, 1997) * Robert Carrier, ''Great Dishes of Spain'', (London: Boxtree, 1999)


References


External links

*
Carrier's recipe for Moroccan
harira Harira ( ar, الحريرة ''al-ḥarīra'', shi, ⴰⵣⴽⴽⵉⴼ ''azkkif'' or ⴰⵙⴽⴽⵉⴼ ''askkif'') is a traditional North African soup prepared in Morocco and Algeria. Algerian harira differs from Moroccan harira in that Algerian ...
at the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's Good Food Guide {{DEFAULTSORT:Carrier, Robert 1923 births 2006 deaths People from Tarrytown, New York American people of French descent American people of German descent American people of Irish descent American male child actors United States Army personnel of World War II People of the Office of Strategic Services American public relations people American chefs American male chefs American food writers Honorary Officers of the Order of the British Empire Head chefs of Michelin starred restaurants American expatriates in France American expatriates in England United States Army officers Military personnel from New York (state)