Vichyssoise is a
FrenchFrench cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of France. It evolved from centuries of social and political change. The Middle Ages brought Guillaume Tirel, better known as Taillevent...
-style
soupSoup is a food that is made by combining ingredients, such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth....
made of
puréePurée and mash are general terms for food, usually vegetables or legumes, that have been ground, pressed, and/or strained to the consistency of a soft paste or thick liquid. Purées of specific foods are often known by specific names, e.g., mashed potatoes or apple sauce...
d leeks,
onionOnion is a term used for many plants in the genus Allium. They are known by the common name "onion" but, used without qualifiers, it usually refers to Allium cepa. Allium cepa is also known as the "garden onion" or "bulb" onion...
s,
potatoThe potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food...
es,
creamCream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...
, and chicken stock. It is traditionally served cold.
The culinary origins of vichyssoise, namely whether it is a genuinely French dish or an American innovation, is a subject of debate among culinary historians. Credit for the dish usually goes to Louis Diat
, the chef at the
Ritz-CarltonThe Ritz-Carlton is a brand of luxury hotel and resort with 70 properties located in major cities and resorts in 23 countries worldwide.It is also has major service training operations in its Ritz-Carlton Learning Institute and Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, created by Ritz-Carlton executive ...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
for most of the first half of the 20th century.
Vichyssoise is a
FrenchFrench cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of France. It evolved from centuries of social and political change. The Middle Ages brought Guillaume Tirel, better known as Taillevent...
-style
soupSoup is a food that is made by combining ingredients, such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth....
made of
puréePurée and mash are general terms for food, usually vegetables or legumes, that have been ground, pressed, and/or strained to the consistency of a soft paste or thick liquid. Purées of specific foods are often known by specific names, e.g., mashed potatoes or apple sauce...
d leeks,
onionOnion is a term used for many plants in the genus Allium. They are known by the common name "onion" but, used without qualifiers, it usually refers to Allium cepa. Allium cepa is also known as the "garden onion" or "bulb" onion...
s,
potatoThe potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food...
es,
creamCream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...
, and chicken stock. It is traditionally served cold.
Origin
The culinary origins of vichyssoise, namely whether it is a genuinely French dish or an American innovation, is a subject of debate among culinary historians. Credit for the dish usually goes to Louis Diat
, the chef at the
Ritz-CarltonThe Ritz-Carlton is a brand of luxury hotel and resort with 70 properties located in major cities and resorts in 23 countries worldwide.It is also has major service training operations in its Ritz-Carlton Learning Institute and Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, created by Ritz-Carlton executive ...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
for most of the first half of the 20th century. Diat related his recollection of the invention in
New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications...
magazine in 1950:
"In the summer of 1917, when I had been at the Ritz seven years, I reflected upon the potato-and-leek soup of my childhood, which my mother and grandmother used to make. I recalled how, during the summer, my older brother and I used to cool it off by pouring in cold milk, and how delicious it was. I resolved to make something of the sort for the patrons of the Ritz."
The same article explains that the soup was first titled
crème vichyssoise glacée, then, after the restaurant's menu changed from French to English in 1930,
cream vichyssoise glacée. Diat named his invention after
VichyVichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It is known as a spa and resort town. It was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944....
, a town not far from his home town of
MontmaraultMontmarault is a commune in the Allier department in central France.The camping place la Petite Valette is sited there which has won the best camping of the Auvergne price by repesctively the German and Dutch ADAC en ANWB...
.
Others contend that French chef
Jules GoufféJules Gouffé was a renowned French chef and pâtissier. He was nicknamed l'apôtre de la cuisine décorative....
was first to create the recipe, publishing a version in
Royal Cookery (1869). Diat may have borrowed the concept from an older generation of French chefs and added the innovation of serving it cold.
Vichyssoise can be confused with its warm cousin
Potage ParmentierAntoine-Augustin Parmentier is remembered as a vocal promoter of the potato as a food source in France and throughout Europe...
.
In popular culture
The soup's cold serving temperature is used for comedic value in entertainment. For example, in the 1992 movie
Batman ReturnsBatman Returns is a 1992 superhero film directed by Tim Burton. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is a sequel to 1989's Batman, with Michael Keaton reprising the lead role. Batman Returns tells the story of a corrupt businessman and the grotesque Penguin plotting to take control...
, Bruce Wayne is surprised at its temperature, saying "It's cold!" to which his butler, Alfred, responds that "it's vichyssoise, sir." Bruce stares not understanding. "It's supposed to be cold." Bruce shrugging, proceeds to eat it. Similarly, on an
All in the FamilyAll in the Family is an American situation comedy that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971 to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, the show was revamped, and given a new title, Archie Bunker's Place...
episode,
Archie BunkerArchibald "Archie" Bunker is a fictional character in the long-running and top-rated American television sitcom All in the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker's Place. He is a reactionary, bigoted, conservative blue-collar worker and family man, played to acclaim by Carroll O'Connor...
's neighbor brings over a dish of vichyssoise for dinner. Before tasting it, Archie brings a spoonful towards his mouth, blowing on the soup to cool it, and then remarks as he tastes it, "Look at this. Three blows and all the heat's gone out."
In the Broadway musical
NunsenseNunsense is a musical comedy with a book, music, and lyrics by Dan Goggin.The Nunsense concept originated as a line of greeting cards featuring a nun offering tart quips with a clerical slant...
, the convent's cook, Sister Julia Child-of-God, made a breakfast of vichyssoise soup that killed 52 of the nuns with food poisoning, a clear reference to the
Bon Vivant-FDA incident:On July 2, 1971 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a public warning after learning that a Westchester County, New York man had died and his wife had become seriously ill from botulism after partly eating a can of Bon Vivant vichyssoise soup...
vichyssoise incident of 1971.
In the 1994 film
The MaskThe Mask is a 1994 action comedy film, based on a series of comic books published by Dark Horse Comics. This film was directed by Chuck Russell, and produced by Dark Horse Entertainment and New Line Cinema, and originally released to movie theatres on July 29, 1994...
, vichyssoise is used in a sexual innuendo. The Mask says to Tina, "Kiss me, my dear, and I will reveal my croissant. I will spread your pate. I will dip my ladle in your vichyssoise."
In the
Drake & JoshDrake & Josh is an American sitcom that premiered on the Nickelodeon television network on January 11, 2004, that follows the lives of two step brothers Drake Parker and Josh Nichols . Both actors had played roles in The Amanda Show...
episode "Paging Dr. Drake", vichyssoise was used as a surname when Josh impersonates a doctor. Drake: "Dr. Vichyssoise?" Josh: "It's a soup!"
The soup's influence is not limited to the comedic, however, as chef and author
Anthony BourdainAnthony Michael "Tony" Bourdain is an American author and chef. He is well known for his 2000 book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and is the host of Travel Channel's culinary and cultural adventure program Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.A 1978 graduate of the...
lists vichyssoise as the catalyst of his lifelong passion for food, telling of a transatlantic voyage on the
Queen MaryRMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line...
at the age of 9, when he first discovered this "delightfully cool, tasty liquid."
In "
V for VendettaV for Vendetta is a ten-issue comic-book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom imagined from the 1980s about the 1990s...
", V uses this word to explain the mess of words he uses in his introductory "V Speech". V says to Evey, "Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose," loosely referring to a "word soup."
In Orson Scott Card's novel
Shadow PuppetsShadow Puppets , by Orson Scott Card, is the sequel to Shadow of the Hegemon and the third book in the Ender's Shadow series . It was originally to be called Shadow of Death.-Plot summary:...
, Bean receives a note signed "definitely not vichyssoise." The note is from his friend, the emperor of China, Han Tzu, who was known by the moniker "Hot Soup" when the two attended Battle School together.
In ATLUS's video game
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, known in Japan as , is a console role-playing game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North America in December 2008, and Europe in...
, it is one of many dishes that the protagonist can make.