Pepper: The Sun King's Lasting Addition to the Dinner Table

The timeless classic of setting a table with both salt and pepper originated with none other than Louis XIV. Salt had always been somewhat easily accessible - to all classes of society - but pepper was far more exotic and therefore more expensive. Thus, it quickly became a status symbol - but how did the Sun King and his court treat the now so commonplace spice?

French cuisine was already ahead of the curve and the royal cooks had every chance to experiment with new recipes. However, Louis XIV preferred to have his food only slightly seasoned which is where the combination of salt and pepper came in. Salt compliments most (if not all) dishes and was therefore already a stable for most. Pepper, with its subtle but delicious taste, quickly became a favourite of the French king. And so it spread - as it happens, it is thanks to Louis XIV that salt and pepper are now the most commonplace pairing on any dinner table. 

As for Louis XIV, the combination remained on his table until his death. By 1709, he was still recorded as being particularly fond of seasoning his dishes - including salads - with certain herbs and salt and pepper. They remained at Versailles, too, where a page of Louis XVI would later describe how the king and queen's salt and pepper were served on silver-gilt trays. 

Louis XIV

Pepper was expensive. It had to be imported from Asia but fortunately - for the majority of Europe - it was one of the few spices that the Dutch did not have a monopoly on importing. This could have had an impact on how widespread the use of pepper became as more countries could import - the French themselves certainly did as did the Dutch (naturally), the Danish, many of the German States, the English, the Swedish etc. It certainly had an influence on the price which fell continually throughout Louis XIV's reign. 

Besides the delicious food combinations, pepper was also believed to have certain medicinal properties. By the 17th century, the king's own pharmacist recommended rubbing pepper oil on the perineum to assist a gentleman who might need help in the bedroom. One can only wonder if the king ever tried that...

A Taste for Tea: An Expensive Import

Whereas chocolate and coffee would become symbols of sensuality and the exotic, tea had a slightly different entry into the court of France. Allegedly introduced by Cardinal Mazarin, it was imported for its medicinal properties. The cardinal himself used tea to ease his gout which it was said to be an efficient remedy against.

Louis XIV would later replicate Cardinal Mazarin's cure by also consuming tea for his own gout and vertigo as early as 1665. The king would have herbal tea for breakfast, occasionally substituting it for broth.  By this point, tea had taken a hold of French high-society. If Madame de Sévigné is to be believed, several of the aristocrats at court were quite taken by it. She wrote in 1684 that the Princesse de Tarente enjoyed twelve cups per day whereas Monsieur le Landgrave allegedly drank 40 cups; the latter was dying and seemed to be revived somewhat by the drink. It would seem that the French even suggested adding milk to tea at this early stage.

As with most imported goods, tea was typically preserved for the upper classes and was closely associated with polite society. Louis XIV had been gifted a splendid teapot of gold from the Siamese ambassador in which his tea was brewed. Not everyone was equally impressed. Madame - Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate - was vehemently against the fad of tea. She considered "good for nothing but to fill one's bladder" and thus stuck with mulled wine instead.

A French lady with her tea

Whereas some praised the medicinal properties of tea, others warned against excessive use. The Marèchale de Mirepoix had acquired an odd twitch from drinking tea daily while the Duc de Lévis proclaimed that while both tea and coffee were "slow poisons" but that tea would kill you much faster. He referred to an experiment (true or not is unclear) in which two prisoners sentenced to death were experimented on by providing them with daily cups of tea or coffee respectively. According to Lévis, the tea drinker died at 27 while the other passed his 80th birthday, thus concluding the terrible side effects of tea. 

Still, it did not prevent Louis XIV from importing an increasing amount of tea from Thailand, Persia and China. The exotic product could cost a fortune; according to Jacques Levon one pound of Chinese tea cost as much as 70 gold francs whereas Japanese tea was twice as expensive. 

Louis XV seems to have preferred coffee and hot chocolate - which he brewed himself - but presented Marie Leszczynska with an elaborate tea set upon the birth of the dauphin in 1729. Conveniently, the set could also be used for both coffee and hot chocolate. The fascination with the Far East also helped promote the fashionable about tea; Marie Leszczynska's own father was adamant about the benefits of tea. He might have been less pleased when Augustus II (the man who had supplanted him on the throne of Poland) sent the French queen a lavish tea set in 1737.

Tea had a resurgence during Louis XVI when anglomania became fashionable. Marie Antoinette is said to have particularly enjoyed a rose-and-apple blend which was initially made for her in 1776 - it is still served by Nina Diaz today. 

By this point, the import of tea had skyrocketed - by 1785, France imported 400 times more tea than in the 1690's. Yet, it remained firmly a symbol of luxury and thus the upper classes even with the widespread emergence of tea salons in Paris. That particular association would prove disastrous for tea when the revolution came around - it would take years before tea was enjoyed on a large scale again.