Escoffier vs Carême: should the kitchen be an army or an architecture?

I stripped your groaning towers away and gave each cook one station, one duty—service moves like a regiment, not a rummage.

A regiment? I plated pavilions and pyramids for emperors—the fine arts have five branches, and pastry is the highest, called architecture.

Your sugar temples were admired cold and eaten never; I served food hot, simple, and swallowed with joy.

You simplified my genius into a timetable, Auguste—but a diner remembers a palace on the plate long after he forgets the punctual soup.