Émilie du Châtelet at the table

At the table of a great Enlightenment household like Cirey, dishes were not served one after another but in 'services': the entire table was covered with several dishes arranged symmetrically, and guests helped themselves within arm's reach. The first service opened with soups and removed dishes; then came the entrées (fricassées, stews, prepared meats), followed by roasts; finally, the entremets and 'the fruit' (jams, creams, fruit pastes). Coffee and liqueurs closed the meal in a separate room, the salon, where learned conversation continued.

A new and fetishized drink of 18th-century philosophers, coffee fueled nights of work. Émilie du Châtelet, who calculated and translated Newton until dawn, made it — like Voltaire — the fuel of the mind. It marks a cuisine of intellectuals as much as aristocrats.