Georges Bizet at the table

In the fashionable Parisian society where Bizet lived, meals were no longer served all at once on the table: they were brought course by course, in a set order. You began with soup, followed by a *relevé* or *entrée*, then a roast, and you finished with a sweet *entremets* and dessert. Coffee and liqueurs closed the evening. This staging of the meal, inherited from great Russian houses and popularized under Napoleon III, turned every dinner into a little choreographed spectacle — not so far from an opera.

Bourgeois French cooking of the era owed its reputation to two things: fresh butter to bind sauces and soups, and the art of serving dishes in a careful sequence. It was the gourmet setting in which a Parisian composer like Bizet would entertain his friends.