The empress of ice cream

Carlo

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For a grand occasion, nothing beats an ice.

The Book of Ices

‘It is an attack on all of us,’ Arlington said. ‘Nell is Buckingham’s creature. He has not forgotten how he was made a fool of over the treaty. He has been waiting his chance.’

‘It is particularly an attack on France,’ Colbert said. The little French ambassador had joined our meeting on this occasion. ‘We cannot afford to ignore it.’

‘We should do nothing.’ That was Walsingham. ‘Nell’s satire may have made the king laugh, but its only effect is to have driven him further into Madam Carwell’s arms. He has not visited Nell since his sister’s death. Nor any of his other habitues, come to that. The Duchess of Cleveland has been reduced to satisfying her carnal appetites with a tightrope dancer.’

No one asked how he knew. Walsingham’s information was always assumed to be impeccable.

^Tou can ignore it,’ Colbert conceded. ‘But I cannot. The reputation of France is at stake.’

‘What will you do.>’ Arlington said ironically. ‘Strike back with a play about the Siege of Orleans?’

‘A ball,’ the ambassador said firmly. ‘I will give a ball. After all, it is only fitting that we celebrate His Majesty’s return to good health. And it will be an opportunity to show your countrymen how these things are done. No effort will be spared, none.’ He looked direcdy at me. ‘We will have ices, signor. Ices, for eight hundred guests. We must remind everyone where the king’s pleasures come ftom.’

It was not a request.

But in truth, even if the ambassador had given me a choice, I would have leapt at the opportunity his ball presented, I was going mad here in England, cooped up in this lithe court, this lithe country, making ices for such a small circle.

It was not only the ambassador who wanted to show them how these things were done in Versailles.

Gradually, the plans fell into place. We would take over St James’s Park, and fashion it into a replica of the pleasure gardens at Versailles. There would be a great palace of canvas and papier mache, erected for one night only, just as they were for Louis XTV’s divertissements. An orchestra of French musicians, brought in for the occasion. The noble guests themselves would all be masked, as if for a carnival.*

Even the ices would be especially remarkable. Colbert would be serving the petillnnt blnnc wine of Champagne which was such a symbol of Anglo-French co-operation: the wine French, the extra-strong bottles which made it possible invented by a member of the same Royal Society to which the Honourable Robert Boyle belonged.

And I - I would serve champagne sorbets.

The inclusion of alcohol, I knew well, made ices harder to prepare. Wine was particularly tricky; sparkling wine!even more so. But I was becoming confident enough in my own abilities that I wanted to try.

That was not to be the only ice on the menu, of course. After much thought, I settled on a pomegranate sorbet with a champagne sauce; an apple and chrysanthemum jelly, and a fennel-milk ^mnite. The ambassador’s kitchens were to provide the main course, a collation of French meats, but the desserts would be mine: a selection of sherbets, along with - at last! - the first public appearance of my creme-anpflaise cream ice, that noble

alliance, served in a double coronet of brandy snap to represent the happy union of kings.