Part biography, part Regency cookbook containing some of the most sumptuous menus and recipes ever created, Ian Kelly journeys with Careme on his meteoric rise from Parisian orphan to international celebrity - through the turmoil of the French Revolution to the kitchens of the Brighton Pavilion, to the "upstairs-downstairs" life of the palaces of the Russian Tsars, the first French Rothschilds and Napoleon himself. Drawing on Careme's rich memoirs, "Cooking for Kings" provides insights into the lives and loves of the gourmet-kings for whom he worked and offers a dramatic and sensuous picture of one of the most momentous periods of European history. It was Careme who knew the favourite dishes of George IV, Rossini and the Romanovs; he who knew Napoleon's fast-food requirements and why Empress Josephine suffered halitosis. At the same time, the wonderful recipes he created can bring the very taste and smell of the early 19th century alive; in the phrase first coined by Careme himself, "You can try them yourself".