Jean-Marie Charles d'Aumout is many things. Orphan, soldier, diplomat, spy, lover. And chef. This is his story. We meet Jean-Marie d'Aumout as a penniless orphan eating beetles by the side of a road. His fate is changed after an unlikely encounter finds him patronage and he is sent to military acade[...]

Starting life in the gutter, Jean-Marie d'Aumout rises through the ranks of eighteenth-century French society propelled by his wits and an obsession with finding the perfect taste. But beyond the palace walls, revolution is in the air and the country is clamouring with a hunger of a different kind.[...]