Robert Carrier (chef)
| Robert Carrier | |
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Part of a portrait photograph of Robert Carrier by Michael Birt, 18 March 1982; collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London
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| Born |
Robert Carrier McMahon November 10, 1923 Tarrytown, New York |
| Died | June 27, 2006 (aged 82) Provence |
| Education | Grandmother, Chez Fifine |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style |
French Italian Moroccan |
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Robert Carrier McMahon, OBE (Tarrytown, New York, November 10, 1923 – France, June 27, 2006), usually known as Robert Carrier, was an American chef, restaurateur and cookery writer. His success came in England, where he was based from 1953 to 1984, and then from 1994 until his death.
Robert Carrier McMahon was born in Tarrytown, New York, the third son of a wealthy property lawyer father of Irish descent; his mother was the Franco-German daughter of a millionaire. After his parents went bankrupt in the 1930s Great Depression, they maintained their lifestyle by dispensing with servants and preparing their own elaborate dinner parties.
Educated in New York City, Robert took part-time art courses, and trained to become an actor. He had a part in the Broadway revue New Faces, before touring Europe with a rep company, singing the juvenile lead in American musicals. After returning to America, Robert often stayed at weekends with his beloved French grandmother in upstate New York. She taught him to cook, making biscuits and butter-frying fish caught in a nearby stream.
Carrier volunteered to serve in the United States Army during World War II as an intelligence officer in the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Speaking fluent French and understanding German thanks to his parentage, Carrier arrived in England in 1943, and after D-Day served in Paris as a cryptographer in General Charles de Gaulle's headquarters.
Carrier chose to remain in Paris as a civilian after the cessation of hostilities, and dropped his surname McMahon: "It (Robert Carrier) sounds good in French and it looks well visually." Carrier initially worked for a US forces radio station and for a Gaullist newspaper/magazine, Spectacle, set up to support de Gaulle's RTF party in its failed bid for post-war power.
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