Beschreibung:

The very fine Royal Household R.V.M. group of eight awarded to Chef G. ‘Chummy’ Tschumi, who worked as a Chef for four successive Monarchs in the Royal Household which saw him undertake all manner of culinary challenges and overseas voyages with the Royal Family, besides preparing the Wedding Breakfast for the Duke of York (later King George VI) and Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and afterwards Queen Mary’s Chef at Marlborough House; these escapades and many more amusing 'trifles' - besides taking betting tips from the Aga Khan - are covered in his excellent memoir Royal Chef - Forty Years with Royal Households Royal Household Faithful Service Medal, G.V.R., suspension dated ‘1910-1930’ (G. Tschumi); Royal Victorian Medal, Silver, G.V.R.; Coronation 1902, bronze; Coronation 1911; Portugal, Coronation Medal of Carlos I, silver; Spain, Order of Military Merit, 5th class, silver; Russia, Medal for Zeal, Nicholas II, silver; Italy, Royal Service Medal, Victor Emanuelle III, silver, mounted court-style, good very fine (8) Ex-Tamplin Collection, 2008. R.V.M. London Gazette 3 June 1932. Gabriel Tschumi was born in about 1883, in Moudon, Switzerland, where his father, a professor of languages, killed in an accident only three days after his birth. At the age of 16 in 1899, he was appointed an apprentice in the kitchens of the Royal Household through the good offices of his cousin, Miss Louise Tschumi, one of Queen Victoria’s Dressers. Working under the watchful eye of the famous French Royal Chef M. Menager. His first trip overseas came with King Edward VII in 1901 to Flushing for the funeral of the Empress of Germany and then on the convalescence voyage around the British Isles on the Victoria and Albert. The first story of some humour came after the postponement of the Coronation of King Edward VII, which left them facing a mountain of food for two hundred and fifty guests: '...There was also the difficulty of storing all the jellies, which could not remain in the dishes which were filled to overflowing...Finally the Clerk of the Kitchens redeemed himself in everyone's eyes by coming up with a solution. The jellies could be melted down and stored in magnum champagne bottles until such a time as the coronation banquet took place. We spent the next few hours carrying out this course of action, and eventually there were two hundred and fifty champagne bottles of claret and liqueur jelly ranged along the wall in one corner of the kitchens.' The remainder, being mountains of caviar, 2,500 quails, chicken, partridge, sturgeon and cutlets for the 7 course banquet was mainly distributed to the Sisters of the Poor in hampers and taken home to the families of the Royal Household. He was successively promoted 2nd Assistant Cook in 1905, Assistant Cook in 1906 and 6th Chief Cook in 1911, when he travelled to India aboard the Medina as the Senior Chef for the Coronation Durbars. On the reaction to the Great War: 'Few members of the public realised how seriously King George and Queen Mary took rationing during the 1914-18 War, for though they had widely differing tastes in food they were completely in agreement on the need to cut out everything that might smack of luxury or privelege in the Royal Household life during that period. All racing and yachting was cut out, and entertaining was restricted only to guests directly connected with the running of the war. Another order came down soon after the outbreak of war, which threw our depleted kitchen staff into a mild panic. It too came from Queen Mary and was to the effect that meat was to be served no more than three times a week both to the Royal Family and the Household staff of several hundred.' Tschumi was also called upon to travel with the King to France in October 1915, when he set up in the Chateau de la Jusnelle near Aire for visits to the Western Front. A staff of eight travelled, with just two cooks to provide the required refreshments during the visit. The visit also gav