Vichyssoise was the invention of Chef Louis Félix Diat, who learned to cook from his mother in France, trained in Paris and London, and became head chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York in 1911. He said “…its humble origin [was] my mother's simple leek and potato soup. Casting about one day for a new cold soup, I remembered how maman used to cool our breakfast soup, on a warm morning, by adding cold milk to it. A cup of cream, an extra straining, and a sprinkle of chives, et voila, I had my new soup. I named my version of maman's soup after Vichy, the famous spa located not twenty miles from our Bourbonnais home, as a tribute to the fine cooking of the region.”

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