quality:correction, stylistic:style_transfer
Culinary legend

The legend that de' Medici introduced a long list of foods, techniques and utensils from Italy to France is discredited by food historians. Barbara Ketcham Wheaton and Stephen Mennell provided the definitive arguments against these claims. They point out that Catherine's father-in-law, King Francis I, and the flower of the French aristocracy had dined at some of Italy's most élite tables during the king's Italian campaigns (and that an earlier generation had done so during King Charles VIII 's invasion of 1494); that a vast Italian entourage had visited France for the wedding of Catherine de' Medici's father to her French-born mother; and that she had little influence at court until her husband's death because he was so besotted by his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. In fact, a large population of Italians—bankers, silk-weavers, philosophers, musicians, and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci —had emigrated to France to promote the burgeoning Renaissance. Nevertheless, popular culture frequently attributes Italian culinary influence and forks in France to Catherine.

The earliest known reference to Catherine as the popularizer of Italian culinary innovation is the entry for "cuisine" in Diderot and d'Alembert 's Encyclopédie published in 1754, which describes haute cuisine as decadent and effeminate and explains that fussy sauces and fancy fricassees arrived in France via "that crowd of corrupt Italians who served at the court of Catherine de' Medici."