Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Lestrygonians/167

Annotations
élite   (French) the upper class; the rich; the privileged members of society. This French term is now a naturalized English word. The literal translation is elect.

Crème de la crème   (French) the best of the best. This French expression is now a naturalized English phrase. The literal translation is cream of the cream, the cream being the richest part of milk.

High Sheriff, Coffey [https://www.geni.com/people/The-Rt-Hon-Alderman-William-Coffey/6000000018844449877 Rt. Hon. Alderman William Coffey] (b.1851 - d.1937) was High Sheriff of Dublin City in 1904, and owned butcher’s shops at 10 Arran Quay and 25 Cuffe Street, and houses at 82 Aughrim Street, 14 [King’s] Inn’s Quay, and numbers 7, and 8 Arran Quay, and on South Circular Road, Dublin. He served as locum tenens Lord Mayor of Dublin on several occasions for Joseph Hutchinson and Joseph Nannetti M.P. He was a Councillor and Alderman for the Arran Quay ward; founding member of the United Irish League in the Arran Quay ward; Parnellite; Redmondite; Chief Magistrate of Dublin City; Colonel of the Catholic Irish Boys’ Brigade; ex officio member of the Privy Council; and Lord Mayor of Dublin (1909-1910). Coffey's photographic portraits by Sir John Benjamin Stone M.P. are held by the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Whitehatted chef like a rabbi   On certain ceremonial occasions, rabbis wear white cylindrical hats similar to the traditional white cap of a French chef. Bloom may be thinking of the shtreimel, which comes in several varieties, not all of them worn exclusively by rabbis. The shtreimel of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn was made of white velvet and was not unlike a chef's white hat, or toque blanche.

chef   (French) the head cook in a kitchen or establishment. This French term is now a naturalized English word and is not usually italicized. The literal translation is head.

Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme   (French) Curly kale cooked in a style popularized by the Duchess of Parma. Gifford identifies this as Baked savoy cabbage with a stuffing of ground veal, herbs, bread crumbs, etc. But curly cabbage is a literal translation of chou frisé, the French name for curly kale. Auguste Morel, who worked on the authorized French translation of Ulysses, translated Joyce's Curly cabbage as Chou frisé. In 1816 the estranged wife of Napoleon Bonaparte Marie Louise became Duchess of Parma. She introduced the manners and cuisine of the French court to Italy, and her tastes made a lasting impression on local dishes.

Du, de, la   (French) Of the, of, the. Du is a contraction of the preposition de (of or from) and the masculine definite article le (the). De la is the feminine equivalent of du. Some editions of Ulysses omit the comma after de. The Corrected Text omits all three commas from this sentence.