The exact origin of the mille-feuille is unknown. François Pierre La Varenne described a version in Le Cuisinier françois, 1651.[citation needed] It was later improved by Marie-Antoine Carême. Carême, writing in the early 19th century, considered it of "ancient origin". According to Alan Davidson in the Oxford Companion to Food (p. 505), the invention of the form (but not of the pastry itself) is usually attributed to Szeged, Hungary, where a caramel-coated mille-feuille is called Szegedinertorte.[1]