Convenience is certainly one reason for the soufflé’s popularity among cooks. It can be largely prepared in advance, even
precooked and reheated. Versatility is another. Soufflés can be made from practically every sort of food—pureed fruits and vegetables and fish; cheese, chocolate, liqueurs—and in a broad range of textures, from the puddinglike to the meltingly fragile soufflé à la minute, which is Carême’s starch-free omelette soufflée barely altered.