Descrizione

8vo (185x110 mm). [10], 244 pp. Slightly later green cardboards (worn and rubbed). On the front pastedown ownership entry ‘Vendier' and bookplate ‘Jacques et Hélène Bon'. On title-page verso double stamp ‘Au Preal de Soissons'. Slightly uniformly browned. Uncut with deckle edges.
Rare second enlarged edition (first 1740), in which the important Lettre du Patissier Anglois, attributed to Mr. Desalleurs the Elder, son of the French ambassador to Constantinople, appears for the first time.
The anonymous work is prefaced by a witty dedicatory epistle “To His Most Serene Highness, His Lordship the Prince of Dombes,” signed by the Gascon Cook, who is none other than the prince of royal blood, whose anonymity fooled very few people: “The work I take the liberty of presenting to You is nothing other than the fruit of my reflections on Your practice,” writes the pseudo-Gascon, who does not hesitate to identify himself as “one of the best chefs in France.” Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, grandson of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, was appointed Grand Hunt Master to Louis XV in 1738. After the hunt, the monarch's dining companion at suppers in the private apartments would take charge of the kitchen alongside a few high-ranking lords of the court, sending away kitchen boys and servants to prepare their favorite dishes.
Le Cuisinier Gascon, one of the most peculiar French cookbooks, contains 217 recipes, suited to both stately tables and more modest tastes. So much so that “Sausages in Champagne Wine” appear alongside “Peasant-Style Fruit Salad,” “Pig's Tails,” stews, and soups. There is a marked inclination toward Italian cuisine: ravioli, macaroni, gnocchi, lasagna, veal à la Piémontaise - and a few surprising dishes, such as breaded and grilled veal teats, veal eyes stuffed and baked au gratin, frogs in green sauce, green monkey sauce, eggs without malice, veal cooked to resemble donkey droppings, bat-shaped chicken, etc. More than two centuries later, certain chefs continued to draw inspiration from this manual without revealing their source.
Bitting, p. 540; Cagle, 1081; Livres en bouche, 2001, no. 202: “Un des livres de cuisine les plus célèbres du XVIIIe siècle”; Maggs, cat. 645 Food and Drink through the Ages, 237; Vicaire, 233-234; A.V. Kirwan, Host and Guest: A Book about Dinners, Wines, and Desserts, 1864; S. Mennell, All Manners of Food, 1996; Willan, 665; Simon, 421; Landwehr, 32.