Le Cuisinier Gascon. Nouvelle édition, à laquelle on a joint la Lettre du Patissier Anglois

Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Prince of Dombes (Attr.), The Gascon Cook. New edition, to which has been added the Letter of the English Pastry Chef. Amsterdam, 1747. In octavo (185×110 mm).

Pages [10], 244. Light and uniform browning but an excellent copy untrimmed. Early 19th-century binding in green cardboard. On the verso of the frontispiece, a double stamp 'Au Preal de Soissons', on the front pastedown an old ownership note 'Vendier' and an ex libris 'Jacques et Hélène Bon'. Second edition, rare and highly sought after: in this edition, in fact, the important Letter of the English Pastry Chef appears for the first time, a work by Desaullers that contains the first critique of the new gastronomic system inaugurated by Marin with the 'cultured' delicacies of his Dons de Comus. The Gascon Cook is the most singular of all French cookery books: the organisation is chaotic, but the dishes and names are so enchanting and so amusingly indicative of the decadent phase of the royal French cuisine (and society) that everything is forgiven. Frogs in green sauce, monkey's green sauce, eggs without malice, veal cooked to resemble donkey droppings, chicken in the shape of a bat, roasted and pressed ducks to extract a bit of juice to dress a chicken, along with the discarded carcasses. At once mocking and exemplary of the unchecked magnificence of royal cuisine in the 18th century, The Gascon Cook marks the end of the culinary revolution that began with La Varenne and the start of a different kind of revolution: one that will lead to Michelin Three Stars, in both its best and worst forms. A UNTRIMMED COPY, originating from the famous collection of the Bon couple, offered for much less than you might find online, beautifully trimmed!