FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 33

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
In the eighteenth century the French took the lead in cookery, although the number of works on the art published in other countries was perhaps as large as that published in France. In particular the number of cookery-books§ pub- lished in Germany since the end of the seventeenth century is legion ; most of them were called after the city in which they were published. Of celebrated cooks in France who also wrote works, the following are the most note- worthy : Menon,|| A. Viard,1T and Antoine Beauvilliers.** * Giegher, Martin, ‘ Li tre trattati di M. Giegher, bavaro di Mosburc, Trinciante dell’ illustrissima nacione alemana in Padova, nel priino si mostra il modo di piegase ogni sorte di panni lini, civ6 Salvietti e Touaglie, e d’apparechiare una tavola, con altre galanterie ; nel secondb, intitulato lo Scalco, s’insegna oltr’al conoscere le stagioni di tutte le cose che si mangiano, la maniera di mettere in tavola le viande ; nel terzo detto il Trinciante s’insegna il modo di trinciare ogni sorte di vivnnde’; Pad., 1639, 4to. This is a curiosity, as the longest title of any book on the tab e and carving. Layard, loc. eit., p. 327, ‘gives the author’s name as Mattia, and the beginning of the title as ‘ I tre trattati.’ f Lancelotti, Vittorio, ‘Lo scalco prattico.’ Roma, 1627, 4to. He gives the menus of a number of banquets, served for the most part in the palace of Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandino. X Editio princeps, Rom., 1635. § See a list of these treatises in Pierer, ‘ Encyclopoed.,’ Bd. XL, p. 458 ct seq., I. Supplem , Bd. IV., p. 156. II Menon, ‘Les soupers de la Cour ou Part de travailler toutes sortes d’aliments’; Paris, 1768, iii. 12. (See the observations of Carome upon this work, according to whom the menus were the result of pure imagina- tion, and were never carried out.) ir Viard, A., ‘Le Cuisinier.’ Paris, 1808, 8vo. ** Beauvilliers, Antoine, ‘ L’art du cuisinier.’ Paris, 1814, 2 vols., 8 VO. THE HISTORIC LITERATURE OF COOKERY 35 The latter was a Parisian restaurateur, and lived from 1754 to 1820. He had very great influence in purifying culinary recipes, and shaping the practice by the introduction of exactness and method in the main, as regards French cookery such as we know it. Brillat-Savarin in his ‘ Physiologie du Gout,’ p. 289, has given an interesting memoir of the character and career of Beauvilliers, which we recommend’ our readers to peruse. The first edition of Beauvilliers’ ‘ L’Art du Cuisinier ’ was published in 1814, and the work was republished many times, but, though altered and enlarged, not improved after the death of its author.