Dumas on Food. Selections from Le Grand Dictionnaire De Cuisine

This selection from Dumas's Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, published after his death in 1873, is a culinary dictionary rather than a novel: alphabetically arranged entries on ingredients, dishes, sauces, and regional produce, mixed with recipes, travel notes, and anecdotes from kitchens and tables. The range runs from everyday French cookery to game, fish, and the lore of particular foods. The compilers abridge the original so that the book can be read as well as used. It is at once a practical cook's reference and a discursive account of how a nineteenth-century man of letters thought about eating and hospitality.

Bound in dark red-purple cloth with a contemporary illustration in cream and brown. Pale brown endleaves. Pale brown slipcase.