Careme.   Maria Antonin     - A 2nd edition in the original state.
LE CUISINIER PARISIEN,
OU L’ART DE LA CUISINE FRANCAISE AU DIX-NEUVIEME SIECLE, TRAITE ELEMENTAIRE ET PRATIQUE DES ENTREES FROIDES, DES SOCLES ET DE L’ENTREMETS DE SUCRE, SUIVI D’OBSERVATIONS UTILES AUX PROGRES DE CES DEUX PARTIES DE LA CUISINE MODERNE. Par M. A. Careme, de Paris, Auteur du Patissier royalparisien, du Patissier pittoresque, du Maitre- d’hotel francais, et de deux Recueils de prjects d’ architecture destines aux embellissements de Paris et de Saint-Petersbourg. Deuxieme Edition, revue, corrigee et augmentee. OUVRAGE ORNE DE 25 PLANCHES DESSINEES PAR L’AUTEUR, ET GRAVEES AU TRAIT PAR MM. NORMAND FILS, HIBON ET THIERRY. PARIS, DE L’IMPRIMERIE DE FIRMIN DIDOT, IMPRIMEUR DU ROI, RUE JACOB, NO 24. 1828.
212x 135mm. 1 fep stuck to cover. Half title with bookplate of Alain Huchet. 1p list of Careme’s published titles with his facsimile signature. Engraved title page. [1] Extra title page. [1] 2p Memoire de Laguipiere. (1)8-9 Avant Propos. [1] (1)12-46 Discours Preliminaire. (1)48 – 407. [1] (1)410 – 422 Table des Chapitres. ½ fep pasted to the inside of the back cover. The original engraved blue cover with a small 3mm chip on the bottom of the spine and the corner of the back cover. A small amount of light foxing here and there, but overall nice and clean. Pages untrimmed and some uncut. A very nice copy of a very scarce edition in the original state.
- French Cuisine is one of the most refined styles of cooking in the world. It is a consequence of centuries of political and social change throughout the country. It wasn't until the year 1765 that restaurants in France could make and sell food. Up until this point foods to be sold had to be purchased from the food guilds. A tavern owner named Boulanger who served soups, challenged the guilds in court and won. Boulanger called these soups - restaurants, also known as restoratives, and will be forever credited with the term we all use today. French cuisine also owes its basis to its great regional seasonal foods and famous dishes. From the German & Swiss influences of the east, to the sublime produce of Provence, the Mediterranean seafood, the bounty of the middle regions, the influence of Paris and the butter and cream dishes of the north. It also has a highly refined and historic Viniculture and the well-developed variety of the cheese industry. French cuisine is blessed. Many of the great chefs of France worked for royalty, dukes and the noble families. With the French revolution and the fall of the monarchy, many chefs were out of jobs. With Restaurant owners able to make and sell their own food many of these great chefs opened their own restaurants. Ten years later there were more than 500 eating establishments in and around Paris alone, never mind the rest of France. Many of these great master chefs refined their cooking to a point we now know as Classical French Cuisine. The three most important of these chefs were Francois Pierre de la Varenne, who wrote the first book on French Cuisine, refining a lot of techniques. Marie Antoine Careme helped create some and to record the majority of classical cuisine's techniques and recipes. Finally and perhaps the most influential - was George Auguste Escoffier, whose work and books are still today arguably the most important references in the world of French classical cuisine. Antonin Careme was the archetype of the great modern chef. Of the role he saw cookery fulfilling in society, he wrote; ‘When there is no more good cooking in the world, there will be no more keen and elevated intelligence, no pleasing relationships, no more social unity’. Those ideas were extraordinarily new at the time, and part of his culinary testament in this volume here; ‘Le Cuisinier Parisien ou l’Art de la Cuisine au XIX Seicle’. Careme was a conscientious recorder of everything he undertook in the Kitchen. He was always taking notes. He wrote “It was my custom every evening, on returning home, to note down the changes I made to my work as a result of my daily experience. That daily account was the cause of the progress I made”. Careme goes further - “ My colleagues now see the clear evidence of the progress I have made in the French cuisine of the 19th century. I do not claim that this new work of mine will fix the culinary art for ever; other practitioners with the gifts and skill for it will doubtless create new things, but my work will have inspired them”. And how right he was ! Gastronomy – a word that had only recently been penned by the author Joseph Berchoux, was to mature beyond recognition. Francatelli (one of Careme's pupils) Gouffe, Dubois, Nignon, Ritz and above all Escoffier, were to shape and record the new heights and standards in which Gastronomy was taken. The legacy of Careme is firmly embedded in this history and his books are collected assiduously. Alain Huchet whose bookplate is tipped into this book is an ex-Chef de Cuisine who became a famous antiquarian bookseller on the Quai de Conti in Paris. He also specialises in prints as well as books and has a very large collection of Larousse Gastronomiques.

click on image to enlarge
Information

Antiquarian category
ref number: 11176