Gastronomy. MENON. La science du maître d'hôtel cuisinier.

MENON. La science du maître d'hôtel cuisinier, avec des observations sur la connoissance & propriétés des Alimens.

Paris, Paulus-du-Mesnil, 1749

In 12mo. 160x90 mm. Legatura coeva in piena pelle marmorizzata, fogli di guardia marmorizzati, dorso a nervi con titolo e fregi in oro, tagli rossi. Pagine [4], XCVI, 552, [8]. Lievi tracce d’uso e sporadico foxing, buon esemplare.

Rara prima edizione, opera chiave di uno dei cuochi più influenti del secolo. L’esemplare reca la firma dell’autore in fondo alla prima pagina numerata, in autentica dell’edizione. Il testo è preceduto da una “Dissertation préliminaire sur la cuisine moderne", scritta da É. de Foncemagne secondo Barbier, da un indice alfabetico dei piatti e da alcuni menu stagionali. 

Willan: “François Menon was the most influential and prolific French cookbook author of the eighteenth century. During his time, today's familiar categories of French cooking were emerging, and Menon was a master of them all: nouvelle cuisine (a term that each generation redefines); haute or classical cuisine; and cuisine bourgeoise. He even wrote the first French cookbook devoted specifically to a woman cook (La cuisinìere bourgeoise) ... Menon first described the new cuisine in detail in the third and final volume of Nouveau Traité de la cuisine (New Treatise on Cooking, 1742). In contrast to traditional cooking, he wrote, the key to nouvelle cuisine was delicacy. Sauces were lighter but at the same time more nourishing; seasonings aimed to enhance rather than mask lead ingredients... Menon not only wrote about the practicalities of nouvelle cuisine; he was also concerned with philosophy, linking his mission closely to that of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment: to advance and disseminate knowledge that allows humankind to live in a state of nature perfected.”

Bitting, p. 320; Cagle 343; Vicaire, p. 590; Willan, The Cookbook Library, pp. 218-19. Cfr. Barbier, IV, p. 226.