| An English celebrity-chef cook-book, the only "foreign" ever translated into French in the 19th-C |
Le cuisinier anglais universel, ou le nec plus ultra de la gourmandise
[The Universal Cook], Tardieu, Paris 1810, 13,5x22cm, 2 bound volumes.
Rare first French edition.
2 frontispieces and 12 numbered engravings bound at rear of the second volume.
Small lack of paper to upper right corner and marginal restoration to the first volume's title page. Minor foxing, a light halo to the right margin of each of the 12 engravings at rear of the second volume.
Red half morocco binding, smooth spines with arabesques motifs in gilt, marbled paper boards, snags and rubbing to boards and edges, corners bent.
The book was first published as
The Universal Cook in London in 1792; its fourth edition was translated into French and published in 1810.
The Universal Cook is the work of two famous chefs, Francis Collingwood and John Woollams, who worked in the most famous establishments on the London Strand: the London Tavern and The Crown and Anchor, known for serving members of the Whig-club.
This edition is one of the few examples of British cuisine making inroads into French gastronomic culture. The latter was to exert an almost unchallenged hegemony for a long time to come. The Universal Cook's publication was considered a curiosity in French culinary circles, as the publisher's preface indicates; it was also seen as a real risk, according to the great bibliographer Oberlé: "Let us admire the courage of the publisher Tardieu, who, in 1810, at a time when we had no enemies more hated than the English, dared to have translated a book praising the culinary splendors of the perfidious Albion". However, this rare publication was in response to demand from an Anglophile gourmet public: it's no coincidence that one of the first luxury restaurants in Paris was christened La Grande Taverne de Londres (The Great London Tavern) due to the renown attached, from the end of the 18th century, to fine dining as it was practiced in England. The book was issued during post-revolutionary France, where cooking had outgrown aristocratic circles. Former cooks in the service of now emigrated nobles opened restaurants, where they developed a true "culinary science" like their English counterparts.
Recipes in this book illustrate changes in English culinary culture at the turn of the 19th-century. The hierarchy of prestige, previously held by French cuisine with its rôts and potages, gave way to puddings and tarts. There are only fourteen "French-style" preparations: fricandeau, duck, mauviettes, sole, turbot, cookies, "selle de mouton [pullets] à la Saint-Menehould", "soupe lorraine"... For a short while, the city of London had replaced French court as center and driving force of culinary change.
A very rare appearance of English cuisine in French gastronomy, during an era of intense hostilities between the two countries as Napoleon waged war on Europe.
