Liger [Gastronomie] - Le nouveau cuisinier François - 1740

THE HOUSEKEEPING OF THE FIELD AND THE CITY, OR NEW FRENCH COOK ACCOMMODATED TO THE TASTE OF THE TIME. Containing Everything a perfect Chef de Cuisine ought to know to serve the strongest tables, from those of the greatest Lords to those of good Burghers, with instructions to make all sorts of pâtisseries, dry and liquid preserves, and all the various liqueurs in common use today. First part of the Housekeeping.

In Paris, at the Palace, At Paulus-du-Mesnil, Printer - Bookseller, Grand Hall, at the Pillar of Consultations, at the Golden Lion. M. 1740 [1740]. With the King’s Privilege.

In-12 (approx. 16.5 x 10 cm), frontispiece engraved, title page, table of chapters and running text.
Full brown calf of the period. Back with 5 ribs ornamented with richly gold-tooled panels and fleurons. Title piece in red morocco with gold inscription "CUISINIER FRANC". Red edges.

Solid copy and handsome presentation. Binding shows signs of wear from use, upper crown slightly worm-eaten/scuffed, corners worn but firm. Fresh interior despite very light scattered foxing and some marginal browning. Complete copy of its first part (The Housekeeping of the Field and the City) with its handsome engraved frontispiece depicting scenes of cooking and service. Ancient ink signatures and marginal handwritten annotations on the endpapers.

A true repository of eighteenth-century culinary art, this “New French Cook” sits in the tradition of the great gastronomy manuals inherited from La Varenne, but adapted to the refinements demanded by the Enlightenment era. The work details with extraordinary meticulousness not only the preparations of meats, fish, and entrées (such as the famous recipes for anguille fricassées or stuffed eels), but also offers a complete panorama of the arts of the table for bourgeois and aristocratic settings.

In the eighteenth century, the term “cook” definitively shifts from the status of simple manual executor to that of a learned artist. Manuals like this do not merely provide recipes: they codify the order of service and etiquette, imposing the idea that French cuisine is the absolute summit of civilized refinement in Europe.