TASTE AND IMAGINATION

Devouring Dumas

Did you know that Alexandre Dumas authored one of the most important culinary reference books ever written, the Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine? Dumas was one of the finest gourmets of his century and some say that if he had not been a great writer, he would have been a great chef. A few months before his death he finished his cooking dictionary for which he had accumulated throughout his life more than 3,000 recipes and delectable anecdotes. Dumas himself considered it a sort of testament and one of his greatest works. A must for the serious cookbook collector or Dumas fan.

The first two editions, that of Alphonse Lemerre in 1873 and of Tchou in 1965, rapidly disappeared from booksellers' shelves to become hard-to-find rarities, remedied in France since 2000 by the Phébus edition supervised by leading Dumas specialist, Daniel Zimmermann. More than

500 illustrations of the epoch.

To read more that I've written about Alexandre Dumas, see  Still the Talk of the Town: The Chateau of Monte-Cristo or look for Monte-Cristo! Don't forget Monte-Cristo! at The Literary Traveler.

Text & photo ©2011 P.B. Lecron