Books About Food

Paris: Sautelet et Cie, 1826. Two volumes, octavo, xiv, 390 & 449 pages. FIRST EDITION of the most famous treatise on gastronomy. The Physiology of Taste was published in an edition of 500 copies, appearing only two months after the author's death. A comprehensive philosophy of the palate, the table, and far beyond, the book is presented in a series of thirty meditations on subjects including the senses, taste, appetite, gastronomy, restaurateurs, cooking, fasting, obesity, death, sleep, rest and dreams. Brillat-Savarin was an attorney and magistrate who fled France during the Terror, living in Switzerland and New York until his return after the fall of Robespierre in 1796. The present work secured his eternal fame among gastronomes. M.F.K. Fisher - whose translation of Brillat-Savarin's work still stands as the best - commends this book for its straightforward and unornamented prose in an era of florid writing, but the intellectual range and invention of the work is anything but simple. At the very… Read More

Milwaukee, WI: The Settlement Cook Book Co, 1941. Octavo, xlvi, 623 pages. Twenty-First Edition, revised and enlarged. A much later edition this influential and massively successful cookbook, originally published in 1901. The emphasis is American, with a smattering of hearty Jewish Eastern European fare. In earlier editions, the Jewish/Eastern European influence was more prevalent. This copy is extraordinary, in unused condition bright and fresh, with the original white, washable boards shiny and clean, the original publisher's green dust jacket, with white bland and red printed text and decoration is equally exceptional. Fine, and rare thus. [Axford, p. 363; DuSablon, America's Collectible Cookbooks, pages 65-67].

Montréal, QB: Restaurant Au Pied De Cochon, 2006. Hardcover. As New. CD still in original, sealed pouch at the back of book. Original Promo Slip Cover still on book - has tear on back. Book in original, New condition

London: Paul Jerrard, 1852. First Edition. Mid-nineteenth century opulence: two elaborate Victorian plate books with plates of fruit and flowers complimenting verse, fully printed in gilt. Two folios in original cloth with large colour card onlay on front board and gilt floral motif on rear, 24 full-page chromolithographic plates each facing a matching gilt printed poem; cloth mildly browned in book 1, binding rubbed and mild preliminary foxing in book 2, a very good set with beautiful clean plates.

322 Old Dixie Recipes. Compiled and Edited by Lillie S. Lustig, S. Claire Sondheim, Sarah Rensel. Decorations by H. Charles Kellum. 48 pp. 23,5x16 cm. Culinary Arts Press, 1939.
--- Wooden covers, curved and painted. B&W illustrations. Unmarked.

The Day Of The Triffids Michael Joseph Fourteenth Impression Thus. March, 1984 Wyndham, John: The Day of the Triffids, Michael Joseph, London. Original copyright 1951. Science Fiction, Horror. Original source material for the film of the same name. One of the creepiest stories you will ever read. Good/Good Price-clipped DJ. Dust jacket is black with large green and white titling and ornamentation. EX-LIB.

Title continued: "...Also, Trussing & Carving; preparing soups, gravies, sauces, made dishes, potting, pickling, &c. With directions for pastry and confectionery. Likewise the art of making British wines, brewing, baking, gardening, &c." Rebound brown half morocco with marbled boards, as well as 5 raised bands and gilt particulars to spine. xl, 288 pp. 4 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches.

INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR to Mr. Robert Uihlein, Chairman of Schlitz Brewing Company, in 1957. First Edition. Clean, unmarked. Tight binding. Dust jacket has only minor defects, a 1.5 inch tear in the upper right rear corner and several smaller nicks or creases (see photos). Highly collectible copy.

Alice B. Toklas - The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book; illustrations by Sir Francis Rose - London, Michael Joseph, 1954 - First Edition - Hardcover - 288pp - 23x15cmCondition Good: Cover worn and faded. Throughout the book some signs of use: this book really has been used but all pages are clean, no names or writing, binding good. Alice Babette Toklas (1877-1967) was the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein. They lived together as part of the Parisian avant-garde from the day they met in 1907 until Stein's death. Between the wars, their Paris home was a salon for the leading writers and artists of the day, including Ernest Hemingway, Alfred North Whitehead, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson, Matisse, Gris, Braque and Ford Maddox Ford. This book contains a melange of reminiscences and recipes, celebrating the food and kitchen aspects of Toklas' life with Gertrude Stein and contains the Surrealist artist Brion Gysin's infamous recipe for hashish fudge (expurgated… Read More

Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1959. One of 5,000 copies in the second printing, October, 1959, after 10,000 copies in the 1st printing, April, 1959. Near Fine, tiny rubs at corners. 34 pp. in stapled wrappers. . Second Printing. Pamphlet. Fine. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall.

London, printed for E. and C. Dilly, in the Poultry, 1769.. Title continued: Adapted to the New Stile. AN ENTIRE NEW WORK. Containing The latest and most approved METHODS. OF CULTIVATING and IMPROVING the Kitchen, Flower, Fruit, and Physic Garden; And for Managing THE VINEYARD and PINE-APPLE. The Nursery, Shrubbery, Greenhouse, and Hothouse. With proper Directions for Raising Mushrooms. To which is prefixed, AN ESSAY upon Vegetation, Soil, Manure, and the Nature and Form of Stoves, Hot-beds. WITH A Copper-plate, exhibiting at One View the several Aspects for Planting a Fruit-Garden. FIRST EDITION 1769. 8vo, approximately 170 x 100 mm, 6¾ x 4 inches, 1 folding plate, pages: [10],1-285, [9], bound in old original sheep covers with new calf spine, 2 maroon gilt lettered labels to spine with gilt decoration and date, old endpapers. Light wear and staining to covers and corners, slight browning to edges of folding plate and 1 small brown stain, 1 fold neatly strengthened on blank side, 2 tiny repairs… Read More

8° (mm 183x155); pp. VIII, 48, (2). Cartoncino rigido moderno che conserva le brossure originali in carta decorata. Bella copia, intonsa.
Only edition, very rare.
In the poemetto of the Neapolitan poet and playwright Antonio Viviani, Li Maccheroni di Napoli, published in 1824, the term 'spaghetti' appears for the first time (intended as a diminutive name for the word 'string') in reference to this type of pasta. A name that will last over time, until today, and which will replace the more generic 'macaroni' (or 'maccaroni'), as well as the term 'vermicelli' (which will remain in use as a synonym for thicker spaghetti), names with which, the same food was referred to in previous literary sources. This same work also illustrates the different stages of processing this pasta shape (cf. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti).

Due parti in un volume in-8°, cc. 71, [1]. Bell'esemplare, con legatura coeva in pergamena. L'opera del Lando è legata con Symeoni, Comentario alla Tetrarchia di Vinegia, 1548.
Provenienza: al frontespizio, antiche annotazioni manoscritte e nota di possesso; Collezione Maria Paola Moroni Salvatori.
Rarissima terza edizione (la princeps, priva di dati tipografici: Venezia 1548). Paleari Hensselr, 414. B.IN.G., 1080.
Il Commentario del Lando - tra i più geniali poligrafi rinascimentali, traduttore in italiano dell'Utopia di Tommaso Moro (1548) - è inoltre assai celebre in quanto alcune sue pagine "illustrano un ideale itinerario gastronomico per le città d'Italia, con riferimento a cibi e vini di cui l'autore mostra di aver acquisito conoscenze di prima mano" (L'arte della cucina in Italia, a cura di E. Faccioli, Torino 1992, p. 275).
"Questo testo costituisce un catalogo etnico-socio-gastronomico estremamente eterogeneo, inserito in un itinerario quasi iniziatico che si snoda attraverso la… Read More

Single leaf (270 x 212 mm) with copper-engraved plate (198 x 147 mm); very lightly foxed, 2 small paper flaws (of which the larger 8 mm), but overall a very good copy.
Very rare engraved broadside advertisement for a Venetian chocolatier. An attractive print, the advertisement offers 'chioccolatta d'ogni sorte' for a variety of prices, beneath an internal view of Guado's premises in Calle Larga in San Marco. Set within an ornamental rococo frame with the shop's 'la nave' sign depicted above, the scene shows a wealthy clientele in a spacious chocolate-house, drinking hot chocolate, with beans being ground in the foreground.
OCLC shows no copies of the engraving. The original copper plate survives in the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, in Milan.

[London], Printed for Nathaniel Brook at the Angel in Cornhill, 1655.. Title continued: By the most experienced persons of our times, many whereof they were honoured with her own practice, when she pleased to descend to these more private recreations. Never before published. Transcribed from the true copies of her Majesties own receipt books, by W.M. one of her late servants. FIRST EDITION IN 3 PARTS, ALL 3 TITLE PAGES DATED 1655: THE QUEENS CABINET OPENED, THE PEARL of PRACTISE, A QUEENS DELIGHT and THE COMPLEAT COOK. Small book, 12mo, approximately 145 x 80 mm, 5¾ x 3 inches, engraved frontispiece portrait of Henrietta Maria signed W Faithorne, probably? from a later edition and laid down on paper, pages: The Queens Cabinet Opened and Queens Delight, [12] including frontispiece, 1-192, [2] title page to Queens Delight, 195-296 followed by [4] - blank pages, [22] - index followed by advert leaf; misnumbering to a few pages of Queens delight affecting first number of 8 pages, nothing missing;… Read More