PHYSIOLOGIE DU GOUT

Paris: Petite Encyclopédie Récréative, c. 1852. Hardcover. 632 pages. 11 x 7.5 cm. A petite version of this time-honored gastronomic classic, which is more about a conversation concerning cuisine or culinary arts - the genius is the authors entertaining analysis of casual conversation and doctrines, observations and anecdotes of every kind that may complement the pleasures of the table. Brillat-Savarin, the man who gave us the expression - "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are" - was already an old man when he published (1825), at his own expense for an audience of friends, the one book for which he would be remembered. During his lifetime, he had been neither a man of letters nor a cook, as is often thought, but a provincial lawyer who rose to become a judge of the appeals court in Paris. He died at seventy a few months after the publication of his masterpiece. Text in French.