Le Cuisinier Francais: Launching a Culinary Revolution

Why do we think of France when we hear the words "haute cuisine?" 

Answer: It all began in 17th-century France with the publication of Le Cuisinier Francais.

This is my first post in this category: Food at the Court of Louis XIV.  I thought it would be appropriate to start with a cookbook that revolutionized the way people thought of food: Le Cuisinier Francais.  This is the book that launched an entirely new way of thinking about food.  It defined Haute Cuisine as being quintessentially French Cuisine.  The book launched a new culinary experience: fine food and fine dining.  At the beginning of the 17th-century, French cuisine focused heavily on Italian medieval/renaissance traditions: intense spices and lots of sugar.  The food movement of La Varenne stressed the natural flavors of food.

Le Cuisinier Francais (1651) is the first cookbook to describe French cuisine as "dainty," "delicate," "refined," "civilized," and "courteous." In this cookbook, La Varenne completely transformed the way people thought of food.

Before Le Cuisinier Francais, cookbooks were just filled with recipes in no specific order.  They were compilations of recipes loosely organized.  La Varenne had specific chapters; he helped codify many of the recipes we still use today.  He wrote in the first person creating a sense of participation in a culinary tradition.  He described food as an art.  Before La Varenne, France did not have much of a national culinary tradition.  He codified techniques and recipes, many of which are the building blocks of professional culinary practice, like stocks.  For the first time, he conceived of a cookbook as a unified whole. 

The book gained an international following quickly: reprinted 12 times in the first 5 years, 46 times before 1700 and translated into every major European language.  This was the first cookbook to gain such an international following.  The publication of Le Cuisinier Francais was followed by a series of cookbooks that helped create what we now think of as classic French cuisine: Le Patissier francais (1655) by La Varenne, Le Jardinier francais (1651) and Les Delices de la campagne (1654) by Nicolas de Bonnefons.  I'll come back to these books in future posts.

Comments

[juli]

30 years ag I acquired a set of knives. over the years I have lost several of them. They were thr best knives ever. Desciption: white plastic handles. Could someone help me get nother set? the blade states Le Cusinier and slso Imperial stain resitant