[MENON]
La Science du maître d’hôtel confiseur à l’usage des officiers, avec des observations sur la connoissance & des propriétés des fruits… Suite du maître d’hôtel cuisinier.
Paris, Valleyre jeune pour la Compagnie des Libraires, 1788.
12ve (167 x 93 mm), X pp., 1 unn.l., 525 pp., 13 unn.l., 5 folding plates hors texte; tree sheep, flat decorated spine (contemporary binding)
1 200 
Bitting 320 ; Simon, 1040 ; Vicaire 591 ; voir Oberlé (Bacchus et Comus), n° 120 (éd. de 1776).

In stock

Third edition, identical to the original of 1750 with the same collation except for the X pages of preface, of this important treatise on gastronomy.

“Menon takes up the project of Massialot who, in 1690-1691, added to his Cuisinier royal et bourgeois some Nouvelles instructions pour les confitures.  He defends the ‘modern’ office for recipes with fruit and flowers and table decoration. More than six hundred recipes follow the seasonal production as closely as possible. Fruit and flowers are preceded by comments on their varieties, taste and dietary qualities. Next come recipes for marmalades, jams, ice creams, mousses, creams, ratafias, biscuits, etc. The decorative aspect of the table is developed with, on occasion, instructions for pastillage and coloured shortbread. Three fold-outs show the central decoration of rectangular tables served to thirteen, twenty, thirty or fifty place settings” (Livres en bouche, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris 2002, n° 209 for the 1750 edition).

Trace of wetness in the right-hand corner towards the end. Skilful restorations to corners and headpieces.