Pierre Jean-Baptiste Le Grand D'Aussy

Le Grand d'Aussy traces French bread history from the first Tameliers and Fourniers to the Boulangers whose bread evolved from a simple boule to the pains mollet of the seventeenth century and the long breads which already began to replace round breads in the eighteenth century. Along the way he looks at the different types of bread, typically made from wheat, and also the other grains and even other products which were used to make bread. He then presents the history of French pastry, which began, essentially, as meat pies and other foods cooked in pastry before evolving into a dizzying array of tarts, wafers, nieules, ratons, cassemuseaux, flans, rissoles, beignets, marzipan and other treats. This leads naturally enough into the subject of sweets, of various spices and fruits preserved in sugar and honey, sweet pastes, nougat, macaroons and other treats sometimes eaten after dinner and sometimes all through the day. Along the way, as always, Le Grand draws on a rich variety of older sources, studding his inventories of facts with colorful anecdotes. The result is itself a rich box of tasty treats.

Coffee, tea and chocolate were all still newcomers to France when the eighteenth century historian Le Grand d'Aussy wrote his history of French food and drink. He includes his look at what was then still their recent history in a section on non-alcoholic drinks. But first he looks at the cold ones, notably lemonade, also a relative newcomer, yet already popular enough that those who sold coffee, flavored drinks and even ice cream were known as *limonadiers* - lemonade-vendors. Some of the drinks they sold - rossolis, populo, cedar sours, vinegar syrups - have long been forgotten, while others have become staples of French culture. What the French now call *glaces* ("ices" and "ice creams") not only included true ices (flavored with liquids), but other confections such as "fromages" and snows, and even the first French whipped cream (chantilly ices). One was even said to taste like... butter. Having turned to hot drinks, Le Grand first takes brief but informative looks at how tea and chocolate came to France before beginning a long look at coffee: its fitful beginnings in France, its ultimate acceptance, the rise of the caf , the invention of *caf au lait*, the spread of coffee cultivation to French islands and the different ways it was made. All of this is very lively, and some of it may sound familiar - Le Grand's work remains a prime source for modern historians on such subjects. Now readers of English can read his account in his own, newly translated, words.

OverviewThe Gauls sat on hay (or maybe dog skins) to eat; the Romans lay on couches; the Franks preferred benches and stools. For a long time, lighting came from candles and torches. Dishes could be made of metal, marble, glass, porcelain, earthenware, and other materials. Silver and gold were used not only for platters but sometimes even for tables. The eighteenth century writer Le Grand d'Aussy takes a sweeping look at the furniture and furnishings used for meals over hundreds of years in France. In the process, he highlights some key developments in French industry: the introduction of faience, the development of what became the famous porcelain of S vres. He ends his account with a glittering inventory of one medieval king's collection of objects in silver and gold. This new translation makes yet another portion of Le Grand's monumental work on food history available to English-speakers and provides ample insight for food historians, lovers of fine antiques and students of industry alike.

OverviewGreen eggs were popular once, and long before Dr. Seuss, in France. Poached eggs were served with orange juice and spices. Easter eggs inspired not egg hunts, but loud, raucous processions. Cheese might be eaten with sugar and even cinnamon. Brie and Parmesan cheese were popular long before modern times. Butter could be preserved with salt, but also by being melted and put in earthenware jars. On fast days, when meat was forbidden, sometimes eggs were allowed, in other periods they were not; the same thing was true of milk and cheese. These facts are all found in the brief but wide-ranging chapter the eighteenth century writer Le Grand d'Aussy included on eggs and dairy products in his three volumes on the history of French food. Two hundred years later, modern food historians still turn to Le Grand's work for information on various foods, and this new translation gives a sample of the varied and colorful information they find there. NOTE: The section on fasting in this work is also included in the separate work "Catholic Fasting in France". If your own interest is in fasting per se, that work might be a better choice.

One of the most complete histories of wine in France was written in the eighteenth century, a long chapter within Le Grand d'Aussy's masterwork on French food and wine (hopefully but misleadingly titled "History of the private life of the French from the origin of the nation until our days"). Le Grand starts with the Gauls, Greeks and Romans and the introduction of wine into France before discussing its development over the centuries and the appearance of the retail trade - merchants, taverns, inns - where wine could first be bought "by the pot". Starting with the first earthen vessels and wineskins used to transport wine, he traces the appearance of that useful microtechnology, the bottle. Drawing (as he does throughout) on a wealth of earlier authors, Le Grand lists the various wines that had been most popular over the centuries and then gives a brief look at some of the most commonly used grapes. He touches on wine from unexpected places such as Brittany, Normandy and... Paris, which for centuries was known for its wine before detouring for some pages into a squabble between Burgundy and Champagne. The French also drank foreign wines, including, once, those of Gaza and Cyprus, and he casts a glance at those before describing the ways in which wine could be used as a gift or payment and the celebrations associated with it. He ends with a look at "artificial wines", the highly flavored ancestors of todays cocktails and with the misnamed "fruit wines". Though frequently cited in culinary texts, Le Grand's masterwork is rarely translated at length and this new modern translation is a rare opportunity to experience the scholarship and lively tone of this classic work directly.