Books and Manuscripts

Three French cookbooks from Marie-Antoine Carême, considered to be the first celebrity chef

Le Patissier Pittoresque...
Paris: Imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1828. Third edition. 8vo. Signed by Carême on verso of half-title. Illustrated with an engraved vignette title-page and 125 engraved plates (final two plates unnumbered and not listed in table, as usual). Quarter black calf over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind and in gilt, boards and extremities rubbed and slightly worn, spine ends worn, lower rear joint split; marbled endpapers; remnant of removed label on front paste-down; scattered spotting to text; dampstaining in top corner of most leaves; MS. recipe on verso of plate 123.

Together with:

Le Cuisinier Parisien...
Paris: Ches L'Auteur, 1828. Second edition. 8vo. 422 pp. Signed by Carême on verso of half-title. Illustrated with an engraved vignette title-page and 24 engraved folding plates. Three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind and in gilt; all edges trimmed; scattered spotting to text.

Together with:

Le Maitre-D'Hotel Francais...
Paris: Au Depot de Librairie, 1854. Two volumes bound as one. Reprint ("Nouvelle Edition"). Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece, engraved vignette title-page, seven large folding engraved plates depicting buffet arrangements, and 24 large folding printed menus. Three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind and in gilt, red morocco spine label; all edges stained blue; scattered minor soiling to text and plates, scattered dampstaining in top margins.

A group of three titles by renowned French chef of haute cuisine, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784-1833), considered by some to be the first celebrity chef. Born impoverished, and abandoned at a young age during the French Revolution, Carême came of age in French kitchens and quickly ascended the culinary ladder in the Parisian food scene. He first apprenticed at a Parisian tavern at the age of eight, and by 15 went to work under Sylvain Bailly, a Parisian pâtissier with a well-respected bakery. He immediately stood out for his talents and vision, and under Bailly's tutelage and encouragement he perfected his baking, as well as writing, skills, and was soon attracting large crowds to the shop's front window when his confectionary marvels were unveiled. By 1804 he was orchestrating large banquets for Napoleon and his chief diplomat, Talleyrand, and would soon make culinary excursions to England, cooking dinners for the prince regent, later George IV, and then to Russia, cooking for Tsar Alexander I. He traveled widely throughout Europe, cooking for other dignitaries and nobility, and amassed a large fortune along the way. It was during this period that Carême revolutionized French gastronomy, and pioneered what became known as haute or grand cuisine. He published many cookbooks in his lifetime (and was the first to don the classic chef uniform of double-breasted jacket and toque) where he advanced the idea of cuisine as both an art and a science, and helped standardize and catalogue the building blocks of French cooking that is still followed today.