A Matter of Taste, a Bibliographical Catalogue of the Gernon Collection of Books on Food and Drink

Garland Publishing Inc., New York, first edition, 1990. Edition of 150 copies. Cloth, 4to, 29 cm,. xxiv, 980 pp, plates. 1261 entries. From the introduction: "While the Gernons placed no strict limits on time or place of publication for the books they acquired - the dates range from 1475 to 1962 and there are a few Canadian, Mexican, Indian, and Japanese imprints as well as those from Britain and European countries - the bulk of the collection is composed of books published between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain, France, Germany and Italy. ..It remains to stress that this is a bibliographic catalogue of a particular collection of books and that the copies described are the copies in hand. In contrast with earlier catalogues in this tradition, notably those of Georges Vicaire, Katherine Bitting, Andre Simon, and Erna Horn and Dr. Julius Arndt, which are on the order of short-title lists, a full bibliographical description, including a complete quasi-facsimile transcription of the title page or title pages, a collation of the book by signature, a pagination statement, and a record of the illustrations, whether in the text or on inserted plates, is given for each of the books in the collection." Approximately haldf the entries are for cookery and recipe books, and these range "from specialized works devoted entirely to such items as pastries, desserts, ices, oysters, mushrooms, truffles, and even a book dedicated entirely to cooking with onions, to general cookery books, some written for young housewives and others for professional chefs. A number of household management books with information on everything from training the parlor maid to curing a lame horse also have sections on cookery and, hence, have a place in the collection. Very Good.