Rare books from Rabelais - Fine Books on Food & Drink

St Louis. MO, 1940. One page autographed letter signed, from Irma Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking, and a major figure in the history of American cooking. Addressed to Louise [Diallo],The last name was supplied by the seller and is not indicated on the letter itself. In black ink on cream colored stationery printed in brown, "Mrs. Edgar Rombauer - 5712 Cabanne Avenue - St. Louis - Mo. The letter contains regrets for not staying longer at an event and, most interesting, a full recipe. The recipe, for "Bran Biscuit," appears in very close form in the 1936 edition of the Joy of Cooking and in later editions, and contains both the ingredients list and the step-by-step instructions. With one fold, otherwise fine. Rombauer manuscript material is very rare, and we have not been able to locate another record of it entering the marketplace.

1950. Original watercolor (17 x 22 cm.), labeled, signed, and dated by the artist in pencil. On watercolor paper which had been mounted on a thicker card stock, now de-laminated, but in remarkably fine condition. Henry A.C. Jackson (1877-1960) was one of Canada's outstanding amateur naturalists. He was the elder brother of landscape painter A.Y. Jackson, and while A.Y. achieved great fame through his art, Henry chose to quietly document his mycological journeys in Quebec through copious note taking and watercolor paintings of the collected specimens. After his death in 1960, much of his work was donated to the National Gallery of Canada. In 1979 The National Gallery mounted an exhibition of the watercolors, and produced the catalogue, Mr. Jackson's Mushrooms which reproduces forty-odd images, and accompanies them with excerpts from his field notes. Very few of Jackson's mushroom watercolors have reached the market, with only a few having been given to friends and neighbors over the years. A small… Read More

Basileae: Joannes Valderus, 1535. Quarto, [34], 333, [1]. Second edition. Text in Greek, editor's notes in Latin & Greek. One of the most important works of late classical antiquity dealing with food, wine, and table customs, dating from the third century A.D. The book is a fictionalized symposium of twenty one artists, writers, musicians and surgeons, discussing all things that, according to Greek custom, should adorn a banquet. The names of the most famous gastronomers and most celebrated cooks are recorded, and the text of a recipe from a lost cookbook by Mithaecus is quoted -- the earliest recipe by a named author in any language. The virtues and qualities of various wines are the subjects of lengthy discourses. Table ornament and decoration are also treated. Rebound in modern half-vellum, text-block trimmed. Generally very good internally, with a touch of foxing to some leaves, and pages supple. With the bookplate of Anne Willan, noted authority on French food, founder of the prestigious Ecole… Read More

[New York], 1993. Wooden guest book in the shape of a door, wooden metal hinges, 50 leaves sewn with pink cord, with seventy-five holograph signatures, nearly forty of which we have been able to identify. The Old Denmark was a casual restaurant, at 135 East 57th Street, and later, 113 East 65th Street, on New York's Upper East Side. A 1964 review gave the restaurant one star, and described it as "first and foremost a purveyor of Scandinavian delicacies for the retail trade, but it also boasts one table where customers may dine on Danish salads. There is a seating capacity for eight guests at a time and the table is shared by other customers. The food served consists primarily of salads such as cucumber, mushroom, crab, beet and herring, but there is also liver paté and smoked salmon..." Identified amongst the signators are: Ingrid Bergman, Louise Allbritton, Virginia Field, Mario Lanza, Groucho Marx, Marlene Dietrich, Carl Brick, Helen Traubel, Miriam Hopkins, Elsie D. Alexander, Ruth Bryan Rohde,… Read More

Paris, 1953. One and one half page pen and ink letter (26.5 x 21.5 cm.) on single sheet of pale blue Paul Cushing Child stationery, with ink date stamp ("May 18 1953"), addressed, "USIS. 5 Place de Rome, Marseille (B du Rh)". ~ An early letter from Julia Child, written while she was living in Paris with her husband Paul and working on her first book, the seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Child writes to a Mrs. Fairbanks: "What a nice hour we spent with you the other afternoon. I only wish it could be repeated, as I would love to hear more about Thomas Wolfe and all you know about him. It would also be fascinating for me to hear much much more about your culinary experiences. Mrs. de Santillana [Child's editor] says you are the best cooks she knows, and I can well believe it from the interest you take. It is indeed a fascinating subject and a beau métier. Had a nice talk about friture de cheval pour les frites [possibly french fries cooked in horse fat] with your chauffeur on the way home… Read More

London: For Richard Wilkin, 1714. Octavo (19 x 12.5 cm.), [16], 218, [13] pages. FIRST EDITION. "Mary Kettilby's collection of cookery recipes and medicinal and home remedies, from a tasty "green-pease soop, without meat" to gooseberry wine. Households that could not afford French cooks or French cooking came to form a growing audience for books by women that contained unpretentious recipes cut to suit a less costly cloth, for pickling and collaring rather than ragouts. Where Hannah Woolley had led, plenty of female cooks with their eye on the profitable middle market followed, with books like Mary Kettilby's collection of recipes (1714) and Eliza Smith's Compleat Housewife (1734)" Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cookery (2015)). Kettilby's book purported to be a collective effort: the preface stating that 'a Number of very Curious and Delicate House-wives Club'd to furnish out this Collection'. Maclean however (pages 79-82) doubts this, and notes that evidence from later editions… Read More

London: Printed and sold by Andrew Sowle, in the Holloway-Lane, near Shoreditch, 1685. Octavo (14.5 x 9.5cm.), [12], 96, 91-232, [6] pages; collation: A6, B-Q8, R2 (I3 signed I2). Sheet A/R should have had R1 and R2 as A7 and A8. It was wrongly imposed so that A5r and A6v were perfected by pages of R and vice versa. The error was corrected by pasting leaves from half another copy of the sheet over the erroneous pages. Sheet I was similarly mis-imposed, but instead of using parts of a complete sheet, a half-forme was printed on one side only and pasted over I5v, 6r, 7v, 8r. Text and register are continuous despite pagination error. AAS records indicates their copy has pagination and collation the same as this one. ESTC cites this pagination and offers a variant (2d issue?) with pagination: [12], 97, 92-232, [6] pages (i.e. H1r is numbered 97 and H1v is numbered 92). Table of contents. Publisher's advertisement [6 pages] at rear, for two other titles by Tryon. Caption title (page 1) Every good… Read More

Coloniae (Koln): Ex officina Eucharistu; [Ex officina Eucharij, apud Eucharium Ceruicornum procurante M. Godefrido Hittorpio ciue Coloni], 1529. Octavo (17 x 11 cm.), ccclxviij, [4] leaves. Errata list at rear. Title within architectural woodcut border. Ornamental initials for each book. ~ Printed in Koln by Gottfried Hittorp, an early 16th century edition of what is considered the first cookery book to be printed, first issued circa 1470. Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi) examines the mode of living most beneficial to the human body, the pleasures of the table, and how to best enjoy one's meals and have good health. He discourses upon the quality of various meats, fish, fruits and vegetables, the best manner to prepare them, and the correct sauces to be served with various dishes. An entire chapter on wine and vinegar is included as well. Internally sound and clean; corner of C6 torn off, and small closed tear to P4 (neither effecting text). Fairly early rebind in tan, paper-covered boards; simple,… Read More

[Seggiano, Italy, 1793. Manuscript codex (32 x 22.5 cm.) in several hands; various paginations in 24 gatherings of unequal lengths, including additionally several miscellaneous receipts, all indicating a retrospective assemblage, headed by a summary report as reflected by the title on the first gathering; bound in vellum and tied with cords. ~ A reference account book for the crop year October 1793-September 1794 (two instances of the date 1792 may be errors) made for an agricultural estate in the Tuscan municipality Seggiano, near Siena, south of Florence. It was prepared in advance of a detailed examination or inspection, presumably commissioned by the lord of the estate, Fausto Ugurgeri (originally Ugurgieri della Berardenga), of a Siennese family well known in the area from the 9th to the 19th century. The compiler declares himself on the cover as Antonio Ciotti, likely the agricultural manager of the estate, though he may also have held some public administrative office. (Italian fattore,… Read More

[Switzerland or Germany, 1835. Folio notebook; loose gatherings in separate, ribbon-tied boards (38 x 25 cm.). Two hundred forty original drawings, with accompanying manuscript text, on individual trimmed leaves, each mounted thematically with others of its type, with brass pins to the inside of folio double leafs. Text is in German, with some plant names also in Latin. The lot housed in the original string-tied portfolio boards, heavy green cardstock with manuscript inscription to front. ~ A most uncommon manuscript work, profusely illustrated with pencil drawings, encyclopedic in its scope, devoted strictly to the study and classification of mushrooms, and dating to the formative era of medicinal mycology. Manuscript field notes accompany the drawings, in the form of scientific annotations, classification references, and occasionally with the month in which a living specimen was either collected or observed in its habitat. The notebook was made by an unidentified mycologist/botanist, and… Read More

London: Printed by D. Maxwell, and are to be sold by Robert Horn at the Turk's Head in Cornhill [illegible], 1659. Small octavo (12 x 7 cm.), [2], 155 [10], 2-31, [1] pages. A2, B8, C-I12, K3 (-K4, and ?K5) of "table for preserving, conserving, candying and perfuming, &c."). Stated eighth edition enlarged. The final edition of Murrell's 'two books' consisting of The First Book of Cookery, The Second Book of Cookery, and A New Book of Sewing and Carving, the second book with a separate title page. The New Book... was cribbed from The Boke of Kervynge (London 1508) [see Oxford, pages 1ff.]. One of Murrell's major contributions to English culinary literature was to bring French recipes to England some forty years before the competition. This and the previous edition (1650) are the only editions of Murrell that are contemporary with the other leading English cookery texts of the 1650s: The French Cook of La Varenne (1653 and 1654) and Marnette's translation of Le Patissier François (The Perfect Cook of… Read More

London: Printed for Nath. Brook at the Angel in Corn Hill, 1662. Duodecimo (15 x 8.5 cm.), 123, [5], [14] pages. Table of contents. Publisher's advertisements at rear. Title within rule border. Printer's name from British Library record. Attributed to "W.M. " by Wing. Fourth printing; originally issued in 1655 by Nathaniel Brooks. Generally considered to be the final of the three parts of The Queen's Closet Opened, also first issued by Brook (1655), the other parts being The Pearle of Practice, and A Queen's Delight. The preface to the first and to some later editions of QCO identifies the author as "W.M.", a former servant of Queen Henrietta Maria. Concerning the sustenance found within, Oxford points to "such interesting recipes as To make a Devonshire white-pot, To Make an Outlandish dish (hog's liver seasoned with aniseed), The Jacobin's Pottage, To make a Battalia Pye, To make a Stumpe Pye, The Countesse of Rutlands Receipt of Making the rare Banbury Cake, which was so much praised at her… Read More

New York: Printed for Rogers and Berry, Pearl-Street, 1795. 16mo. (16 x 9.5 cm.), [12], 180, [12], [2] pages. Two engraved plates of birds prepared for cooking; twelve plates of Bills of Fare with woodcuts of table settings. Publication date from Evans. Second American Edition, Second Printing, stated "revised and corrected" (from Note to the Reader). Carter's popular English cookbook (circa 1768), became one of the earliest cookery books printed in the U.S. This 1795 printing follows the Boston: Edes & Gill of 1772 (Lowenstein 4), and the New York: Berry & Rogers of 1792 (Lowenstein 7). The Edes & Gill issue of 1772 was just the second cookbook printed in America, following thirty years on the heels of Eliza Smith's Compleat Housewife of 1742. The two Rogers and Berry printings contained a changes which better reflected the American context of these books, and which greatly influenced Amelia Simmons in the creation of her foundational American Cookery of 1796. Text block complete and sound; first… Read More

[New Hampshire, 1901. Thirty-one different menus, plus four related promotional pieces (35 pieces together,) all assorted broadsides, broadsheets, and bi-folds (various sizes). Some are illustrated with engravings, others with chromolithograph or hand-colored illustrations. Some of the menus are both printed and manuscript; most are print only. Condition varies but is mostly very good to fine. Five decades of menus and other items from the Golden Age of New Hampshire hotels. Hotels include: Mount Pleasant House, Senter House, Twin Mountain House, Profile House, Crawford House, The Oceanic, Intervale House, Farragut House, Franklin House, Winnecummet House, Prospect House, The Wentworth, Lafayette House, The Kearsarge, House of Seven Gables, Strawberry Hill House, the Moosilaukee (sp?), Forbyen House (sp?), Boar's Head House, Van Ness & American Hotels, Ormand, Pearson's House, Everett House, and Lakeside House. ~ Condition is largely very good to fine, though a few items show adhesion marks or stains… Read More

Paris: Editions Robert Laffont, 1977. Small quarto (24.5 x 16 cm.), 365, [1] pages. Illustrated in the text and with eight color plates. Index. FIRST EDITION. The first cookbook from the giants of nouvelle cuisine. At the time of this publication, the two brothers had recently completed an expansion of the building and kitchen of their eponymous restaurant, Les Frères Troisgros in Roanne (Loire). This followed the restaurant receiving a third Michelin star and being called "the best restaurant in the world." The rise of the brothers is legendary, and a major element of the legend is the formative time spent in the kitchen of Fernand Point's La Pyramide in Vienne. They served in the kitchen of the great Point simultaneously with Paul Bocuse, and one can only imagine the youthful conversations among the three over cigarettes out back. The brothers certainly recognized the importance of their time with Point, as they have inscribed this copy on the half-title to Point's widow (who had continued to… Read More