Cooking

New York: Knopf, 1985. Fine. Full color promotional poster measuring 21 x 30 inches (53.3 x 76.2 cm.) depicting Her Highness in the Kitchen promoting her six hour video course on cooking. Boldly signed by the author with her trademark "Bon Appetite." A unique piece in perfect condition. Image available on request.

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.

Coventry: Merridew & Son, 1812. Book. Good. Three-Quarter Leather. First Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. 372 pages. Improved system of domestic economy; containing above eight hundred valuable receipts, many of which are entirely original; the whole forming a most useful economical companion. Rebound with three quarter leather and marbled boards..

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937. First Edition, First Printing . Peach Cloth, Gilt. Very Good +/ Near Fine Book/Very Good DJ. 253 Pp. First Book On Food By M F K Fisher. Book Is Bright And Clean, All Gilt Brilliant, Rubbing At Top And Bottom Of Spine, No Fraying, No Names Or Marks, Signed On The Half-Title By Fisher In Her Very Early, Small Hand. Rear Hinge Was Cracked, Now Professionally Repaired. Dj Complete, Not Price-Clipped [$2.50], No Chipping But Minute Losses At Corners, 1/2" Closed Tear At Top Of Front Spine Edge, 1/4" Closed Tear Top Rear Panel, 1/8" Closed Tear At Center Of Rear Flap Fold, Spine Sunned With Slight Tanning Of White Areas And Pink Background At Top And Bottom Of Spine Is Somewhat Faded, Some Slight Oval Pressure Indentations At Center Of Spine, No Damp Spotting, Slight Dustiness/Soiling To White Areas. It Is Said Of Fisher That If She Had Written About Anything Other Than Food, She Would Have Been One Of The Greatest Writers Of Her Time.

New York: D. D. Smith, 1805. First Edition. Hardcover. Lacking the endpapers; small chip at the top of the spine. A clean, attractive, unsophisticated copy in original binding of a scarce and important book. Bound in original full sheep leather (3-3/8" x 5-3/8") with gilt rules on the spine; 180 pages. The second American cookbook, preceded by Amelia Simmons's much better known AMERICAN COOKERY, printed four times before the publication of this volume, which is much scarcer than the Simmons. It is also distinguished as the first American cookbook published in New York. In addition to the recipes for broiling, hashing, preserving, pickling, fricasees, soups, puddings, pies, etc., there are 20 pages devoted to the making of wine, quite early for an American book. Bitting page 581: "There are some unusual recipes, one for spinach, a forerunner for the spinach of today, cooking with no added water, garnished with poached eggs, and unusual for that period; oranges cut in quarters." Lowenstein 36 cites… 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

1597 Cooking & Cuisine FEASTS Stucki Antiquitatum Convivialium Greek Ceremonies

Johann Wilhelm Stucki was a 16th-century Swiss historian and theologian who published an important treatise on the development and history of ancient ceremonies and banquets. 'Antiquitatum Convivialium' was a study on the art of banqueting and ultimately stated that ceremonies of all types were a necessary and significant part of all cultures. This work was so ground-breaking, that it was solely responsible for all other accounts written on the subject. Nicolas Popper states that
"Stucki devoted nearly four hundred folio leaves to the feasts of the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins."
Item number: #9397
Price: $1950
STUCKI, Johann Wilhelm
Antiquitatum convivialium libri III.: In quibus Hebraeorum, Graecorum, Romanorum aliarumque nationum antiqua conviviorum genera, mores, consuetudines, ritus ceremoniaeq́[ue] conviviales atque etiam alia explicantur; & cum ijs, quae hodie cúm apud Christianos, tum apud alias gentes,… 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

St. Louis, MO: [the author]; A.C. Clayton Printing Co, 1931. Octavo (20.5 x 14 cm.), [32], 395 pages. Illustrated with chapter silhouettes and with a dust jacket design by Marion Rombauer. FIRST EDITION, privately published by the author in an edition of 3000 copies, and illustrated by the author's daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who also designed the dust jacket depicting St. Martha of Bethany, the patron saint of cooking, who took up a mop to fend off the dragon Tarasque. Irma von Starkloff Rombauer, the daughter of Max von Starkloff, an affluent St. Louis doctor, studied art at Washington University, and enjoyed a brief romance with the writer Booth Tarkington before marrying Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer, in 1899. As she wrote in her introduction to The Joy of Cooking, "Will it encourage you to know that I was once as ignorant, helpless and awkward a bride as was ever foisted on an impecunious young lawyer? Together we placed many a burnt offering upon the altar of matrimony." After her husband… Read More

8° grande (mm 235x158); cc. (2), pp. 129, (1), c. (1) [bianca]. Legata a sinistra del frontespizio, una tavola calcografica ripiegata - su disegno di "Ronzoni" e incisa da "Mugnon" - raffigurante una villa veneta con il suo giardino: Villa Buri a S. Michele (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Bernini_Buri). Qualche fioritura, tuttavia bell'esemplare, intonso, nell'originale brossura editoriale (con titolo Operette di vari autori intorno ai Giardini Inglesi ossia moderni con una tavola in rame).Editio princeps. Written by Ippolito Pindemonte (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ippolito_Pindemonte), a letterato fascinated by English culture, the Dissertation on the English Gardens is "the first Italian critical intervention on the irregular garden".All'importante Dissertazione del Pindemonte e alla sua Appendice fanno seguito il Saggio sopra l'indole dei Giardini moderni - di Luigi Mabil - letto all'Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti di Padova nell'anno 1796, due Relazioni di Melchiorre Cesarotti… Read More

A Paris, chez Paulus-Du-Mesnil, 1739.
2 volumes 12mo [165 x 95 mm] of : I/ (1) bl.l., viii pp., (2) ll., 456 pp., (12) ll., 8 folding plates; II/ (18) ll., 386 pp., (1) bl.l. Bound in full marbled calf, spines ribbed and gilt, red edges. Some waterstaining in the margins of a few ll. in the second volume not touching the text. Contemporary binding.
Very scarce first edition of the first treatise on gastronomy by Menon.
Vicaire, 588.
This treatise was published anonymously, but the name of the author, Menon, appears in the privilege placed at the end of the first part: on August 26th 1738, Menon gave up this privilege to the widow of Prudhomme who would give it up to Michel-Etienne David and Pauls du Mesnil.
The 8 folding plates placed in the first part represent tables set for 24, 16, 50, 30, 14, 18, 20, and 80 place settings.
" No culinary author obtained more re-issues of his works. His works are indisputably those we consult the most". (Michaud)
We know nothing about the life of Menon.
" Marin had… Read More

8° (mm 170x108); pp. 114, 2 tavole calcografiche fuori testo ripiegate. Al frontespizio, marca tipografica (freccia con serpente. Motto: "Maturandum"). Le incisioni recano la sottoscrizione: "Ronzoni dis., A. Guelmi incise". Carta decorata antica. Bell'esemplare.Editio princeps.The 'Friday Gnoccolaro' (or 'Friday gnoccolàr', 'Friday of Gnocchi' or 'Gnoccolare') is an ancient popular festival born in Verona in the sixteenth century and handed down to the present day.The festival originates from popular uprising against the bakers, which took place in Verona in 1531 following a terrible famine, caused by a sudden flood of the Adige and aggravated by the sack of German troops who crossed the Verona area, after the Peace of Cambrai.To appease the population in revolt, some virtuous citizens were elected, including the doctor Tommaso da Vico, to feed the people with the proceeds from duties on chestnuts and olives. This episode took the name of 'gnoccolare' and took place on the last Friday of Carnival,… Read More

Due opere in un volume in-4° (mm 226x163); pp. (6), 47, (1), LV. Bellissima illustrazione incisa su rame a testata della prima opera. Perfetto esemplare a pieni margini in cartonato rustico coevo. Excellent uncut copy, in its original 'cartonato rustico'.
Editiones principes of the Latin version and the Italian translation, here exceptionally combined in one volume.
The delightful engraving of the 'trifulau' (the truffle hunter, in Piedmontese dialect), with the indispensable dog, is curiously included in the first work only. This is undoubtedly one of the very first texts specifically dedicated to the precious tuber, confirming how already in the 18th century Piedmont was identified as the main, if not exclusive, land for its procurement and use in haute cuisine. A few years later, even the erudite traveller Jean-Michel de Borch, in his famous Lettre sur les truffes du Piemont, would declare that he had read Vigo's composition and found it valuable in its succinct culinary indications.
La deliziosa… Read More

Rome, Gabbia for Giulio Burchioni, 1593.. TITLE CONTINUED: Con diverse aggiunte fatte dal Caualier Reale, & dall'istesso, in questa ultima impressione, aggiuntoui nel fine un breve Dialogo detto il MASTRO DI CASA , per governo d'una Casa di qual si voglia Principe con li Offitiali necessarij, utile & gioveuole à ogni Cortigiano. SECOND EDITION, 1593, Originally published in Venice in 1581. In three parts each part with its own title page, Italian text, Latin dedication leaf to Pope Clement VIII by Vestrius Barbianus. 4to, approximately 210 x 150 mm, 8½ x 6 inches, 4 full page woodcut illustrations in the text with pale show through of text from verso, plus 2 folding plates, showing carving instruments, a turkey and peacock ready for carving, a fish pond with two fishermen, and a laid table, printer's woodcut vignette to each title page and colophon, decorated initials. Pages: [8]. 1-162, [2] - Colophon, continuous pagination, bound in full contemporay blind stamped vellum, all edges stained red.… Read More

Rome, in aedibus Populi Romani, 1581.. FIRST EDITION 1581 (colophon dated 1582), Latin text, small folio in fours, approximately 315 x 210 mm, 12½ x 7¾ inches, small woodcut printer's device on front and rear endpapers, the large armorial device of Pope Gregory XIII on title page, whose personal doctor was the author of this work, another small pictorial woodcut on colophon, pages: [5] 6-340, [23] - index & colophon: "De aluo sine medicamentis mollienda" has separate title page dated 1582, with woodcut device, but signatures and pagination are continuous. Handsomely rebound by Josep Cambras in full burgundy morocco, panelled decoratively on both covers with delicate blind stamping and small gilt ornaments at the corners, raised bands to spine with blind ornaments in compartments, and gilt lettering with gilt date at foot, pages not trimmed, elaborate gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers. Extreme fore-edge expertly strengthened on original endpapers, title page, A2 and 3, and all of YY (the final… Read More