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The Renaissance of Cookery: Campagne

Numerous cook-books had already appeared and exerted their influence since the "Viandier" first pointed out the way. He who would give a dinner à la Louis XIV should consult "Les Délices de la Campagne," a volume published in 1654, of which many editions were afterwards issued, the author being Nicolas de Bonnefons, valet de chambre of the king. From this treatise one may form an idea of the variety and profusion of the dishes then in vogue, and to what perfection and luxury the science had attained.¹ In the previous year appeared the celebrated "Pastissier François," the Amsterdam edition of which is among the most famous of the Elzevirsa copy originally priced at a few sous having been sold for ten thousand francs, which would seem a rather exorbitant price to pay for instructions in seventeenth-century pastry-making and preparing eggs for fat and lean days.