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The XVIIIth century; its institutions, customs, and costumes France, 1700-1789 . here in 1761 : An excellentsoup, a slice of tender beef, the leg of a well-boiled capon, a smalldish of artichokes fried in marinade, one of spinach, a mellow pear,some fresh grapes, a bottle of old Burgundy, and some exquisiteMocha coffee. Voltaire, who had not found the hospitality of theBastille so attractive thirty-five years before, complained in i 749 ofthe excessive luxury indulged in at table, and he did not anticipatethat a lettre de cachet would ever be equivalent to an invitation todinner in the kings p
The XVIIIth century; its institutions, customs, and costumes France, 1700-1789 . here in 1761 : An excellentsoup, a slice of tender beef, the leg of a well-boiled capon, a smalldish of artichokes fried in marinade, one of spinach, a mellow pear,some fresh grapes, a bottle of old Burgundy, and some exquisiteMocha coffee. Voltaire, who had not found the hospitality of theBastille so attractive thirty-five years before, complained in i 749 ofthe excessive luxury indulged in at table, and he did not anticipatethat a lettre de cachet would ever be equivalent to an invitation todinner in the kings prisons ; and he says, Money must be plentifulindeed when jaeople spend so much money on repasts which under-mine the health, and eventually numb all the faculties of the mind. This was an unfair accusation, and cookery in the reign ofLouis XV. deserved the praises bestowed upon it by Meusnier deOuerlon in his preface to the Dons de Comus, the work of thefamous cook Marin (1748) : The ancient system of cooking waspopularized l)y France throughout Europe, and was generally fol-. • • 1 ^ „;i, frnm the hotel of Le Normand dEtioIes, farmer-general,.:,.,ta.^^^^^^^^^^^^ J73 THF. CENTURY. lowed until within the last thirty years. Modern cookery, basedupon the same principles though less complex and formal, has asgreat variety, while it is more simple, cleaner, more delicate, andperhaps still more erudite. The ancient system of cookery was verycomplicated and full of details; modern cookery is a sort ofchemistry. Connoisseurs assert that French cookery was at itsapogee towards the close of the reign of Louis XV., though somegastronomists maintain that it continued to progress towards perfec-tion all through the reign of Louis XVL Mercier, not himself anauthority on the subject, can merely repeat what was told him byGrimod de la Rayniere, who subsequently wrote the Almanach desGourmands, and in his Tableau de Paris (1781-82), he says: The dishes o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublisherlondonbickersson