BRIAND. Dictionnaire des alimens, vins et liqueurs,... Lot 25

BRIAND]. Dictionnaire des alimens, vins et liqueurs, leurs qualités, leurs effets. Paris, Gissey, Bordelet, 1750. 3 vol. in-12, marbled calf, ornate spine, brown title and tomaison, red edges (period binding). First edition of this very complete cookbook, attributed since La France littéraire (1769) to a certain Briand. In his interesting preface, the author praises the new cuisine and quotes Liger, Massialot, La Chapelle, Menon... He proposes three types of cuisine: "a simple & natural one for the bourgeois, a more expensive one by its preparations in favor of the rich, a third one more delicate and less abundant than the previous one to the taste of the sensual". But "what is new and interesting in this collection is the concern he has for the health of gourmets": the author has gathered together all that doctors, ancient and contemporary, have written on food, and "for each food gives dietary details" (Oberlé). Some foxing; volume II, marginal stain on first few pages. Slight rubbing, scuffing at foot of volume III, minimal wormholes. Vicaire, 276 - Bitting, 59 - Simon, 250 - Oberlé, 113.