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Consider the Cookbook
CONSIDER THE COOKBOOK
Massimo NavoniA sumptuous banqueting table was laid out for bibliophiles and gastronomes alike this March in Paris, when Christie’s offered at auction the library of a very hungry Belgian baron, Pierre de Crombrugghe, who’d spent his life collecting manuscripts, codexes, and books on the alchemy of cuisine and fine drink. Some lots fetched five times their asking price but the jewel of the auction went unsold: printed in Lyon in 1495, it is the only surviving copy of the first French cookbook, written in the fourteenth century by Guillaume Tirel, better known as Taillevent, chef to three kings whose name still graces a Parisian restaurant.
