Le Grand d'Aussy's History of French Food Series

Green eggs were popular once, and long before Dr. Seuss, in France. Poached eggs were served with orange juice and spices. Easter eggs inspired not egg hunts, but loud, raucous processions. Cheese might be eaten with sugar and even cinnamon. Brie and Parmesan cheese were popular long before modern times. Butter could be preserved with salt, but also by being melted and put in earthenware jars. On fast days, when meat was forbidden, sometimes eggs were allowed, in other periods they were not; the same thing was true of milk and cheese. These facts are all found in the brief but wide-ranging chapter the eighteenth century writer Le Grand d'Aussy included on eggs and dairy products in his three volumes on the history of French food. Two hundred years later, modern food historians still turn to Le Grand's work for information on various foods, and this new translation gives a sample of the varied and colorful information they find there.

Is bacon fat meat? Chicken? Cheese? Eggs? All of these have been considered, at different times, meat or meatless foods by the Catholic Church. The eighteenth century historian Le Grand d'Aussy included several long passages on the complex history of Catholic fasting in France in his master work on the history of French food. Taken together, they explore the often surprising twists and turns this practice took from the time of the Franks to his own. Throughout the Old Regime, the distinction between meat and fast-day foods was central to French dining; the exact definitions, however, of what was meat and what was not and what days were to be observed as fast days shifted dramatically over this period. Le Grand, a former Jesuit, was particularly well-qualified to discuss this issue and does so with authority and wit, citing innumerable older sources in a rare, comprehensive study of this practice in France. He does so however across chapters on poultry, fish, eggs and dairy and seasonings (sometimes shamelessly digressing from a chapter's subject to look more closely at this issue). These passages have been newly translated and brought together here for a work sure to interest those with an interest in the history of French food or Catholicism itself.

One of the most complete histories of wine in France was written in the eighteenth century, a long chapter within Le Grand d'Aussy's masterwork on French food and wine (hopefully but misleadingly titled “History of the private life of the French from the origin of the nation until our days”). Le Grand starts with the Gauls, Greeks and Romans and the introduction of wine into France before discussing its development over the centuries and the appearance of the retail trade - merchants, taverns, inns - where wine could first be bought "by the pot". Starting with the first earthen vessels and wineskins used to transport wine, he traces the appearance of that useful microtechnology, the bottle. Drawing (as he does throughout) on a wealth of earlier authors, Le Grand lists the various wines that had been most popular over the centuries and then gives a brief look at some of the most commonly used grapes. He touches on wine from unexpected places such as Brittany, Normandy and... Paris, which for centuries was known for its wine before detouring for some pages into a squabble between Burgundy and Champagne. The French also drank foreign wines, including, once, those of Gaza and Cyprus, and he casts a glance at those before describing the ways in which wine could be used as a gift or payment and the celebrations associated with it. He ends with a look at "artificial wines", the highly flavored ancestors of todays cocktails and with the misnamed "fruit wines". Though frequently cited in culinary texts, Le Grand's masterwork is rarely translated at length and this new modern translation is a rare opportunity to experience the scholarship and lively tone of this classic work directly.