L'HISTOIRE À TABLE. Si la cuisine m'était contée

One of the author's greatest successes newly available: known as the « Emperor of the Little Story » his style marries itself perfectly with this subject. FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1972

A feast in words, to use Jean-François Revel's famous title, this text has been unavailable for more than thirty years but hasn't aged a bit.
From A (apricot, absinth, asparagus, avocado, armagnac) to Z (Zewelewai, Zola), André Castelot invites us on a journey of joyful erudition through this dictionary of culinary wonders. One by one, he tells the story of eating utensils (the fork, the tablecloth, the napkin, the table, dishes ), the aliments and ingredients (coffee, water, strawberries, beans, oysters, potatoes, salads..), the chefs and famous gourmets (Brillat-Savarin, Escoffier, Talleyrand, Vatel), the Kings and Queens at the table (their meals, their tastes), the establishments and culinary professions (cabarets, cafés, cooks, grocers, great and famous tables), the origin and the evolution of meals, their origin and their evolution (sauerkraut, scallops, omelets), the wines and drinks, the cheeses, national cuisines, and finally, the idioms and customs that are part of the well-known French cultural exception: gastronomy.

ANDRÉ CASTELOT was an historian. He wrote more than 70 successful books such as the biographies of Napoleon, Marie-Antoinette, Napoleon the Third or François 1er, but also The History Almanac (L'almanach de l'Histoire) and the History Calendar (Le calendrier de l'Histoire). He founded and directed the collection
« Présence d'Histoire » at Perrin.