Of all the ways to die, the final fate of the grandfather of Alexandre Balthazar Grimod de La Reynière – the lawyer and theatre critic born in 1758 who pioneered gastronomy writing – could not be more apt for a family of bon vivants that would, literally, rewrite French culinary history.
The owner of, reputedly, Paris’s finest restaurant, he is said to have choked on a piece of foie gras. The ultimate destiny for a bon vivant, perhaps, and if such a fate befell someone today, there would be plenty of ‘serves you rights’ from animal welfare supporters.
Grimod de
La ReynièreMusée Marmottan Monet / Wikimedia
Born into wealth thanks to his father’s fortune from the pig trade, the young Alexandre was born with webbed hands, which shamed his parents. Even though his father had a Swiss mechanic make him artificial metal hands covered in white skin ‘gloves’ so that he could write, he was educated by servants and kept out of sight – a cruel policy that historians believe contributed to his dark, acerbic wit.
However, he would have his revenge.
Once qualified as a lawyer, he became known for the wildly imaginative dinner parties he held at the family home, Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière, when his parents were away. These included one for his father’s suppliers, at which at the head of the table he seated a pig dressed as his father. ‘Another day, he invited his fellow lawyers and had them served by former convicts, dressed as galley slaves and dragging a ball and chain... of Dutch cheese,’ says the Institut de France.
Above all, he loved writing about food, and for this he would go down not just in culinary history but as a French cultural icon. He effectively invented gastronomic criticism by creating L’Almanach des Gourmands, eight volumes of which he edited and published from 1803 to 1812.
A precursor to restaurant guides, it intended ‘to guide and enlighten gourmands in the labyrinth of their aperitive pleasures’ through Paris, ‘the place in the universe where one makes the best food.’
In 1808 he wrote Le Manuel des Amphitryons, a practical, anecdote-filled book designed for the post-Revolution bourgeois society, in which he gave advice on everything from the art of cutting meats at the table, to manners for gourmets and the creation of menus.
Grimod died on Christmas Day, 1837 at Château de Villiers-sur-Orge, near Paris – following, one can hope – a final gastronomic blow-out.
