Legitimacy and Nationalism in the Almanach des Gourmands (1803–1812)

JEMCS 3.2 (Fall/Winter2003) Legitimacy and Nationalism in the Almanach des Gourmands (1803-1812) Julia Abramson L'empire gourmand est une r?publique assez volontaire. ?Grimod de la Reyni?re, Almanach des gourmands (1807) Reprenez vos esprits, et souvenez-vous bien, Qu'un d?ner rechauff? ne valut jamais rien. ?Boileau, Le Lutrin (1683) The Almanach des Gourmands (1803-1812) of Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de la Reyni?re (1758-1837) is surely the most fascinating text to appear as part of the gastronomic publishing industry that flourished in France under the First Empire (1804-1815). The Almanach con tains the earliest European narrative food and restaurant guide. It is commonly identified as the founding text for French gastronomic writing, while its author was an avatar of today's food critics.1 In addition to restaurant guides, the eight Almanach volumes include "gourmand correspondence," poetry, and discursive remarks on liter ature, history, and current events, all viewed through the lens of food. In a later volume, Grimod proclaims that the table "est devenue le pivot de toutes les affaires politiques, litt?raires, financi?res et commerciales" (1812, 62), and his own table talk is richly informed by all of these 102 The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies "affairs." Upon publication, the Almanach quickly became a reference for printed discourse devoted to food.2 While guiding the reader among the culinary delights and hazards of Paris, Grimod's table talk also reflects the issues of legitimacy and nationalism at stake in Empire soci ety.3 The AlmanacKs publication roughly spanned Napoleon's reign as emperor, and Grimod refers to the gas tro-literary domain he himself created as Vempire gourmand. This homage is not entirely a compliment to the all-con quering emperor, for the "gourmand empire" mocks as well as mirrors Napoleon's French one. The conflicted presenta tion of nationalism and legitimacy, the latter closely associ ated with the activity of the gourmand figured as work, is central to Grimod's food writing. Taking up Grimod's com parison of his own dominion to that of Napoleon, this article analyzes the treatment of legitimacy and charts the chang ing connection between nationalism and gastronomy in the Almanach des Gourmands. To appraise the culinary riches of post-Revolutionary Paris, Grimod invented a food-rating system that he provocatively called a l?gitimation. Grimod came of a wealthy, titled family and prior to the Revolution had already acquired a reputation for gourmandise. His cir cumstances declined with the Revolution, and his biogra phers have noted the dismal state of the La Reyni?re fam ily finances as of 1801. Grimod needed a source of income, thus in publishing the Almanach he found work in the form of a job he himself invented. His gastronomic writing achieved commercial success,4 while food items sent in by merchants for "legitimation" furnished forth his table. The legitimation professionalized informed eating, transforming it from a leisure pursuit into a task that must be accomplished in a systematic fashion by a less privileged individual obliged to earn a living. Even as eco nomic benefits accrued, gourmandise in its new iteration as work forced the professional eater into an unfamiliar, stressful relationship to his own body. In the attempt to keep up with edible items submitted to be tasted then described in the guide, the bon-vivant became a machine like food-processor that must run constantly. Eventually the legitimation led Grimod to critique the expanding Abramson 103 commercialism that had made it possible and in which it participates. The Almanach des Gourmartds catalogues and celebrates a peculiarly French culinary and gastronomic tradition. It is clear that for Grimod, to write about a cuisine is to write about a place such as a town or state if not a nation. However, it is also the case that Grimod's interest in geo graphical and cultural particularity was sometimes at odds with his conception of gastronomic discourse as a new lin gua franca that would revive the Republic of Letters, linking its members throughout Europe. Particularly in the later Almanach volumes, Grimod promoted foreign and provincial cuisines but also cosmopolitan values, in protest against Napoleon's...