Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière

Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière (20 November 1758, Paris – 25 December 1837), trained as a lawyer, acquired fame during the reign of Napoleon, for his sensual and public gastronomic lifestyle. Son of Laurent Grimod de La Reynière

Laurent Grimod de La Reynière

Laurent Grimod de La Reynière was a French financier and fermier général. He was the son of Antoine Gaspard Grimod de La Reynière , another fermier général, and the father of the famous gastronome Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière .In 1775 he had the hôtel Grimod de La Reynière...

, he inherited the family fortune on the death of his father, a fermier général, in 1792. He was a member of the Société du Caveau.

Biography

Though his father built a stylish house in Paris with a garden that looked onto the bosquet
Bosquet
In the French formal garden, a bosquet is a formal plantation of trees, at least five of identical species planted as a quincunx, or set in strict regularity as to rank and file, so that the trunks line up as one passes along either face...

s of the Champs-Élysées

Champs-Élysées

The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...

and kept a great table, the younger Grimod had been born with deformed hands and was kept out of sight, a circumstance that developed his biting wit and dark sense of humor. The younger Grimod de La Reynière began his public career on his return from studies in Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

by collaborating in the review Journal des théâtres in 1777–78, continuing to write reviews of theatre, some of which he published himself, as Le Censeur Dramatique. During his parents' absence he gave grand dinner parties in the Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière

Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière

The Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière was an hôtel particulier in Paris, in the corner between Avenue Gabriel and Rue Boissy d'Anglas.It was built in 1775 in a Neo-Classical style by Jean-Benoît-Vincent Barré for the fermier général Laurent Grimod de La Reynière...

, at one of which his father returned suddenly to find a pig dressed up and presiding at the table. The story made the rounds in Paris, and a breach with the family ensued, which culminated in a lettre de cachet
Lettre de cachet
Lettres de cachet were letters signed by the king of France, countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal, or cachet...

that disinherited him and confined him to an abbey close to Nancy, where at the table of the father abbot he began to learn the art of good eating

Gourmet

Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterised by elaborate preparations and presentations of large meals of small, often quite rich courses...

. He was a correspondent to the scandal chronicle, Correspondence secrète, politique et littéraire (1790) relating to Paris during the reign of Louis XVI, and formed a liaison with the actress Adèle Feuchère, who bore their love child in 1790.

Supported with a little money from his family, he had the idea of buying food directly from the producer, and selling it in a store at a set price; to make a living, he opened a shop in Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

selling groceries, tools and other exotic commodities. When he regained his liberty upon the death of his father in 1792, he returned to Paris and spread the activities of his "société Grimod et Cie" , opening stores in other French cities. He reconciled with his mother, who was saved from the guillotine through his connections, and began a series of mock-funeral dinners.

As the first public critic of cooking, the first reviewer of the ambitious restaurants that cropped up in Paris in the later eighteenth century and flowered under the Napoleonic regime, his name is a by-word on a par with Brillat-Savarin and an equally rich source of quotations in French gastronomic literature through the eight volumes of his annual L'Almanach des gourmands, which he edited and published from 1803 to 1812. Gourmand
Gourmand
A gourmand is a person who takes great pleasure in food. The word has different connotations from the similar word gourmet, which emphasises an individual with a highly refined discerning palate, but in practice the two terms are closely linked, as both imply the enjoyment of good food.An older...

still retained its sense of "gluttony", one of the Seven Deadly Sins

Seven deadly sins

The 7 Deadly Sins, also known as the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a classification of objectionable vices that have been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct followers concerning fallen humanity's tendency to sin...

, and Grimod's choice of the word, when "friand" more usually connoted a connoisseur of fine food and wine, was a conscious one and wholly in character; gourmand and gourmet
Gourmet
Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterised by elaborate preparations and presentations of large meals of small, often quite rich courses...

first achieved their pleasant modern connotations in Grimod's Almanachs, which, among other innovations, were the first restaurant guides. The success of the Almanachs encouraged Grimod and his publishers to bring out the monthly Journal des Gourmandes et des Belles, which appeared for the first time in January 1806. Its editorial board consisted of the friends who met weekly for dinner at the Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière

Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière

, those "Dîners du Vaudeville", composed of dishes sent round by the premier restaurants of Paris for judgment, and Grimod as host and presiding genius. His Manuel des amphitryons ("hosts") appeared in 1808. Sainte-Beuve called him the "Father of the table".

He inherited the family fortune at the death of his mother in 1812, married his devoted mistress, gave his own funeral to see who would come, then retired to the Château de Villiers-sur-Orge, near Paris.

Works

Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière, Almanach des gourmands, Ed. Mercure de France , coll. Le Petit Mercure, 1 April 2003 (ISBN 2-7152-2404-4)
Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière, Manuel des amphitryons, (1808) Ed. Métailié, 23 November 1995 (ISBN 2-86424-025-4 ) A condensation of material from his Almanach. online version

Biography

Works

External links

Further reading