Yummy Acquisition

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has recently acquired the first cookbook devoted to pastry making. Le Pastissier françois (The French Pastry Chef), published in 1655 by the great Dutch printing house of Elzevir, is a landmark in the history of cooking and cookbooks. The book is often attributed to François Pierre de la Varenne (1615-1678), the father of French gastronomy and author of the first French cookbook (Le Cuisinier françois, 1651). He was also the first to break with Italian practices, concocting such staples of French cooking as Béchamel, hollandaise sauce, and bisque. Le Pastissier françois is equally revolutionary in the history of cooking for establishing most of the foundations of French pastry making. For example, here for the first time, we find an explanation of the now universal way of making flaky pastry dough by weaving together butter and flour. The author also introduces such classics of French baking as beignets, chansons aux pommes (apple turnovers), choux pastry (used for éclairs), and gaufres (waffles), as well as the very first recipes for a cake (gateaux) and an apple pie (!). In addition to these innovative sweet confections, Le Pastissier françois offers recipes for savory pastries as well.

Groundbreaking in many ways, Le Pastissier françois is the first cookbook to indicate precise measurements and quantities for each ingredient, the first to give exact cooking times and heat levels, and the first to include an alphabetic index to the recipes.

The book was printed by Louis and Daniel Elzevir in 1655, the third generation of the great Elzevir printing house in Amsterdam. Le Pastissier françois has been called “the most sought after of all Elzevir imprints,” chiefly because of its rarity. Like hymnals and children’s books, cookbooks are printed to be used (and abused) and therefore have poor survival rates. Indeed, in the nineteenth century, the Elzevir Le Pastissier françois became a kind of Holy Grail for collectors and the price skyrocketed accordingly, leading several English and French authors to comment admiringly or sarcastically upon the phenomenon. Alexandre Dumas, for example, claims to have been distracted from a play by the incredible sight of a man reading a copy of Le Pastissier nearby, and several English novelists list this title when describing the grandeur of character’s library. When J.P. Morgan died, the New York Times mentioned about a dozen of the highpoints of Morgan’s collection, listing the Elzevir Le Pastissier françois alongside the Golden Gospels of Henry VIII, the Gutenberg Bible, and the manuscript of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. There appear to be fewer than a dozen recorded copies, most of them outside the U.S.

[LA VARENNE, François Pierre de (1618-1678), attributed to]. Le pastissier françois. Ou est enseigné la maniere de faire toute sorte de pastisserie, tres-utile à toute sorte de personnes. Ensemble le moyen d’aprester toutes sortes d’oeufs pour les jours maigres, & autres, en plus de soixantes façons. Amsterdam: Louis & Daniel Elzevir, 1655. Vicaire 659-64; Brunet IV, 426-27; Willems 1187. Shelfmark: IUB01721

Freedom of Speech for Me….but not for Thee

John Milton (1608-1674). Areopagitica, A speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of vnlicenc’d printing to the Parliament of England. London: [s.n.], 1644. Shelfmark: 821 M64 N6.

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With manuscript warrant issued to John Milton on 25 June 1650. Shelfmark: Pre-1650 MS 0168

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John Milton, arguably the most significant English poet of the seventeenth century, was also a republican politician, religious renegade, and a vocal polemicist on the issues of his day. He flouted the Star Chamber Decree of 1637 when he published his tracts on divorce without license. His Areopagitica also appeared without permit or notice of publisher as required by the law. The Areopagitica has had an enormous impact on modern society, arguing, as it does, that without the freedom of speech, there can be no freedom of thought.

The Areopagitica presents the history of censorship from antiquity to Milton’s day in an eloquent and compelling narrative. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are presented as inalienable rights of humankind. Without free exchange of ideas, Milton claims that moral, intellectual, and societal development is impossible. From this book comes one of the most powerful statements on the freedom of the press ever written: “as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, God’s Image; but hee who destroyes a good Book, kills reason it selfe.”

Ironically, six years later, in 1650, Milton, now part of the ruling party, was issued a warrant to search the rooms of William Prynne, the Puritan writer with whom he had often squabbled in print. The warrant authorizes Milton to “seize all writings … of dangerous nature against the Commonwealth.” Prynne was arrested five days later and sentence to three years in prison for expressing views contrary to those held by Milton and the Commonwealth.

The University of Illinois holds both these documents, historical proof that freedom of speech is easier to preach than practice.