OP: Dining with Proust
Random House, New York, 1992. Hardcover. Very Good. First US edition.
It is not a fluke that Marcel Proust (1871–1922) is associated, even by those who have not read him, with a passage on food. The entirety of Remembrance of Things Past is threaded with what Anne Borrel, Head of the Friends of the Marcel Proust Society, describes as “nostalgic sensuality” for the fine art of cuisine.
Dining with Proust (1992) pairs the author’s words, both from his fiction and his personal diaries, with relevant Belle Époque dishes—staged and photographed by designer Jean-Bernard Naudin—with menus and recipes provided by chef Alain Senderens. The jellied beef, trout with almonds, jugged hare, Japanese salad, chocolate souffle, and, of course, madeleines, certainly speak to Proust’s time and place, but the real treat is in the contextualization of those delicacies within his evocative prose.
Our copy is a Very Good first US printing with general shelfwear and some scratching to the front of the jacket and a crease to the front free endpaper. An engrossing gift for a literary foodie.
