Nouvel Almanach des Gourmands, servant de guide dans les moyens de faire excellente chère. Dédié au Ventre. Par A.B. de Périgord. Première année [Deuxième année] [Troisième année] by (Gastronomy) [Raisson, Horace] - 1827

Paris: Baudouin Frères, 1827. First edition, all published. Each volume with frontispiece and engraved Carte gastronomique de la France (folded). Prospectus bound in at front of vol. I. Pp. [iv], iv, xxiv, 234, [221]-224; [xx], 264; [xx], 246. 3 vols. 18mo. Modern boards. Occasional light foxing. Near Fine. First edition, all published. Each volume with frontispiece and engraved Carte gastronomique de la France (folded). Prospectus bound in at front of vol. I. Pp. [iv], iv, xxiv, 234, [221]-224; [xx], 264; [xx], 246. 3 vols. 18mo. Nouvel Almanach des Gourmands, Complete. A dozen years after the final volume of the celebrated Almanach des Gourmands of Grimod de la Reynière, Horace Raisson and Léon Thiessé initiated a new annual dedicated to the pleasures of the table and the stomach. It ran three years and contains reviews of restaurants and hotels, provisioners and wine merchants, recipes. Raisson was a prolific author whose subsequent works on gastronomy and etiquette were translated into English, Spanish, and Swedish, and did much to spread the fame of French cookery. The third year was edited by Thiessé alone.
The three frontispieces depict "L'inspiration du gourmand," "Le premier devoir du gourmand," and "Promenade du gourmand." The excellent gastronomical map shows the diversity of French agricultural and wine-making regions.
The prospectus praises Grimod de la Reynière and calls for samples to be submitted for review: 'since conscientious gourmands can only speak of that which they have seen, felt, and tasted, news, documents, samples, and "légitimations," in short, everything relevant to the Almanach des Gourmands ... will be subitted to the appreciation of the enlightened jury, and then scrupulously announced, described, and judged in future annuals.'
Notable in the second volume is a somewhat scoffing notice of Brillat Savarin's Physiologie du gout, which is deemed to be somewhat over long. The tone changes dramatically, for in the third volume is a contemporary biographical notice and elegy of Brillat Savarin, who died in 1826, not long after publication of his celebrated work.

An interesting work from a key period in French gastronomy. Copies of the first year of this annual are found in institutional collections; the later years are quite scarce: complete sets at NYPL; Lilly, with the first year in second edition, lacking the map. The Bibliothèque National does not locate the second year. Vicaire 673; Bitting p. 365; Cagle 366 (defective copy of a second printing), 367,368