Rogues, Writers & Whores: Dining With the Rich & Infamous

To the true gourmet, art means Watteau's Embarquement pour Cythere, which portrays 18th century courtiers picnicking, and Manet's Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, in which one nude and another flimsily dressed woman picnic with two fully-clothed men. Literature means James Joyce's short story, "The Dead", the entire tale taking place around a sumptuously set table, and Ernest Hemingway's lunch at Brasserie Lipp in A Moveable Feast. Gourmets have a special place in their hearts for Chateaubriand, not so much for his poetry and diaries, but because when he visited Dante's grave in Florence he plucked several laurel leaves which he carefully put into his pocket, for "there is nothing better with macaroni."

Food has been a favorite literary topic since the time of Epicurus. If Homer is to be believed, Odysseus spent as much time in feasting as he did in warfare; the characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales devoted as much time to dining as they did to fornicating; and Rabelais' Gargantua would have been little more than an oversized oaf had it not been for his magnificent dining habits.

Throughout history, numerous famous and infamous men and women have contributed in their sometimes perverted but almost always intriguing ways to the world of gastronomy. The stories of those people, their culinary habits and the dishes either created by them, named after them or cherished by them, are the subject of this book. Kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, chefs and restaurateurs, novelists and composers, generals and courtesans--all have had dishes named after them. Follow the fortunes and discover the recipes of over sixty rogues, writers and whores, from Apicius to Zola. Written by Daniel Rogov, one of the most charming and knowledgeable food and wine writers today, the book is lavishly illustrated by Yael Hershberg.