Il Cuoco Moderno ridotto a perfezione secondo il gusto Italiano, e francese ovvero. Nuovo trattato del vero modo di cucinare sia in grasso, che in magro; ed il pasticciere, e confettiere che istruisce a fabbricare paste, dolci, e composte d’ogni qualitá: cioccolata, acquavite, ed ogni sorta di rosoglj, gelati, e conserve; con la disposizione di una tavola ordinate al piu recente gusto. Opera divisa in tre parti unite in un osl volume di L.O.G.
In Milano: Presso Gaetano Motta al Malcantone, 1809. Item #1424 12mo. 165 x 100 mm., [6 ½ x 4 inches]. xxiv, 336 pp. With an illustration of a table (Tavolo per Pranzo di 30 Coperti servita a 18). Contemporary paste paper boards. Manuscript note on front pastedown reading “per il cuoco di casa Rusca di Chiara Rusca. Very good copy in original condition. Very rare and only edition of the first cookbook with a distinctly Milanese identity. The work, whose author is known only by the initials “L.O.G.”, contains the first printed recipe for Risotto all Milanese and is the fist Italian text to consciously attempt to break free from the dominant and omnipresent French cuisine. The author did this by introducing Italian stylistic elements into an upper-middle-class cultural context, which would later become typical of Italian cooks publishing in the following decades. First mentioned in a document from 1574, the ‘risotto alla Milanese” recipe was first published in this work nearly 325 years later. The anonymous author refers to it as “riso giallo in padella” (yellow rice in a pan) pp. 10-11. The recipe describes how to cook the rice, previously sautéed in butter, brains, marrow and onion, to which hot frog broth mixed with saffron is gradually added. Rare in the trade and in library collections: No copy listed in ICCU (Italian Union Catalogue), OCLC, or NUC
Maria Paleari Henssler. Bibliografia Latino-Italiana di Gastronomia, 228 & 467 where she designates this work (*) of particular importance. Gillian Riley. The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, p. 444-445. Anna Del Conte. Gastronomy of Italy, p. 338. Not cited in Westbury’s Handlist.
Price: $3,200.00