The Book of Hosts: Le Manuel des Amphitryons

The author Grimod de la Reynière is the ‘well-bred” host which means that he is curious, educated, lettered, cultivated. The intention of this work is therefore to show that the ‘well-bred” host is a figure of indulgence through which a philosophy of food and culture may be construed.The aesthetic context, content and significance of food and dining was perfectly well critiqued in the 20th century by sociologist Adorno who wrote, “the autonomy of the aesthetic experience occurs only when it is appreciated outside of its culinary environment.” This deviation from the culinary experience approaches the subject of taste within the realms of other artistic environments. This book seeks out refinement and defines the delicacy of taste, not only within the upper-echeloned spheres of existence, but also in its unique relations to sustaining life through the production, preparation and consumption of food or perhaps better contextually interpreted as the anthropology of eating. De la Reynière refined sensuous perception as an art form which allows us to follow the ratiocination of French aesthetes through the post Enlightenment period to the mid-19th century