Grimod de la Reynière lived during the crucial years during which the ancienne cuisine, exemplified in such works as Les Soupers de la cour by Menon (see french cookbooks), was supplanted by la cuisine moderne of carême and Plumerey. Grimod, as he is generally referred to, did not play a direct role in this transformation, but was rather an observer and chronicler of the cuisine practised in Paris in the first decade of the 19th century. He is generally credited with being the first food critic in the modern sense of the term, and for creating a new form of publication, the restaurant guide.
