Taillevent, the Traditionalist

Taillevent’s Le viandier is the storehouse of the medieval cooking tradition. As a cookbook author, Taillevent is unique, and his book was widely read throughout Europe for more than three centuries. First printed in Paris in 1486, Le viandier remained in print for over two centuries, a remarkable feat even by the standards of today. The manuscript originated at the French court, probably around 1375 during the reign of King Charles V. Until 1505, it was the only French cookbook in print, so popular that at least twenty-four editions followed the first, ending in Lyon in 1615. The book was even reincarnated in a nineteenth-century reprint of three early manuscript versions, compared and annotated by Baron Jérôme Pichon.¹³