Grimod de la Reynière On Pigs
The olfactory prowess of these animals, which are already so dear to the gourmand, make them the finest scouts in their field. Let us bow before the truly versatile genius of our porcine friends, and acknowledge, in all fairness, that they are as useful to us alive as dead. Without them, truffles might remain hidden in the earth, fodder for spiders and maggots instead of illustrious gourmands.
This is a passage from “On Truffles,” an essay in The Gourmand’s Almanac, vol. 8 (1812) by Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, the claw-handed eccentric who wrote the world’s first restaurant guides.
I don’t know why he didn’t have an English translator, but he does now: me. I will be posting each essay as I complete it on this table of contents. I fully expect this to be interesting to about three people, but I suspect they’re excellent people.