The elevation of taste and the senses in the work of Grimod de La Reynière (18th-early 19th century)

Although the 20th century saw the development of an innovative field of study around the history of the senses, taste is largely absent from the works devoted to Grimod de La Reyniere, who was, along with Brillat-Savarin, one of the fathers of French gastronomic discourse. Therefore, this chapter explores the multiple taste sensibilities found in his work by focusing on his way of talking about taste. Through the Almanac des Gourmands (1803-1812) and the Manuel des Amphitryons (1808), Grimod played the role of cultural broker between the gastronomic uses of the Ancien Regime and those of the eaters of the 19th century. In these books, the emphasis is on the pleasure of eating and the need to have good judgement in tasting. Thus, physiological taste is the main and positive object of a literary genre, whereas previously it was considered animalistic and was at the bottom of the hierarchy of the five senses. Grimod’s search for taste therefore leads us to a better understanding of the metamorphoses of this meaning at the turn of modern times, as well as the roots and originality of a gastronomic discourse emerging at the beginning of the 19th century.