This delicious anthology of primary texts brings together the major English and French nineteenth-century writings on the arts and pleasures of the table. With the invention of the restaurant and a public scene of dining after the French Revolution, gastronomy emerged as a distinct genre of writing, treating food with philosophical significance. Romantic Gourmand recognizes that more goes into the making of a good meal than food itself, and they transformed dining into a fine art and a medium for self-expression. This excellent book examines the theories of ettiquette and food connoisseruship and how it became the foundation for our modern food culture with gourmet magazines, reviews and televized cuisine. Presenting texts, some of which appear in English for the fitst time, Diane Gigante's looks at the French genius behind modern gastronomy, essays include: Grimod de la Reyniere; Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "Physiology of Tast "; Alexandre Dumas' "Dictionary of Cuisine "; Charles Lamb's "Dissertation on Roast Pig "; William Thackeray's "Dinner-Giving Snobs "; lesser-known works by pseudonymous authors such as Launcelot Sturgeon and Dick Humelbergius Secundus. "Gusto "has an important place on the reading list of anyone studying, or with an intereste in, the history of food.