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Curnonsky

January 06, 2023

Maurice Edmond Sailland[a] (October 12, 1872, Angers, France – July 22, 1956, Paris), better known by his pen-name Curnonsky (nicknamed 'Cur'), and dubbed the Prince of Gastronomy, was one of the most celebrated writers on gastronomy in France in the 20th century. He wrote or ghost-wrote many books in diverse genres and many newspaper columns. He is often considered the inventor of gastronomic motor-tourism as popularized by Michelin, though he himself could not drive. He was a student of Henri-Paul Pellaprat.

Commemorative plaque at 14, place Henri-Bergson, Paris.

Biography

Maurice Edmond Sailland was born in Angers (Maine-et-Loire) on October 12, 1872 to Edmond-Georges Sailland and his wife Blanche-Alphonsine Mazeran.[1] His mother died within of month of his birth, and his father abandoned him. He was raised by his grandmother in Angers and attended the Collège Saint-Maurille in town. At the age of 18, he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole Normale Supérieure to prepare for a career in journalism.[2]

Curnonsky's friend Paul Reboux wrote in 1933: "For 40 years, Curnonsky did almost all of the jobs in the literary profession. He was a novelist, a columnist, a humorist, a publicists, a music hall critic ... and a 'discreet collaborator,' that is to say, a 'ghost writer.' ... But it would be to speak of Curnonsky in a quite incomplete manner to not insist on his merits as a gastronome."[3] His role in promoting French gastronomy is perhaps what he is best known for today.

Curnonsky took every occasion to promote his theory of the four cuisines of France:

La Haute Cuisine, celle des Grands chefs, qui, disons-le n'est pas à la portée de toutes les bourses ...
La Cuisine Bourgeoise, triomphe des bonnes maîtresses de maison et de nos cordons bleus auteurs d'une cuisine simple et parfaite.
La Cuisine Impromptue, celle des campeurs, de ceux qui vont à pied, celle qui se fait à l'INFORTUNE DU POT. Naturellement la conserve y a sa part. Mais la conserverie française est parfaite.
Enfin la Cuisine Régionale, celle qui réalise en France la sainte alliance du tourisme et de la gastronomie.[4]

Haute Cuisine, that of the Great Chefs which, to be clear, is not available to all pocketbooks...
Bourgeois Cuisine, the triumph of good middle-class women and our cordon bleus, creators of a simple and perfect cuisine.
Impromptu Cuisine, that of campers, of those who go by foot, which uses whatever is available. Naturally canned foods have their place here. But French canning is perfect.
Finally, Regional Cuisine, which in France achieves the Holy Alliance of tourism and gastronomy.

Curnonsky's professional activities were truly wide-ranging. He even created a number of advertising slogans for important companies.[2] According to his biographer Arbellot, he coined the name Bibendum for the Michelin Man in 1907—because "Michelin tires drink [i.e. 'soak up' or 'eat up'] everything, even obstacles"—, and wrote Michelin's weekly column "Les Lundis de Michelin" in Le Journal starting on November 25, 1907. It was originally signed "Michelin" but starting on March 2, 1908, it was signed "Bibendum". Michelin had used the phrase "Nunc est bibendum" ("Cheers!" in Latin) on a poster in 1898, showing the Michelin Man swallowing a glass full of nails, but it is unclear when the word "Bibendum" became applied to this character.

In 1921, he began writing a series of regional travel guides with Marcel Rouff, published under the collective title of La France Gastronomique: Guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises (Gastronomic France: Guide to the culinary marvels and the good inns of France). This was the early days of automobile tourism, which served to highlight the regional foods of France. Curnonsky and Rouff played an important role in the increasing popularity of discovering regional dishes and restaurants. Between 1921 and 1928, Curnonsky and Rouff wrote 28 volumes, which totaled 3,000 pages and included more than 5,000 recipes.[5] The historian Julia Csergo writes that Curnonsky and Rouff "invented the 'gastronomic guide' with the publication of their Gastronomic Tour of France".[6]

He was named a knight of the Légion d'Honneur in 1928 and was made an officer in 1938.[1]

In 1928, he co-founded the Académie des gastronomes, modelled on the Académie Française, and served as its first president, until 1949.[7] In 1947, he started the magazine Cuisine et Vins de France along with Madeleine Decure. In 1950, he was a co-founder of the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs His other associations included honorary member of the Club des Purs Cent, member of the Association des Gastronomes régionalistes, and member of the Académie de l'Humour.[8]

To honor his eightieth birthday, eighty restaurants marked his favorite table with a copper plaque reading:

Cette place est celle

de Maurice Edmond Sailland-Curnonsky
Prince élu des gastronomes
Défenseur et illustrateur de la Cuisine française

Hôte d'honneur de cette maison

This led to the legend that eighty restaurants reserved a table for him every night in case he should show up, though by that point, he rarely went out at all.

Curnonsky died on July 22, 1956, at the age of 89. He fell out of the window of his third floor Paris apartment. He was on a severe diet at the time and was anemic, thus it was speculated that he had fainted while standing on his balcony.[9] A year later a commemorative plaque on nr. 14 of the place Henri-Bergson, Paris 8e was installed and a booklet published on this occasion.

Name

The name "Curnonsky" comes from the Latin cur + non "why not?" plus the Russian suffix -sky, as all things Russian were in vogue in 1895, when he coined it. He once said that this nickname was "my tunic of Nessus, as I am neither Russian, nor Polish, nor Jewish, nor Ukrainian, but just an average Frenchman and wine-guy [sacavin]". Sailland wrote, co-wrote, and ghost wrote over 150 books, some under other pseudonyms, including Perdiccas, Sailland-Curnonsky, and Maurice Curnonsky.[5]

In 1927, the newspaper Paris-Soir organized an election, or referendum, among its readers to chose the "prince of the gastronomes." Curnonsky (who signed his articles as "Cur" at this time) beat out the likes of Maurice des Ombiaux, Léon Daudet, and Ali Bab.[10] [11] For the next several years, into early 1930, he edited a weekly full-page feature in Paris-Soir entitled "Annales of Gastronomy"; on the masthead he was identified as "Cur I, Prince des Gastronomes."

 
Curnonsky

Philosophy

A celebrated aphorism of Curnonsky's was:

La cuisine, c'est quand les choses ont le goût de ce qu'elles sont.
Good cooking is when things taste of what they are.

He advocated simple food over complicated, rustic over refined, and often repeated the phrase

Et surtout, faites simple!
And above all, keep it simple!

In a 1937 interview, Curnonsky drew a contrast between his philosophy of French cuisine and that of the great chefs of the day. He noted that he was elected "democratic prince [of gastronomy] ... by the cooks and cordon bleus who, every day, make healthy, simple, good food," and the great chefs, "the grand aristocrats of cuisine, the Prosper Montagnés, the Escoffiers, the Philéas Gilberts, ... who, in Paris or in the provinces, maintain the traditions of elaborate and skilled French cuisine."[12] Curnonsky praised women who he believed cooked by instinct, without formal training. It was a cuisine that was "straightforward, clear in taste and never aimed at effect... A tranquil and well-prepared cuisine, a cuisine of cordon bleu."[13]

Partial bibliography

  • By Curnonsky
    • with Marcel Rouff, La France Gastronomique: Guides des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises Paris, 1921–29, in 28 volumes.
    • with Austin de Croze, Le Trésor gastronomique de la France, 1933.
    • Cuisine et Vins de France. Paris, 1953. A collection of recipes collected by Curnonsky from restaurants. New edition, with preface and updates by Robert Courtine, Paris: Larousse, 1974 ISBN 2-03-018110-2.
    • Souvenirs Littéraires et Gastronomiques, Paris: Albin Michel, 1958.
  • Curnonsky: Prince des Gastronomes, Simon Arbellot, Paris: Les Productions de Paris, 1965. Biography.
  • Curnonsky et ses amis, Association des amis de Curnonsky, Paris: Librairie Edgar Soete, 1979. A collection of reminiscences.
  • Curnonsky – à la carte... Munich: Edition Curnonska[permanent dead link], 2007
  • Curnonsky – en route... Munich: Edition Curnonska, 2007
  • Curnonsky – souvenirs gastronomiques... Munich: Edition Curnonska, 2007

In 2003, German art historian Inge Huber discovered five boxes with letters of Curnonsky, and authored a biography "Curnonsky. Oder das Geheimnis des Maurice-Edmond Sailland" 2010, Rolf Heyne Editor.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Some sources spell it 'Saillant', but the 'd' spelling is used in his autobiography and most other reliable sources.

References

  1. ^ a b "Recherche - Base de données Léonore". www.leonore.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  2. ^ a b d'Angers, Archives patrimoniales de la ville. "Curnonsky, Prince des Gastronomes : Archives patrimoniales de la ville d'Angers". archives.angers.fr (in French). Retrieved 2022-09-09.
  3. ^ Reboux, Paul (July 7, 1933). "Curnonsky, angevin". Le Petit Courrier. p. 4. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  4. ^ Jung, André (1996). "La Gastronomie Nivernaise au Début du Siècle ou le Voyage gourmand de Curnonsky et Marcel Rouff". Bulletin de la Société Nivernaise des Lettres, Sciences et Arts. 45: 190 – via Gallica.
  5. ^ a b "Curnonsky (1872-1956)". data.bnf.fr. Retrieved 2022-08-17.
  6. ^ Csergo, Julia (2008). "Lyon, Première 'Capitale Mondiale de la Gastronomie' 1925-1935". Voyages en Gastronomies: L'invention des capitales et des régions gourmandes (in French). Paris: Editions Autrement. p. 39.
  7. ^ Lebeau, Jacques (2014). Curnonsky, prince des gastronomes de A à Z (in French). Paris: L'Harmattan. pp. 9–13.
  8. ^ Beaux-arts (in French), 1940-01-01, retrieved 2022-08-17
  9. ^ Anonymous (23 July 1956). "Curnonsky 'le prince des gastronomes' est mort". Combat. p. 3. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  10. ^ Pitte, Jean-Robert (2002). French Gastronomy: The History and Geography of a Passion. Translated by Gladding, Jody. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 139.
  11. ^ Saillard, Denis (2015). "Chefs Contre Gastronomes, Histoire d'une Défait Médiatique (1880-1940)". Le Temps des médias - Nouveau Monde éditions. 1 (24): 51 – via Cairn.info.
  12. ^ L’Intransigeant (in French), 1937-03-16, retrieved 2022-09-09
  13. ^ Drouard, Alain (2007). "Chefs, Gourmets and Gourmands: French Cuisine in the 19th and 20th Centuries". In Freedman, Paul (ed.). Food: The History of Taste. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 284.

Further reading

  • Csergo, Julia (1999). "The Emergence of Regional Cuisines." In Food: A Culinary History, eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari. English edition by Albert Sonnenfeld. Trans. Clarissa Botsford, Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 500-515.
  • Ory, Pascal (1997). "Gastronomy." In Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Vol. 2. Dir. Pierre Nora. English edition ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 442-467.

External links

    January 06, 2023
    curnonsky, maurice, edmond, sailland, october, 1872, angers, france, july, 1956, paris, better, known, name, nicknamed, dubbed, prince, gastronomy, most, celebrated, writers, gastronomy, france, 20th, century, wrote, ghost, wrote, many, books, diverse, genres,. Maurice Edmond Sailland a October 12 1872 Angers France July 22 1956 Paris better known by his pen name Curnonsky nicknamed Cur and dubbed the Prince of Gastronomy was one of the most celebrated writers on gastronomy in France in the 20th century He wrote or ghost wrote many books in diverse genres and many newspaper columns He is often considered the inventor of gastronomic motor tourism as popularized by Michelin though he himself could not drive He was a student of Henri Paul Pellaprat Commemorative plaque at 14 place Henri Bergson Paris Contents 1 Biography 2 Name 3 Philosophy 4 Partial bibliography 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksBiography EditMaurice Edmond Sailland was born in Angers Maine et Loire on October 12 1872 to Edmond Georges Sailland and his wife Blanche Alphonsine Mazeran 1 His mother died within of month of his birth and his father abandoned him He was raised by his grandmother in Angers and attended the College Saint Maurille in town At the age of 18 he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole Normale Superieure to prepare for a career in journalism 2 Curnonsky s friend Paul Reboux wrote in 1933 For 40 years Curnonsky did almost all of the jobs in the literary profession He was a novelist a columnist a humorist a publicists a music hall critic and a discreet collaborator that is to say a ghost writer But it would be to speak of Curnonsky in a quite incomplete manner to not insist on his merits as a gastronome 3 His role in promoting French gastronomy is perhaps what he is best known for today Curnonsky took every occasion to promote his theory of the four cuisines of France La Haute Cuisine celle des Grands chefs qui disons le n est pas a la portee de toutes les bourses La Cuisine Bourgeoise triomphe des bonnes maitresses de maison et de nos cordons bleus auteurs d une cuisine simple et parfaite La Cuisine Impromptue celle des campeurs de ceux qui vont a pied celle qui se fait a l INFORTUNE DU POT Naturellement la conserve y a sa part Mais la conserverie francaise est parfaite Enfin la Cuisine Regionale celle qui realise en France la sainte alliance du tourisme et de la gastronomie 4 Haute Cuisine that of the Great Chefs which to be clear is not available to all pocketbooks Bourgeois Cuisine the triumph of good middle class women and our cordon bleus creators of a simple and perfect cuisine Impromptu Cuisine that of campers of those who go by foot which uses whatever is available Naturally canned foods have their place here But French canning is perfect Finally Regional Cuisine which in France achieves the Holy Alliance of tourism and gastronomy Curnonsky s professional activities were truly wide ranging He even created a number of advertising slogans for important companies 2 According to his biographer Arbellot he coined the name Bibendum for the Michelin Man in 1907 because Michelin tires drink i e soak up or eat up everything even obstacles and wrote Michelin s weekly column Les Lundis de Michelin in Le Journal starting on November 25 1907 It was originally signed Michelin but starting on March 2 1908 it was signed Bibendum Michelin had used the phrase Nunc est bibendum Cheers in Latin on a poster in 1898 showing the Michelin Man swallowing a glass full of nails but it is unclear when the word Bibendum became applied to this character In 1921 he began writing a series of regional travel guides with Marcel Rouff published under the collective title of La France Gastronomique Guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges francaises Gastronomic France Guide to the culinary marvels and the good inns of France This was the early days of automobile tourism which served to highlight the regional foods of France Curnonsky and Rouff played an important role in the increasing popularity of discovering regional dishes and restaurants Between 1921 and 1928 Curnonsky and Rouff wrote 28 volumes which totaled 3 000 pages and included more than 5 000 recipes 5 The historian Julia Csergo writes that Curnonsky and Rouff invented the gastronomic guide with the publication of their Gastronomic Tour of France 6 He was named a knight of the Legion d Honneur in 1928 and was made an officer in 1938 1 In 1928 he co founded the Academie des gastronomes modelled on the Academie Francaise and served as its first president until 1949 7 In 1947 he started the magazine Cuisine et Vins de France along with Madeleine Decure In 1950 he was a co founder of the Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs His other associations included honorary member of the Club des Purs Cent member of the Association des Gastronomes regionalistes and member of the Academie de l Humour 8 To honor his eightieth birthday eighty restaurants marked his favorite table with a copper plaque reading Cette place est cellede Maurice Edmond Sailland Curnonsky Prince elu des gastronomes Defenseur et illustrateur de la Cuisine francaise Hote d honneur de cette maison This led to the legend that eighty restaurants reserved a table for him every night in case he should show up though by that point he rarely went out at all Curnonsky died on July 22 1956 at the age of 89 He fell out of the window of his third floor Paris apartment He was on a severe diet at the time and was anemic thus it was speculated that he had fainted while standing on his balcony 9 A year later a commemorative plaque on nr 14 of the place Henri Bergson Paris 8e was installed and a booklet published on this occasion Name EditThe name Curnonsky comes from the Latin cur non why not plus the Russian suffix sky as all things Russian were in vogue in 1895 when he coined it He once said that this nickname was my tunic of Nessus as I am neither Russian nor Polish nor Jewish nor Ukrainian but just an average Frenchman and wine guy sacavin Sailland wrote co wrote and ghost wrote over 150 books some under other pseudonyms including Perdiccas Sailland Curnonsky and Maurice Curnonsky 5 In 1927 the newspaper Paris Soir organized an election or referendum among its readers to chose the prince of the gastronomes Curnonsky who signed his articles as Cur at this time beat out the likes of Maurice des Ombiaux Leon Daudet and Ali Bab 10 11 For the next several years into early 1930 he edited a weekly full page feature in Paris Soir entitled Annales of Gastronomy on the masthead he was identified as Cur I Prince des Gastronomes CurnonskyPhilosophy EditA celebrated aphorism of Curnonsky s was La cuisine c est quand les choses ont le gout de ce qu elles sont Good cooking is when things taste of what they are He advocated simple food over complicated rustic over refined and often repeated the phrase Et surtout faites simple And above all keep it simple In a 1937 interview Curnonsky drew a contrast between his philosophy of French cuisine and that of the great chefs of the day He noted that he was elected democratic prince of gastronomy by the cooks and cordon bleus who every day make healthy simple good food and the great chefs the grand aristocrats of cuisine the Prosper Montagnes the Escoffiers the Phileas Gilberts who in Paris or in the provinces maintain the traditions of elaborate and skilled French cuisine 12 Curnonsky praised women who he believed cooked by instinct without formal training It was a cuisine that was straightforward clear in taste and never aimed at effect A tranquil and well prepared cuisine a cuisine of cordon bleu 13 Partial bibliography EditBy Curnonsky with Marcel Rouff La France Gastronomique Guides des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges francaises Paris 1921 29 in 28 volumes with Austin de Croze Le Tresor gastronomique de la France 1933 Cuisine et Vins de France Paris 1953 A collection of recipes collected by Curnonsky from restaurants New edition with preface and updates by Robert Courtine Paris Larousse 1974 ISBN 2 03 018110 2 Souvenirs Litteraires et Gastronomiques Paris Albin Michel 1958 Curnonsky Prince des Gastronomes Simon Arbellot Paris Les Productions de Paris 1965 Biography Curnonsky et ses amis Association des amis de Curnonsky Paris Librairie Edgar Soete 1979 A collection of reminiscences Curnonsky a la carte Munich Edition Curnonska permanent dead link 2007 Curnonsky en route Munich Edition Curnonska 2007 Curnonsky souvenirs gastronomiques Munich Edition Curnonska 2007In 2003 German art historian Inge Huber discovered five boxes with letters of Curnonsky and authored a biography Curnonsky Oder das Geheimnis des Maurice Edmond Sailland 2010 Rolf Heyne Editor See also EditMarcel Boulestin Marcel Rouff Eugenie BrazierNotes Edit Some sources spell it Saillant but the d spelling is used in his autobiography and most other reliable sources References Edit a b Recherche Base de donnees Leonore www leonore archives nationales culture gouv fr Retrieved 2022 09 10 a b d Angers Archives patrimoniales de la ville Curnonsky Prince des Gastronomes Archives patrimoniales de la ville d Angers archives angers fr in French Retrieved 2022 09 09 Reboux Paul July 7 1933 Curnonsky angevin Le Petit Courrier p 4 Retrieved August 18 2022 Jung Andre 1996 La Gastronomie Nivernaise au Debut du Siecle ou le Voyage gourmand de Curnonsky et Marcel Rouff Bulletin de la Societe Nivernaise des Lettres Sciences et Arts 45 190 via Gallica a b Curnonsky 1872 1956 data bnf fr Retrieved 2022 08 17 Csergo Julia 2008 Lyon Premiere Capitale Mondiale de la Gastronomie 1925 1935 Voyages en Gastronomies L invention des capitales et des regions gourmandes in French Paris Editions Autrement p 39 Lebeau Jacques 2014 Curnonsky prince des gastronomes de A a Z in French Paris L Harmattan pp 9 13 Beaux arts in French 1940 01 01 retrieved 2022 08 17 Anonymous 23 July 1956 Curnonsky le prince des gastronomes est mort Combat p 3 Retrieved 12 September 2022 Pitte Jean Robert 2002 French Gastronomy The History and Geography of a Passion Translated by Gladding Jody New York Columbia University Press p 139 Saillard Denis 2015 Chefs Contre Gastronomes Histoire d une Defait Mediatique 1880 1940 Le Temps des medias Nouveau Monde editions 1 24 51 via Cairn info L Intransigeant in French 1937 03 16 retrieved 2022 09 09 Drouard Alain 2007 Chefs Gourmets and Gourmands French Cuisine in the 19th and 20th Centuries In Freedman Paul ed Food The History of Taste Berkeley University of California Press p 284 Further reading EditCsergo Julia 1999 The Emergence of Regional Cuisines In Food A Culinary History eds Jean Louis Flandrin amp Massimo Montanari English edition by Albert Sonnenfeld Trans Clarissa Botsford Arthur Goldhammer New York Columbia University Press pp 500 515 Ory Pascal 1997 Gastronomy In Realms of Memory The Construction of the French Past Vol 2 Dir Pierre Nora English edition ed Lawrence D Kritzman Trans Arthur Goldhammer New York Columbia University Press pp 442 467 External links EditBibliography of French food books including many by Curnonsky Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Curnonsky amp oldid 1128747644, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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