Or why I desperately want a copy of his Dictionary of Cuisine, 1873

You know him for his historical and adventure novels like the Three Musketeers or maybe The Count of Monte-Cristo, but none of these immortal tales can hold a candle to what Alexandre Dumas considered his master work, Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, published posthumously in 1873, for which, tantalizing as it was with his vivid, exuberant style, he wished, as he was putting it together over the course of his life, to be remembered. They say he wrote all his 50 or so books for the money, but this one he wrote for love.

Since I travel to inform myself…whenever I come across a tasty dish I immediately ask for the recipe in order to add it to the cookery book, which I intend to publish one day. —Alexandre Dumas

Dumas’ appetite for great food was legendary, unequalled except perhaps by his appetite for women, with whom, during his marriage, despite his marriage, he allegedly had as many as 40 affairs, a string of writers, singers, actresses, and courtesans—he was a “big” man in his time, especially with the landmark of a dream house, the Château de Monte-Cristo, that he built on Port-Marly hill, between Marly-le-Roi and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in Île-de-France from the proceeds of Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo.

But The Dictionary of Cuisine, as reviews put it, is a “vast and formidable work,” a sprawling volume of culinary terms, recipes, anecdotes, society gossip, and food history, which run the course of the English alphabet, from absinthe to zest. He wrote it with every intention to have it crown his life’s work, but not before devouring all the books on classic cuisine, getting himself the best table at the very best restaurants through his travels from Paris to the French countryside, to other parts of Europe, particularly across the Caucasus, to Africa, everywhere he could go, and indulging in his particular interest in chefs and the secrets of their trade. A bon vivant and a passionate cook, he was said to go to great lengths to coax cook or chef to share with him the recipe of any dish that caught his fancy.

Rather than factual, The Dictionary of Cuisine is whimsical, rife with the curiosities and the imagination, as well as the excesses, with which Alexandre Dumas tackled his life’s work. Some scholars claim the recipes are unreliable, featuring exotics, such as quail soup in profiteroles and monkfish liver, or dishes with offbeat names like “the tails of sheep in the sun,” Lobster à la Borgia, Boar’s Head à la Machiavelli, or Veal Chop from the Doge of Venice. 

Not all recipes are out of this world. A particular salad Dumas liked, which he made himself, is included in the book by way of a letter he proudly wrote to French critic Jules Janin, describing it as “of great imagination, composite order, with five principal ingredients: Slices of beet, half-moons of celery, minced truffles, rampion with its leaves, and boiled potatoes…” Also thrown into the salad was “one hard-boiled egg yolk for each two persons—six for a dozen guests,” as well as chervil, crushed tuna, macerated anchovies, Maille mustard, a large spoonful of soya, chopped gherkins, and the chopped white of the eggs, and “a pinch of paprika, which is the Hungarian red pepper.”

There is also the recipe for the ortolans, a rare Eurasian songbird that is a kind of a finch but not quite. Dumas was unabashedly punchy in writing the procedure, instructing the reader to “asphyxiate them by plunging their heads into very strong vinegar. It is a violent death that improves their flesh.”

I’m not so sure if Alexandre Dumas was as adventurous with what he put in his mouth as The Dictionary of Cuisine seems to suggest. There’s a story going around that Gioachino Rossini invited him to dinner to impress him with a recipe the Italian composer called “Maccheroni alla Rossini,” a pasta dish with prosciutto, mushrooms, and Acqualagna truffles, ingredients considered atypical for a pasta dish in 1860. Rossini ended up disappointed. Not only was Dumas unimpressed—he refused to try it, disappointed that it was not the straightforward Neapolitan-style pasta he expected.

As for The Dictionary of Cuisine, I think I’m hungry now, as is my imagination. I’ll settle for a copy edited, abridged, and translated by Louis Colman, but my mouth waters imagining what it would be like to read it in French, as Dumas wrote it.