French food and literature

Balzac's Omelette
Omelette as a work of art reminds me of this Omelette woman painting. Looking at the old lady seated and cooking, it also reminds me of my grandmother and her kitchen. In their days, the stove occupied very little space. In a generation, the cooking space has changed so much. Imagine how different the culinary scene would have been in the times of Balzac. We are talking about 1800s. Balzac was a French Novelist and a playwright.
the author takes us two centuries into the past into the streets of Paris as well as into the books of Balzac, to take a look at the elite parties as well as meagre broth households. She takes us to a time when cheese was poor man's food and Paris saw the rise of restaurants. Lunch wasnt always an important meal(pg 58).Having Russian service from 'blood, Bones and Butter' fresh in my mind, it was insightful to contrast the French service. the author mentions that the art of decorating flowers on dining tables came from Russia.This is the strongest part of the book where the readers are grabbed in easily.
The author shows with all the examples of sketches of characters in Balzac's books, how Balzac was the first to use food in his novels as a window to a character, their class in society. The author also contrasts Balzac's style with writers like Zola, Proust and others to show how the rest treated food differently in their books. The first chapter is about Balzac's relation with food. He went great lengths to find the food he had his mind upon. While most chapters held me in curiosity, 'The misers and the food worshippers' read like a boring compilation of characters and their relationship with food.
There are really some lines about how to make 'Balzac's omelette'.
The last but one line about Proust on 'a fish whose body with its numberless vertebrae, its blue and pink veins, had been constructed by nature, but according to an architectural plan, like a polychrome cathedral of the deep' is a look at how different the world seems to a person who sees with a sense of hunger.



While Adam could have 15 dozen oysters, Balzac too could have over 100 oysters and more after finishig a novel, working at it day and night.
Balzac used restaurants to move his plots forward(pg 66).
French vs Russian service

Laclos
Pantagruelism
Olivet Cheeses
Airport novels
brace of partridge
Comice Pears
embonpoint
Craquelin
Vouvray
regrttiers - traders who buy leftovers.
Trotter
white pudding
Black pudding
Lucien Rubempre
Oysters from Ostend
totted up -sum up
Hundred days
pate from Strasbourg
hams from Mayence

Gray patridge
Blanquette
Fricandeau
a la Pluche
a la Barigoule
a la Robert
Brandade
Jabot
cutlets a la Soubise
Chicken a la Marengo
Machicolation
Poussin's landscape on Sevres ware
collation -light meal permitted on fast days
balzac never saw a great chef at work, there is a notable absence of great culinary artists in his novels(pg 87).
fashion for decorating tables with flowers came from Russia(pg 89).
serviette - napkin

au sucre
Marron glaces
orgeat
Jugged hare
sea pie
specious - having a false look of truth
Grisette

Mother sauce - I heard of it first from Robert Irvine on Restaurant Impossible
making of soy sauce
Foods named after people
Lake Leman
Garret room
Peignoir
Collops