Answer: Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
Andrew and I often listen to an audiobook at night and our recent choice has been a first person novel about a food critic — which of course reminds me of Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires, which I’m now itching to revisit, and also gave me the idea for this blog post.
It turns out that the first restaurant critic was quite an eccentric figure. Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière (1758-1837) was born into a wealthy family in Paris. Because his fingers were deformed from birth his parents came him out of sight, but when they went away when he was a young man he would host ridiculous dinner parties. Once he segregated people making some stand on the balcony eating only biscuits, while he served an elaborate meal to other people in the banquet hall below. Once his father even returned to find a pig dressed up and seated at the head of the table! The young Grimod de La Reynière had become a lawyer and a theatre critic, but was now sent away to a monastery for two years. Culinary historian Cathy Kaufman (quoted by Atlas Obscura) says, “He dined well, if less colorfully, with the monks, and without an audience for his subversive games, Grimod began to study the arts of the table, rather than the table as art.” He later traveled around France learning about local cuisines and opened a shop in Lyon to sell groceries and other commodities.
After his father’s death Grimod de La Reynière returned to Paris, where he opened more shops, and in 1803 he published his first almanac of restaurant and food reviews “in his signature witty, scathing style.” L’Almanach des gourmands proved so popular that he published seven more volumes over the next nine years. He is credited with giving the terms “gourmand” and “gourmet” the positive connotations they have today (they used to be closely connected to the sin of gluttony). Not surprisingly Grimod de La Reynière also made enemies with his harsh reviews. In 1812 when his mother died, he inherited the family fortune, married his mistress, held a mock funeral dinner to see who would come, and retired to the country where he lived until his death in 1837.
Sources (Besides Wikipedia)
- “13 Most Influential Food Critics In History” by Fletcher Huntley via Tasting Table
- “The Dark and Fabulous Dinner Parties of the First Professional Food Critic” by Natasha Frost via Atlas Obscura