1809 Gassicourt Gastronomical Map of France

This 1809 map of France, beautifully drawn and engraved by Jean François Tourcaty for author Charles Louis Cadet de Gassicourt, is the earliest instance of a carte gastronomique - a map devised not to show its subject country's cities or topography, but to show the foods characteristic to it. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the topic, the map is of France. It presents an open outline map of the country, with simply hachured coastlines. Rivers are shown in order to contextualize the regions and the chief cities but the bulk of the detail shown in the map are attractive pictorial vignettes each region's main produce. These range from the salt pans of the western coasts, fisheries, cattle, fowl (both before and after plucking), wheels of cheeses, and beehives. But overwhelmingly, wine and spirits dominate the map in a multiplicity of vineyards, stills, barrels and bottles. At a glance, one can characterize any one of the regions on the map by what one might find there to eat, in broad variety.

Scientifically Eating One's Way Across France

Cadet de Gassicourt included this map in his 1809 Cours Gastronomique, a work whereby the chemist, pharmacist and author applied the disciplines of modern chemistry to the business of cooking and eating - a subject which this map explores little, but sets the tone for. Cadet dedicated the work to, and perhaps intended it primarily for, La Societe Epicurienne du Caveau moderne (The Epicurean Society of the Modern Cellar). Cadet was a member of La Societe, and his compatriots' names decorate the grand cartouche at the left hand side of the engraving. Neither Cadet nor La Societe seem to have approached the science of eating too drily. They met every month, not only eating and drinking but singing as the musical instruments in the cartouche allude. They kept a journal as well, a copy fo which is depicted in the cartouche, in the grass beside the lyre. The sense of fun exhibited in the cartouche (witness the boy actively devouring it) is reflected in one of Cadet's songs:

Laugh, eat, sleep and drink, rhyme and sing about nothing, love always, this is the glory of the true Epicurean. . . . We need to have fun and happiness is in pleasure.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn and engraved by Jean François Tourcaty in 1809 for inclusion in Cadet de Gassicourt's Cours Gastronomique. Despite having inspired many other such food maps, we are aware of only one edition of this one. No separate examples are catalogued in OCLC, but perhaps twenty examples of the book are listed.