A COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF COOKERY

A collection of Proverbs, Anecdotes, Opinions, and Obscure Facts on food, Drink, cooks, Cooking, Dining, Diners & dieters, dating from ancient times to the present, compiled by Robert Grabhorn and with a Preface by M.F.K. Fisher. San Francisco, 1985. North Point Press. viii + 175pp. Blue cloth with silver gilt imprint. Very good in slightly sunned dj. North Point's very attractive facsimile reprint of the Arion Press 1975 limited edition. Grabhorn was a San Francisco fine printer and publisher who, M.F.K. observed in her preface, also worked diligently at the arts of eating and drinking while indulging his fever for the printed word by clipping and filing gastronomic bons mots from some of the great wits and thinkers of history. Similar anthologies are not uncommon, but this one's a gem.