If eating is a necessity, knowing how to eat is an art where knowledge of food matters just as much as tasting it. In this sense, the honorable Grimod de La Reyniere (1758-1837) is one of the greatest artists of good food, one of those who, before Brillat-Savarin, best codified and organized the appetite of gourmands and gourmets. [] What should we remember from this book where the jubilation of the writing is on a par with the pleasure of feasting? A few phrases of unparalleled humor. But beyond the happiness of the style and the accurate observation of things in nature, it is a whole philosophy that Grimod de La Reyniere transmits to us. A philosophy that can be compared to that of the divine Marquis de Sade: let us indulge in the worst debauchery, provided that we carry it out in a certain order. [] Disorderly gluttons, abstain! Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reyniere (1758-1837) was a French lawyer, journalist, serial writer and writer who achieved fame under Napoleon I for his witty and sometimes acerbic criticism, his mystifications and his love of gastronomy. Posterity has mainly remembered this last aspect of his personality and considers him, alongside Brillat-Savarin, as one of the founding fathers of modern Western gastronomy.