Practical gastronomy

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Practical Gastronomy, published in 1903 by Charles Herman Senn, is a reference work built around the composition of menus in the grand French culinary tradition. Rather than a simple recipe collection, it functions as a working toolkit for cooks and household managers who needed to plan formal dinners, luncheons, suppers, and balls according to fashionable continental conventions. The book opens with practical aids such as a seasonal food chart, a bilingual English-French glossary, and guidance on pronouncing French culinary terms, before moving into an enormous catalog of soups, sauces, fish, meats, poultry, game, vegetables, salads, sweets, ices, savouries, and coffee service. Recipes are typically given with their French title and English translation, organized by course and often alphabetically within categories. The sheer number of named variations, many honoring people, places, or fashionable garnishes, reflects a period when elaborate multi-course dining and correct French nomenclature were markers of culinary sophistication. Modern readers will find it less a cookbook to follow step by step and more a structured survey of turn-of-the-century haute cuisine, useful for understanding how formal menus were built, what ingredients and techniques were prized, and how French culinary vocabulary shaped English kitchens of the era.

The book is organized as a sequence of courses and reference aids rather than a single alphabetical list. Section 1 opens with front matter: preface, contents, a seasonal availability chart, an English-French glossary, pronunciation guidance, and specimen menus. Section 2 moves into supper menus and hors-d'oeuvre before beginning the soup catalog, which continues through section 3 alongside foundational sauces. Section 4 covers further sauces and an extensive fish course. Section 6 through 8 progress through beef, veal, lamb, mutton, pork, and poultry (duck, capon, poularde, turkey, goose, pigeon, chicken), then into game birds. Section 9 covers four-footed game, cold entrees in aspic, large roasted removes, and dressed vegetables. Section 10 catalogs vegetables and potatoes alphabetically, plus punches, sorbets, and roast meats, leading into salads. Section 11 continues salads and then entremets sucres (sweet dishes). Section 12 covers souffles, omelettes, cakes and pastry, and an extensive savouries index plus egg dishes. Section 13 closes with further omelet varieties, ices and glaces, and dessert, cheese, and coffee service. The overall arrangement mirrors the order of a formal multi-course French dinner, from hors-d'oeuvre through coffee.