| Curwen Press: | G40 |
| Curwen Press: | G40 |
[A]2r
[inside a 20pt. border of flowers] For the Habitués of [inside a frame of decorative rules etc. ½" × 2½"] "A L'ECU DE FRANCE" A FEW CULINARY RECIPES CLASSICAL AND REGIONAL COMPILED BY EUGÈNE HERBODEAU LONDON 111 JERMYN STREET, S.W.1 TELEPHONE: WHITEHALL 2837 [short double rule] 1944
[A]2v
[A]8 B-E8.
[i-iii] iv-x, 1-68 [+2].
Demy 8o: 8½" × 5¼", trimmed, white wove, no mark; 12(+1½)pt. Baskerville; card wrappers, with yellow antique-embossed paper wrappers around, fixed to card by the turn-ins, printed up spine: ‘EUGÈNE HERBODEAU : A FEW CULINARY RECIPES’, and on upper wrapper: ‘[within a double-rule border] A FEW CULINARY RECIPES CLASSICAL & REGIONAL Compiled by EUGÈNE HERBODEAU [double rule] FOR THE HABITUÉS OF 'A L'ECU DE FRANCE' [double rule] [block: a platterful of eatables including a fowl] A L'ECU DE FRANCE 111 JERMYN STREET, S.W.1 WHITEHALL 2837’.
I believe the transcript to be accurate; French people commonly omit accents over capital letters in print; the habitués were presumably Free French gathering at this London restaurant; 'Écu' means 'Crown'; it may be that they were royalists.
Herbodeau, a protegé of Auguste Escoffier, was his literary executor; he worked under Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel, which was destroyed by German bombs early in 1940; ephemera and menus from Escoffier and Herbodeau are very scarce.
Robin Phillips, 1963