The Architecture of Cooking. Illustrations from: Urbain Dubois, La Cuisine Artistique, 1872

Urbain Dubois (1818-1901) was a French chef, an innovator of the art of the cuisine and a prolific author.
During his life, he authored a series of book on the cookery containing descriptions and recipes and featuring a very rich apparatus of illustrated plates depicting types of food, utensils, stoves, kitchenware, etc. In this way, the work, from its utilitarian nature, turns into a very serious encyclopedic survey on the culture, the technique, the machinery and the architecture of cooking.

Some of Dubois’ books are available online in the scanned format, both on Gallica and Archive.org.
Here is a bibliography retrievable from Wikipedia, to date, starting with La Cuisine classique, the book that Dubois wrote in 1856 together with Émile Bernard, Napoleon III chef:

• Dubois, Urbain; Bernard, Émile (1856), La Cuisine classique, études pratiques, raisonnées et démonstratives de l’école française appliquée au service à la Russe (2 Volumes). Gallica: Volume 1, Volume 2
• Dubois, Urbain (1868), Cuisine de tous les pays, études cosmopolites où sont rassemblées nombre de recettes, allemandes, françaises, italiennes, anglaises, russes, polonaises, etc., Paris: E. Dentu, OCLC 253487087. Link is to a scan of the 3rd edition published in 1872.
• Dubois, Urbain (1871), École des cuisinières, méthodes élémentaires, économiques. Cuisine, pâtisserie, office. 1500 recettes, Paris: E. Dentu, OCLC 315602150.
• Dubois, Urbain (1872), Cuisine artistique, étude de l’école moderne (2 Volumes), Paris: E. Dentu.
• Dubois, Urbain (1878), Nouvelle Cuisine bourgeoise pour la ville et pour la campagne (PDF), Paris: Bernardin-Béchet et fils. Link is to a scan of the 8th edition published in 1888.
• Dubois, Urbain (1883), Grand Livre des pâtissiers et des confiseurs (PDF), Paris: E. Dentu.
• Dubois, Urbain (1889), La Cuisine d’aujourd’hui, école des jeunes cuisiniers, service des déjeuners, service des dîners, 250 manières de préparer les œufs, Paris: E. Dentu, OCLC 560026770.
• Dubois, Urbain (1894), La Pâtisserie d’aujourd’hui, école des jeunes pâtissiers. Grands et petits gâteaux, sujets d’ornements, entremets chauds et froids, glaces, conserves de fruits & légumes. Buffets de réceptions, bals, soirées spécialités, Paris: E. Dentu, OCLC 46592123.

 

The following plates are extracted from La Cuisine Artistique (Artistic Cookery) and are interesting renditions of the loci, dedicated to the art of cooking and eating food. The last six plates describe a number of possible arrangements of food on the table.

Thanks to Giaime Meloni for the suggestion!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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