Baron Brisse

Ildéfonse-Léon Brisse was born in Gémenos, near Marseille, on 20 September 1803. He entered the public service in the Department of Water and Forestry under Louis-Philippe I but left after the 1848 revolution. He turned to journalism, specialising in articles on gastronomy.^[1] He was initially a freelancer at the Abeille impériale for a small salary that forced him to eat in the cheap restaurants of the Boulevard des Batignolles. In 1864 he founded a gastronomic journal, Salle à manger, chronique de la table, but it was a not a success and quickly folded.^[2]

Success came with the collaboration with Émile de Girardin who offered him a daily column in his newspaper La Liberté, which he had bought in 1866. Brisse wrote a daily gastronomic chronicle that included a suggested seasonal menu per day. The column was a great success, increased the circulation of the paper and was imitated by many newspapers.^[2] Brisse incorporated his daily columns into a book published in 1867, Le calendrier gastronomique pour l'année 1867.^[2] He published Les 365 menus du baron Brisse in 1868, La petite cuisine du baron Brisse in 1870 and Les 366 menus du baron Brisse in 1872 (a leap year).^[2]

According to one food historian, Brisse had neither the erudition of Grimod de La Reynière nor the philosophy of Brillat-Savarin, but he was "a master in the Art of the Table".^[1] In a biographical sketch published in 2013 Jean Vitaux described Brisse as "one of the founders of culinary journalism, [who] was to the Second Empire what Grimod de La Reynière was to the First ... a caricature, pleasant, whimsical, Rabelaisian character".^[2]

In 1872 Brisse moved from Paris to Fontenay-aux-Roses, living at the famous auberge Gigout, where he entertained his friends. He died there on 1 June 1876, aged 62.^[2]