Rabelais: Fine Books on Food & Drink
Specializing in Six centuries of printed and manuscript books on food and drink, including cookery, gastronomy, wine, spirits, mycology, farming and gardening. An extensive inventory of culinary ephemera includes menus, trade cards, photographs and more. We buy and sell fine and rare books on all fields related to food and drink, and work with clients worldwide to source rare books and develop private collections.
About
Rabelais is always serving up fine books about food, drink, farming and gardening. We carry a sizable stock of rare and out-of-print culinary books, alongside prints, photographs and ephemera, all concerned with the pleasure of the senses. Rabelais also serves those inclined towards thirst. We have books on first growth wines and home beer brewing, cocktail culture and saloon society. Our shop, in an historic mill in Biddeford, Maine, contains six centuries of fine books on gastronomy. We maintain significant collections of books and ephemera on related fields, including menus, cocktails, distilling, beer and brewing, wild foods and mushroom foraging, cheesemaking and more. We work with private collectors and institutions to develop collections in fields related to cookery, and appraise individual items and collections for estate, insurance and donation purposes. In addition, we place culinary archives of significance with appropriate institutions.Appraisals
Available for appraisals
Recently Added Books
The Ladies National Cook Book. Presented by The Ladies Aid Society, East Raynham, Mass
by [First Baptist Church (Raynham, Mass.); Ladies Aid Society]
The Handbook for Housekeepers: Practical and Well Tested Receipts. Compiled by The Ladies' Aid Society of the Newton M. E. Church
by [First Methodist Episcopal Church (Newton, Mass.). Ladies' Aid Society]
Gem of the Mountain Cook Book. Issued by Ladies' Aid, Presbyterian Church, Soda Springs, Idaho [cover title]
by [Presbyterian Church (Soda Springs, Idaho); Ladies' Aid Society]
Dainties, Salads and Clever Hints. [Compiled by Members of the] Royal Neighbors of America Crown Camp 4224 New Albany
by [Royal Neighbors of America; Crown Camp No. 4224 (New Albany, Ind.)]
Cook Book of Millers Falls P.T.A. Compiled by [the] Chairman, Mrs. Alma Cuff
by [Highland School (Millers Falls); Parent-Teachers Association]; [Alma M. Cuff]
Cook Book. Favorite Recipes
by Woman's Club of Germantown
Reliable Receipts. Contributed by the Ladies of the Central Congregational Church, Newtonville, Mass
by [Central Congregational Church; Ladies of the Church]
Recently added catalogues
View all of this member's catalogues
Rabelais was in Boston to exhibit at the 47th Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, sponsored by the Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America. For the occasion, we assembled a list of one hundred+ exceptional culinary books, manuscripts and ephemeral items. The five centuries of items hail from 1549 to 1999, and include books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, account books, menus, trade cards, labels and more. This time around, our emphasis is on Boston and Massachusetts.
With this, our seventh full-length catalogue, we celebrate the tenth anniversary of Rabelais. In November of 2006, Samantha and I passed a ‘For Rent’ sign in a Portland shop window, spent lunch sketching a business plan on a napkin and, just a few months later in the Spring of 2007 opened Rabelais.
Thirty-seven notable items we will be brining to Florida for the 2016 RBMS Conference.
This, our sixth full-length catalogue, consists of things that come in bunches, piles, albums, boxes, folders, envelopes, and the like. Most are groups, collections and small archives of one sort or another. When cataloguing these types of things, I’m always tempted to use the word “convolute” (as a noun), not least of all because of the implication of chaos. But these groups are mostly organized, at least thematically, and occasionally by strict principals. Groups also provide opportunity for discovery, as any collector knows, and we hope you will discover something of interest amongst the crowded pages within, and that you are not overcome with too much of a good thing.
An illustrated catalogue of some of our better books, manuscripts and ephemera related to food and drink.
How and when did food production move from the kitchen to the factory? The items in this catalogue seek to illustrate this transformation. Included are printed and manuscript materials produced by and for the food industry: handbooks, trade catalogues, advertising art, labels, photographs, and ephemera. We've divided the catalogue into the primary activities that occur 'between farm and table', stopping just short of the home or restaurant kitchen.
We try hard to offer superior or distinguished copies of food and drink books, well researched, in condition befitting collectors. We hope you find this catalogue a tasty introduction to our books and to our shop.
July, 2011, we headed to New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail, the annual international conference for drink history and craft cocktail creation. We displayed hundreds of rare books on cocktails, drink history, distilling, wine, soda fountains and more.
<p>Our first catalogue of antiquarian titles contains books from the 18th through the 20th centuries, and includes cookbooks, artist’s books, farm and garden books, cocktail manuals and more. Issued 2010.</p>