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.
Browse this Seller’s Inventory
Recently Listed Items
First Edition
Reindeer Recipes. Leaflet no 48
by [Reindeer - U.S.D.A.]; Stanley, Louise and Fanny Walker Yeatman
Washington D.C. : U.S. Department of Agriculture; [Government Printing Office] , 1929 (click for more details)
First Edition
The Kentucky Receipt Book
by Frazer, Mary Harris
Louisville, Ky : Press of the Bradley & Gilbert Company , 1903 (click for more details)
First Edition
Travels of the Shaker Salt Doll in the Royal Table Lands of the World
by [Paper dolls – Diamond Crystal Salt Company (St. Clair, Mich.)]
St. Clair, Mich : Diamond Crystal Salt Co , 1911 (click for more details)
First Edition
Louis' Every Woman's Cook Book
by Muckensturm, Louis
Boston; New York : H.M. Caldwell Company; [Colonial Press , 1910 (click for more details)
First Edition
The Old-Time Saloon. Not Wet – Not Dry – Just History
by Ade, George
New York : Ray Long and Richard Smith Inc , 1931 (click for more details)Recent Catalogs
UNXLD: American Cookbooks of Community Place, vol. 1
THE FIRST volume in a long-term effort to examine American community cookbooks as well as other cookbooks outside the formal genre that express place and/or community.
WITHIN THE CATALOGUE, the items are arranged alphabetically by state, and chronologically within each state. This first offering (of what is expected to be six volumes in all) includes one hundred forty-four community books (and others which address issues of place and community) from Alabama through the District of Columbia, nearly one quarter of which are unrecorded.
WITHIN THE CATALOGUE, the items are arranged alphabetically by state, and chronologically within each state. This first offering (of what is expected to be six volumes in all) includes one hundred forty-four community books (and others which address issues of place and community) from Alabama through the District of Columbia, nearly one quarter of which are unrecorded.
Recent Catalogs
2019 Bibliography Week ABAA Showcase
A short catalogue of items we will be bringing to the 2019 Bibliography Week ABAA Showcase in New York City. The one-day showcase takes place Thursday, January 24th, from 10-4pm, and is located at the French Institute /Alliance Francaise, at 22 East 60th Street. The catalogue, offered here in no particular order, is mostly newly-catalogue printed and manuscript books and ephemera, all related to cookery.