The Passionate Epicure: La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet

by Marcel Rouff

In the classic French novel The Passionate Epicure, Marcel Rouff introduces Dodin-Bouffant, a character based loosely on Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, an infamous bachelor and epicure dedicated to the high the art of food and the art of love. This edition contains a preface by Lawrence Durrell and a new introduction by Jeffrey Steingarten, the food critic for Vogue magazine and author of the bestselling book The Man Who Ate Everything.

Genres: Food, France, Fiction, Food Writing, Cookbooks, Cooking, Classics

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

Reviews

[Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before there was Ruth Reichl, even before Elizabeth David and A.J. Liebling, there was Marcel Rouff. La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant is a hymn to French food. I veered between uncontrolled drooling (at the descriptions of the food) and cringing horror (at the sheer quantities consumed in one sitting). If you like watching the domestic goddess, or if Babette's Feast is your favourite movie, you'll love this book. If you've ever eaten a dish and felt your senses expand the way it does before great music or great art, you'll love this book. Excuse me now while I go wipe the drool off my keyboard.

[Niya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect little vignettes on the life of a true gourmand. If nothing else, reading the described menus makes one want to relearn the lost art - not of complicated, detailed, fiddly French cooking, but of understanding how to balance subtle, nuanced, complex flavours against each other to compose menus that titillate, soothe and delight simultaneously. Overall, a charming, is terribly verbose read.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a great read. Language and word choice is from the 1850s and so is exquisitely specific about food. Only Ruskin could write about the visual arts with this depth..

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Swiss author Marcel Rouff (1877-1936) wrote (with Curnonsky, the “prince of gastronomy”), the multi-volume work La France gastronomique, guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises (Gastronomic France: Guide to the culinary marvels and the good inns of France).
But he is best known today for this novel, especially thanks to the movie The Taste of Things, loosely based on the first part of the book.

My review is here:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/03/23/...

[Felipe Beirigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

LOOOOOOOOOOOKO. LARICA E TESÃO ANDAM DE MÃOS DADAS. CHORA IFOOD.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

A light but pleasant confection, loosely inspired by the life of Brillat-Savarin, famous author of "La physiology du goût". Rouff, however, takes several liberties with his model: Dodin-Bouffant only leaves his home town to take the waters once at Baden-Baden, under strict orders from his doctor, and hates everything about the experience, whereas Brillat-Savarin travelled quite widely, all the way to New York (albeit involuntarily, since he had to flee during the French Revolution). Dodin-Bouffant marries his cook, a dowdy and uneducated woman, to prevent her from being poached by a prince, jealous of Dodin's superior table. In real life, Brillat-Savarin remained a bachelor. But this is by-the-by, as in fact all Rouff wants to do is celebrate French culinary traditions and reiterate Brillat's main point, which is that cooking is as much of an art as painting or music. Towards the end, when Dodin is in Baden-Baden, he meets a cartoonish German who claims to have discovered that men should eat nothing but raw meat, like cavemen, in order to fulfill Hegelian principles. This scene seems included just to stress even more forcefully the superiority of French civilization as exemplified through its cuisine. Rouff's mock-lyrical prose gets monotonous after a while, but he doesn't quite exhaust his welcome.

[Yehuda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Passionate Epicure serves as a prophetic reminder as to how crude and soulless post-modern meals and related prep truly is given our hurried and willfully distracted existence. By contrast, to pick up this novel for quiet reading, is to immerse oneself into an old world of contemplative sensual awareness made possible by equally beautiful prose and historic imagining. And more than just a mouth-watering story of Cordon Bleu chefs extraordinaire where “cookery is the art of taste as painting is the art of sight and music that of hearing…” there is an ethereal spiritualism at work as well where the dining table is referred to as an altar (mensa ut altare), where “grace and refinement, blending and proportion, exact measure and sure taste carry within their own virtue; when their fortunate union succeeds in raising man above himself , in exalting him and bearing him to heights far beyond his own human condition…” It is a story of transfiguration in symbolism and affect. i can guarantee readers will not look at food prep and meals quite the same again after each reading.
It is no small wonder the equally immersive epicurean movie, bar none, The Taste of Things, was based upon this novel.
Note: My only issue with this book was that there was no glossary of liquors and wine in addition to the glossary of Dishes, Sauces and Garnishes.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Le grand Dodin-Bouffant, le poète de l’épicurisme, le maître de la divine sensualité, le Napoléon des gourmets, le Beethoven de la cuisine, le Shakespeare de la table!”

Ooh La La. That is quite the praise for Dodin-Bouffant who ran le petit Café de Saxe in the charming French region of Jura, the region bordering Switzerland. There he gathered to entertain, no, amuse, mmm, to satisfy perhaps best of all, to satiate his four friends: Beaubois the notary, Magot the animal merchant, doctor Rabat, and Trifouille the librarian. Every second Tuesday they gathered for a heavenly feast.

Yet the book starts with an ominous gathering. His long time partner and sous-chef Eugénie Chatagne had died. Equal to Didon-Boiffant in skill and talent, his eulogie is full praise and has left Didon, let’s call him that as in the book, in a certain malaisé.

A search is on to replace Eugénie, even though she will always be in Didon’s heart. After some failed starts, Adèle Podou makes the cart with a divine potage and wins his heart, literally.

When the Prince of Eurasie pays the Napoleon of cooking a visit, the food must be exquisite, beyond words. In the most showy of scenes, Dodin is first invited to the Prince’s feast. The menu is pages long and the feast, if we could call it that, more like a feat of endurance, takes all day. Beat that says the prince’s cook!

Simple is the word. Seven items, les friandises avant le potage, le potage Adèle Podou (see how she captured his heart), les fritures de Brillat-Savarin, his infamous pot-au-feu paré de ses légumes, la purée Soubese and les déserts. Add some nice fine wine. C’est perfect!

After that meal with the Prince, which won over the prince’s heart, Dodin asked Adèle to be his wife. Another heart won over. The best chef in France was taken. Alas, for Pauline d’Aizery. She wanted Dodin’s heart as well. Nothing like a little female competition to stir the pot. Ooh, a bad analogy.

Who would take Dodin’s heart? Another simple answer. All that fine dining, filled with fat and grease and beurre and rich succulent, delicious, mouth watering, god I am drooling, food. Quite literally, call in the doctor, well a second opinion doctor Bourboude to access the situation.

Change your diet, monsieur.

Hélas. A double whammy when Madame Dodin needs medical attention. You need a health spa, Madame. Go to Baden-Baden. Those Germans will fix you.

Ah, the classic duel of cultures. Those Germans that M. de Montaigne, who visited four hundred years ago, said  “fourbissent beaucoup mieux la vaisselle qu’en nos hostellerie de France” (they forged the dishes much better than in our inns in France). Praise for German cooking!? Just remember that four hundred years ago, French cooking wasn’t much to talk about, but as Dodin pointedly stated, “mais Seigneur qui créas toutes bontés et tour beautés, que mettent-ils dedans!” (but Lord who created all the goodness and beauty, what do they put in it!l. The French, bien sûr.

You can tell that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I had never heard of this charming 1920 book by Swiss author Marcel Rouff until I watched the French movie, “Le passion de Dodin-Bouffant” (The Taste of Things) with Benoît Magimel and Juliette Binoche. The movie is nothing like the book but it is truly magical watching these two fine actors make such sensuous food.

The book, it’s magical.

[Granny Sebestyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"la vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet" de Marcel Rouoff (221p)
Ed. Le serpent à plumes
Bonjour les fous de lectures....
J'ai découvert Dodin-Bouffant en BD, l'auteur s'était inspiré de ce livre que j'ai eu envie de lire à mon tour.
La grande cuisine a, en France, depuis longtemps conquis ses lettres de noblesse, et nous le devons en bonne partie à des hommes tels que Dodin-Bouffant.
Dodin a un appétit d'ogre.
Entouré d’un petit cercle de gastronomes triés sur le volet, fidèlement épaulé par une auxiliaire de talent que les têtes couronnées lui envient, Dodin ira jusqu’au bout de lui-même pour défendre son idéal d’une cuisine.
Je dois dire que j'ai préféré la BD au texte classique un peu désuet à mon goût.
Mais l'histoire de Dodin reste passionnante et ravira tous les gastronomes.
Un conseil ... ne lisez pas le vente vide, vous le regretteriez et votre balance ne vous dirait pas merci !!!!
Hommage à Brillat-Savarin, auquel son personnage emprunte nombre de traits, "La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant" est devenu, depuis sa parution en 1924, un classique de la littérature gastronomique.

[Madison]

Ima be honest.... idk what the fuck I just read. Its the book The Taste of Things movie was based on so of course I had to read it. I should of known that since it was a translated book and I had to special order it, plus the very few reviews on Gooodreads that this wasn't a well known book lol

but alas, she persisted and finished the damn thing, taking way longer than should have to read a very short story.

I may be more confused now than I was before reading it but oh well. Theres some romance? I might of missed a wedding.. someone gets gout, and these people LOVE to eat.

FIN

[S Vanorse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would love to see the kitchen described in this book as it was, then watch as they prepared one of those dinners, just the amount of work that went into the gathering of the food items for even one dish had to be crazy and reading the menu for the dinner party runs 4 typed pages had to be prepared and organized by someone with a great love of cooking, and preparing the absolute best for that time, maybe even better than today. Difficult book to get through but the translation was good.

[B.L. Colorado · Rating 4 out of 5]

First gastro themed fiction I've read. There are a lot of good descriptions of traditional French cooking and meals which sometimes seems like you can taste through the words.

[Jinjer]

Also a movie: https://rippleeffects.reviews/2024/07...

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful read. Makes one hunger for sumptuous feasting and grand eloquence at table once more.

[Radwa]

The Taste of Things (2023)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19760052...

[Amanda Reed · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this many years ago and I must say It has not aged well. The main character is obese in apatite for food, women, and his ego. Women who work for him are automatically expected to sleep with him because he is such a great epicure. Strip away the narrators ego building compliments and you have an obese man with a huge ego that eats and describes dishes.