"AT THE SAME TIME AN INTELLECTUAL, AN EPICURE AND A PRACTICAL COOK": RECIPES BY ALICE B. TOKLAS, WITH AN AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY HER

TOKLAS, Alice B. Aromas and Flavours of Past and Present. WITH: Autograph letter signed. Paris: September 21, 1950. London: Michael Joseph, (1959). Octavo, original orange cloth, original dust jacket. $3500.

First edition of the follow-up to the famed Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, with a laid-in autograph letter signed by Toklas written on her Paris stationery, dated 9/21/50.

"Miss Toklas represents an extraordinary innovation—that is typically twentieth century. At the same time an intellectual, an epicure and a practical cook, she can cook at the same high level of perfection as she talks and writes about food," according to the introduction by food author Poppy Cannon, who edited the text and supplied commentary regarding potential ingredient substitutions and shortcuts for some of Toklas's more painstaking techniques. Toklas became a literary celebrity after her life partner Gertrude Stein published The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1933; in order to support herself following Stein's death in 1946, she published her first cook book in 1954 and this second collection of recipes "as much for the mind as for use in the kitchen" in 1959. With a letter written in Toklas's distinctive, miniscule hand, signed by her: "My dear Mr. Drew, Thank you for writing to me about my little article in the New York Times. It is regrettable that there is nothing more to tell you about your favorite authors, but really everything that I care to say was said in the article. Alas that there is not a single autograph to send you—Gertrude Stein left the enormous correspondence she received during the last forty years of her life to Yale University Library, where it has been these last four years. There is not a single autograph left here. It is too bad that I am not able to be more helpful to you. / Sincerely, A.B. Toklas."

Book with slight toning to endpapers, otherwise in fine condition, in a near-fine dust jacket with minor toning to spine and light edge wear.