Dave Jeffery: Author

When it comes to inspiration, Belchette's Encyclopaedia Gastronomica is Beatrice's favourite reference book. Standing at over seventy volumes, once ordered it is usually delivered by a small truck by two men with very broad backs and eyebrows that meet in the middle. It is said that they drink tea with six sugars and can eat their own body weight in custard creams. They never brush their teeth because their steady diet of sweet tea and sickly biscuits means they haven't got any.

Below is a brief history of this very famous book and its author.

When volume one of Belchette’s Encyclopaedia Gastronomica was first published in 1878 it caused quite a stir. Not only did the book raise public awareness to the subtle art of food preparation, it was also considered to be a major factor in the reduction of food poisoning in 17th century europe.

Its author - one Madame Marianne Ouef Pomme Fritte Belchette - was a successful chef from the auspicious L’Academie de Nourriture et de Gourmandise (The Academy of Food and Gluttony) in Paris. Following an illustrious career which involved standing up a lot in some very famous restaurants, Madame Belchette decided to have a very long sit down to compile the first book in a series that would revolutionise France - but without any of that nasty chopping people’s heads off business.

It is widely thought that Madame Belchette was the very first celebrity chef, but this is, of course, not true. This accolade goes to Caesar Flatus Colander, a cook in the Roman army who, amongst other things, was able to knock together a wonderful feast for a legion of men with only two rabbits, a sprig of thyme and several buckets of gravel. He is well known for the quote: ‘they say an army marches on its stomach – after my rabbit stew it hasn’t got much of a choice’.

Madame Belchette lived to the age of one hundred and five. Yet it may come as a bit of a surprise to learn it was not old age that killed her. It was, in fact, volume thirteen of Belchette’s Encyclopaedia Gastronomica which fell off a bookshelf in her kitchen, and landed on her head. There is a sense of irony in that, had it not been the one and only edition with a stainless steel cover, she may well have survived for a few more years.

Today Belchette’s Encyclopaedia Gastronomica continues under the watchful eye of Madame Belchette's great, great, great grandson who, as a result of a terrible childhood accident during the egg and spoon race at a school sports day, does, indeed, only have one eye.