A fairly complete list of the best cook books and other treatises on gastronomic topics may be found in Ellwanger's Pleasures of the Table.
No fewer than 2,500 books and brochures, mostly French, are listed in George's Vicaire's Bibliographic Gastronomique.
Probably the best and most widely used of the French cook books are those of Urbain-Dubois. There are seven of them: Cuisine Classique, Cuisine Artistique, Grand Livre des Patissiers et des Confiseurs, Patisserie D'Aujourd'hui, Cuisine D'Aujourd'hui, Ecole des Cuisiniers, and La Cuisine de tous les Pays, which includes recipes of all the nations who know how to eat.
To another French classic, Richardin's La Cuisine Française (L'Art du Bien Manger) with its 2,000 recettes, its menus of historic as well as gastronomic interest, I shall refer in the next chapter.
The Germans and Austrians not only have books on the special ways of preparing food prevalent in different parts of the country, but books about the specialties of other countries, such as the making of marmalade in the English way, etc.
The author of Die Kunst des Essens, Emil Weissenturn, took the trouble to make lists of the still surviving cook books of various countries. Of 17 written in the fifteenth century, 10 were Latin, 1 English, while Germany, Italy and France each contributed 2. In the sixteenth century Latin was still in the lead with 42, followed by Germany with 30 and France with 21. Italy contributed 16, Spain 5, Greece 2, England 2.
In the seventeenth century France heads the list with 104 books; Germany printed 39, 31 were in Latin, 18 Italian, 10 English, 7 Dutch, 1 Portuguese, 1 Swedish. In the eighteenth century Germany comes to the fore with 96, France following with 60 and England with 34; 14 are in Latin, 11 Dutch, 5 Italian, 4 Spanish, 3 Swedish.
In the nineteenth century Germany's lead is still more remarkable—374 books as against 152 contributed by France. England makes a spurt with 118. Italy rises to 15; Sweden contributes 10, Holland 8, Poland 7, while Latin survives with 7.