Under the waning Ancien Régime and up to the Restoration, Parisian bourgeois tables did not separate into starter-main-dessert: several dishes were laid out at once on the tablecloth, in two or three successive "services." Potage and boiled beef opened the dinner (taken in the afternoon), followed by relevés and entrées (meats, vegetables, stews), then the roast, and finally sweet entremets, preserves and fruit. Each person helped themselves to whatever was within reach. In the modest home of a scholar like Legendre, this ceremony remained sober: few dishes, but a careful arrangement.

Cornerstone of any bourgeois kitchen of the time: a broth of beef and root vegetables simmered for hours by the hearth. It served as base for soups, moistened stews, and nourished the sick. It was said that a household was judged by the clarity of its broth. No tomato or New World product needed: carrots, turnips, leeks, burnt onion, clove.