In the 19th century, the table of the provincial bourgeoisie and Parisian restaurants was not limited to the trio of starter-main course-dessert: it unfolded in several "services" brought together — the soup, the relevés (large fish or meat dishes), the fricots and everyday household dishes, then the sweet entremets. At Croisset, Flaubert kept a generous, rich Norman table; in Paris, at Magny or Brébant, he moved into the realm of the carefully prepared relevé of literary dinners. Added to this were drinks brought back from the Orient and preserved sweets that were cooked in large quantities to last several days.

Flaubert's cuisine breathes the Normandy of the Hôtel-Dieu in Rouen and Croisset: thick cream, farm butter and apple (as fruit, cider, or eau-de-vie) bind almost all the dishes. It is the opulent fat of the Pays de Caux, that of a man who, as he wrote, loved to "wallow" in sensations as much as in sentences.