Pierre Corneille at the table

At the bourgeois table of the Grand Siècle, the meal is not divided into starter-main course-dessert but unfolds in successive services placed all together on the tablecloth: first the soups and boiled meats, then the roasts and pies (the 'relevé'), next the entremets, and finally the 'fruit' — preserves, fresh fruits, and sweet drinks. Each person serves themselves from what is within reach. In Rouen as in Paris, meals are taken at fixed hours, with the family, and wine is drunk mixed with water.

Norman by birth, Corneille grew up in the land of the orchard. The apple — in compote, in pie, in fermented cider — is the gourmet thread that links the Parisian playwright to his native Rouen. Verjuice (sour green grape juice) completes this sweet-and-sour signature typical of French cuisines before the reign of sugar.