author
Taillevent
d. 1395
A pioneering figure in medieval French cuisine, this royal cook is closely linked with one of the era’s most famous recipe collections. His career at the French court helped shape how later generations understood the food of the Middle Ages.
1 Audiobook
Le viandier de Taillevent
by Taillevent
About the author
Known as Taillevent, Guillaume Tirel was a French cook who lived in the 14th century and served the royal court during the early Valois period. He rose through important kitchen posts and became one of the best-known culinary figures of medieval France.
He is traditionally associated with Le Viandier, a famous medieval recipe collection that became one of the key texts for French cooking history. Modern scholarship is more cautious about calling him its original author, because parts of the work appear to predate his lifetime, but his name remains strongly connected to the book.
Today, Taillevent is remembered less as a writer in the modern literary sense than as a major historical culinary voice. For listeners interested in medieval life, court culture, and the long history of cooking, his legacy offers a rare window into what people prepared, served, and valued at the table centuries ago.