Literary Translation: A Banquet of Nature, with Pierre Gagnaire
A Banquet of Nature, with Pierre Gagnaire gathers six contributors around the chef Pierre Gagnaire: a philosopher, a botanist, a novelist, a biologist, a designer, and a musician, each pairing an essay on nature and cuisine with one of Gagnaire's own recipes. Published by JBE Books as the fifth volume of the Bibliotheque enchantee series, made with Maison Perrier-Jouet, the book reads like a table of guests speaking in turn rather than a single authored text.
©JBE Books
I translated the botanist Marc Jeanson's essay, "A Cabinet of Culinary History," from French into English for the book's English edition. Jeanson writes at the intersection of botany and culinary history, and the translation had to hold both registers at once: precise enough for the plant science, literary enough to sit next to five other very different voices at the same table.
Both the French and English editions of the book can be purchased here via JBE Books.
