the author of Le Cuisinier françois (1651), one of the most influential cookbooks in early modern French cuisine. La Varenne broke with the Italian traditions that had revolutionised medieval and Renaissance French cookery in the 16th century and early 17th century. La Varenne was the foremost member of a group of French chefs, writing for a professional audience, who codified French cuisine in the age of King Louis XIV. The others were Nicolas Bonnefon, Le Jardinier françois (1651) and Les Délices de la campagne (1654), and François Massialot, Le Cuisinier royal et bourgeois (1691), which was still being edited and modernised in the mid-18th century. The cookbook was still used in France until the French Revolution.
