Max Shrem
If Grimod de la Reynière had not had the youth that he did, would he have been inspired to write the Almanach des Gourmands? Would Brillat-Savarin then have ventured into the light-hearted world of gastronomy? In that case, could gastronomy as a field of reflection and writing have blossomed and given the pleasures of the table its letters of nobility? This is one of the mysteries that Max Shrem has explored, and we hope to see him reveal it during the conference.
Bio
Max Shrem is a writer, translator, and teacher. He holds a PhD in French literature from New York University, where he wrote his thesis on Grimod de La Reynière and the emergence of a specific gastronomic discourse in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His research focuses on culinary utopias, satire, and the development of gastronomic criticism as a literary and cultural practice.
He recently presented work on crystal as a visual technology of the table at the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (Paris) and on Roquefort cheese during the celebration of the centenary of its AOC at the National Assembly (March 2025).
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Alongside his academic career, he has been deeply involved in the world of artisanal cheese. He has worked in France and the United States, notably for five years at Fromagerie Trotté, one of the last independent Parisian “artisan-retailer” cheese shops, now part of Laurent Dubois' establishments, as well as in a cheese shop in the Ardèche region involved in the production of Picodon. In the early 2000s, as part of a project for the culinary blog Slashfood (AOL), he interviewed more than a hundred American artisan cheesemakers, helping to document the emergence of a cheese scene in the United States. He currently teaches French at St. Andrew's School (Delaware) and is completing Master Crayfish, a historical novel about Grimod de La Reynière.