Robert Courtine

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Robert Julien Courtine (16 May 1910 – 14 April 1998) was a French food writer who used the pen names La Reynière and Savarin. In the 1930s he belonged to the far-right group Action française and was close to anti-Semitic journalist Henry Coston. During the German occupation, he wrote for collaborationist newspapers La France au travail and L’Appel. He left Paris in August 1944 for the Sigmaringen enclave. He was arrested in 1946 and sentenced to ten years of hard labor, but the sentence was reduced in 1948 on the condition that he would not appear on the radio.

In 1952 Courtine joined Le Monde, writing the gastronomy column under the name La Reynière (a nod to Grimod de La Reynière) until 1993. He authored many books on gastronomy. One notable work is The Hundred Glories of French Cooking, translated by Derek Coltman and published in North America by Doubleday in 1973. It is described as a “culinary art gallery” of French recipes, built on simple preparations that highlight good ingredients.