Prof. Eckart Witzigmann is donating his extraordinary culinary library containing about 6,000 volumes to the German Archive of Culinary Arts the Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library (SLUB). The archive was jointly founded by TU Dresden and the SLUB in 2022. Thanks to this donation, this marks the first time that the archive will receive a comprehensive collection of modern culinary art from 1970 onwards, documenting contemporary exquisite culinary art in a way that allows for a fundamental analysis of the change in culinary aesthetics and enables further research.

Eckart Witzigmann has been the doyen of high culinary art in Germany for decades, and he is revered both nationally and internationally by many current top chefs. He was the first chef in Germany to be awarded three stars by Michelin in 1979, and at the same time one of only four chefs worldwide to be named Chef of the Century by Gault & Millau, along with Paul Bocuse, Joël Robuchon and Frédy Girardet. The 82-year-old currently acts as patron of the Ikarus restaurant in Salzburg, which invites a different top chef every month to present their menu.

Witzigmann began collecting culinary works in the 1970s: "I was always reading cookbooks, even as a young chef. When I finished my training, I began to collect the respective country's culinary literature during my travels abroad in order to continue my education and development. This grew into a passion for collecting. Since my time as head chef at the Tantris, I've been able to build up a private collection, enabling me to study the cooking styles of my eminent colleagues around the world," says the chef of the century.

Today, Witzigmann's collection includes more than 5,000 cookbooks and magazines published since 1970, documenting top international cuisine worldwide. As top chefs have predominantly published so-called coffee table books over the last 50 years, often in very small editions, the collection contains an unusually large number of high-quality publications that are almost impossible to acquire today. In addition, the collection includes nearly 700 European cookbooks from the 17^th to 20^th centuries.

Prof. Josef Matzerath from the Chair of History of Saxony at TU Dresden has also been extremely dedicated to the transfer of Eckart Witzigmann's library to Dresden. He emphasizes that this collection will decisively advance the interdisciplinary research on culinary aesthetics as well as the historical significance of culinary art and table culture, which is unique in Dresden.

"So far, German libraries have hardly had any noteworthy holdings of modern culinary literature. The German Archive of Culinary Art will now enable us to intensively focus our research on culinary aesthetics for European cuisine of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, as it is scarcely possible anywhere else. With Eckart Witzigmann's cookbook collection, this is no longer just a pipe dream."

Prof. Andreas Rutz, Chair of History of Saxony at TU Dresden: "Eckart Witzigmann's collection represents enormous gain for interdisciplinary culinary research at TU Dresden. It is an excellent addition to our existing collection and will enable future research into the high art of cooking since the 1970s not only in German-speaking countries, but also worldwide. Our "Change in Taste" research group, which focuses on culinary aesthetics and societal change from the late 18^th century to the 21^st century, will evaluate Witzigmann's collection in the German Archive of Culinary Arts with great scientific curiosity and enthusiasm."