He made a wonderful thing of it.

But though he did not copy Sermini, yet Sermini's work provided him with the form of the subject, and was the theme for Rabelais' marvellous variations.
Who does not remember the fantastic quarrel of the cook with the poor devil who had flavoured his dry bread with the smoke of the roast, and the judgment of Seyny John, truly worthy of Solomon?
It comes from the Cento Novelle Antiche, rewritten from tales older than Boccaccio, and moreover of an extreme brevity and dryness.

They are only the framework, the notes, the skeleton of tales.

The subject is often wonderful, but nothing is made of it: it is left unshaped.

Rabelais wrote a version of one, the ninth.
The scene takes place, not at Paris, but at Alexandria in Egypt among the Saracens, and the cook is called Fabrac.