The Physiology of Taste by Brillat Savarin (suggested reading .TXT) 📕

INSTANCE.

 

I will say no more on this physiological fact, but will not omit

an instance which may be easily verified.

 

Some years ago I went to a country house, in the vicinity of

Paris, and on the Seine, near St. Denis, near a hamlet composed

chiefly of fishing huts. I was amazed at the crowd of huts I saw

swarming in the road.

 

I remarked it with amazement to the boatman who took me across the

river.

 

“Monsieur,” said he, “we have eight families here, have fifty-three children, among whom are forty-nine girls and four boys.

That one is mine.” As he spoke he pointed triumphantly to a little

whelp, of about five years of age, who was at the bow of the boat

eating raw craw-fish.

 

From this observation I made ten years ago, and others I could

easily recall, I have been led to think that the genesiac sense is

moved by fish-eating, and that it is rather irritating than

plethoric and substantial. I am inclined to maintain this opinion

the more, because Doctor Bailly has recently proved, by many

instances, that when ever the number of female children exceeds

the male, the circumstance is due to some debilitating

circumstances. This will account to us for the jests made from the

beginning of time, whenever a man’s wife bears him a daughter

instead of a son.

 

I might say much about aliments considered as a tout ensemble, and

about the various modifications they undergo by mixing, etc.; I

hope, though, that the preceding will suffice to the majority of

readers. I recommend all others to read some book ex professo, and

will end with the things which are not without interest.

 

The first is that animalization is affected almost as vegetation

is, that is that the reparative current formed by digestion, is

inhaled in various manners by the tubes with which the organs are

provided, and becomes flesh, nails, hair, precisely as earth,

watered by the same fluid, becomes radish, lettuce, potato,—as

the gardener pleases.

 

The second is that in the organization of life, the same elements

which chemistry produces are not obtained. The organs destined to

produce life and motion only act on what is subjected to them.

 

Nature, however, loves to wrap herself in veils, and to stop us at

every advance, and has concealed the laboratory where new

transformations are affected. It is difficult to explain how,

having determined that the human body contained lime, sulphur, and

phosphorous iron, and the other substances, all this CAN be

renewed every ten years by bread and water.

 

MEDITATION VI.

 

FOOD IN GERMS.

 

SECTION SECOND.

 

SPECIALITIES.

 

WHEN I began to write, my table of contents was already prepared;

I have advanced slowly, however, because a portion of my time is

consecrated to serious labors.

 

During this interval of time much of my matter has escaped my

memory, or been wrested from me. Elementary books on chemistry or

materia medica have been put into the hands of every body, and

things I expected to teach for the first time, have become

popular. For instance, I had devoted many pages to the chemistry

of the pot-au-feu, the substance of which is found in many books

recently published.

 

Consequently, I had to revise this part of my book, and have so

condensed it that it is reduced to a few elementary principles, to

theories which cannot be too widely propagated, and to sundry

observations, the fruits of a long experience, which I trust will

be new to the majority of my readers.

 

Section I. POT-AU-FEU, POTAGE, ETC.

 

Pot-au-feu is a piece of beef, intended to be cooked in boiling

water, slightly salted so as to extract all the soluble parts.

 

Bouillon is the fluid which remains after the operation.

 

Bouilli is the flesh after it has undergone the operation.

 

Water dissolves at first a portion of the osmazome; then the

albumen coagulates at 50 degrees Reaumur, and forms the foam we

see. The rest of the osmazome, with the extractive part of juice,

and finally a portion of the wrapping of the fibres detached by

the continuity of ebullition.

 

To have good bouillon, the water must be heated slowly, and the

ebullition must be scarcely perceptible, so that the various

particles necessarily dissolved, may unite ultimately and without

trouble.

 

It is the custom to add to bouillon, vegetable or roots, to

enhance the taste, and bread or pates to make it more nourishing.

Then it is what is called potage.

 

Potage is a healthy food, very nourishing, and suits every body;

it pleases the stomach and prepares it for reception and

digestion. Persons threatened with obesity should take bouillon

alone.

 

All agree that no where is potage made so well as in France, and

in my travels I have been able to confirm this assertion. Potage

is the basis of French national diet, and the experience of

centuries has perfected it.

 

Section II. BOUILLI.

 

Bouilli is a healthful food, which satisfies hunger readily, is

easily digested, but which when eaten alone restores strength to a

very small degree, because in ebullition the meat has lost much of

its animalizable juices.

 

We include in four categories the persons who eat bouilli.

 

1. Men of routine, who eat it because their fathers did, and who,

following this practice implicitly, expect to be imitated by their

children.

 

2. Impatient men, who, abhorring inactivity at the table, have

contracted the habit of attacking at once whatever is placed

before them.

 

3. The inattentive, who eat whatever is put before them, and look

upon their meals as a labor they have to undergo. All that will

sustain them they put on the same level, and sit at the table as

the oyster does in his bed.

 

4. The voracious, who, gifted with an appetite which they seek to

diminish, seek the first victim they can find to appease the

gastric juice, which devours them, and wish to make it serve as a

basis to the different envois they wish to send to the same

destination.

 

Professors of gastronomy never eat bouilli, from respect to the

principles previously announced, that bouilli is flesh without the

juices. [Footnote: This idea which began to make its impression on

bouilli has disappeared. It is replaced by a roasted filet, a

turbot, or a matelote.]

 

Section III. FOWLS.

 

I am very fond of second courses, and devoutly believe that the

whole gallinaceous family was made to enrich our larders and to

deck our tables.

 

From the quail to the turkey, whenever we find a fowl of this

class, we are sure to find too, light aliment, full of flavor, and

just as fit for the convalescent as for the man of the most robust

health.

 

Which one of us, condemned to the fare of the fathers of the

desert, would not have smiled at the idea of a well-carved

chicken’s wing, announcing his rapid rendition to civilized life?

 

We are not satisfied with the flavor nature has given to

gallinaceous fowls, art has taken possession of them, and under

the pretext of ameliorating, has made martyrs of them. They have

not only been deprived of the means of reproduction, but they have

been kept in solitude and darkness, and forced to eat until they

were led to an unnatural state of fatness.

 

It is very true that this unnatural grease is very delicious, and

that this damnable skill gives them the fineness and succulence

which are the delight of our best tables.

 

Thus ameliorated, the fowl is to the kitchen what the canvass is

to painters. To charlatans it is the cap of Fortunatus, and is

served up boiled, roasted, fried, hot, cold, whole or dismembered,

with or without sauce, broiled, stuffed, and always with equal

success.

 

Three portions of old France disputed for the honor of furnishing

the best fowls, viz: Caux, Mans, and Bresse.

 

In relation to capons, and about this there is some doubt, the one

on the table always seeming the best. Bresse seems, however, to

have pre-eminence in pullets, for they are round as an apple. It

is a pity they are so rare in Paris!

 

Section IV. THE TURKEY.

 

The turkey is certainly one of the most glorious presents made by

the new world to the old.

 

Those persons who always wish to know more than others, say that

the turkey was known to the ancients, and was served up at the

wedding feast of Charlemagne. They say it is an error to attribute

the importation to the Jesuits. To these paradoxes but two things

can be opposed:

 

1st. The name of the bird proves its origin, for at one time

America was called the West Indies.

 

2d. The form of the bird is altogether foreign.

 

A well informed man cannot be mistaken about it.

 

Though already perfectly satisfied, I made much deep research in

the matter. I will not inflict my studies on my readers, but will

only give them the results:

 

1. The turkey appeared in Europe about the end of the seventeenth

century.

 

2. That it was imported by the Jesuits who sent a large number

especially to a farm they had near Bouges.

 

3. That thence they spread gradually over France, and in many

localities a turkey to this day is called a Jesuit.

 

4. Only in America has the turkey been found in a wild state, (it

is unknown in Africa.)

 

5. That in the farms of North America, where it is very common, it

has two origins, either from eggs which have been found and

hatched or from young turkeys caught in the woods. The consequence

is they are in a state of nature and preserve almost all their

original plumage.

 

Overcome by this evidence I bestow on the good fathers a double

portion of gratitude, for they imported the Quinquina yet known as

“Jesuit’s bark.”

 

The same researches informed us that the turkey gradually became

acclimated in France. Well informed observers have told me that

about the middle of the last century of twenty young turkeys

scarcely ten lived, while now fourteen out of every twenty mature.

The spring rains are most unfortunate to them; the large drops of

rain striking on their tender heads destroy them.

 

DINDONOPHILES.

 

The turkey is the largest, and if not the finest, at least the

most highly flavored of the gallinaceous family.

 

It has also the advantage of collecting around it every class of

society.

 

When the virgin dresses, and farmers of our countries wish to

regale themselves in the long winter evenings, what do they roast

before the fire of the room in which the table is spread? a

turkey.

 

When the mechanic, when the artist, collects a few friends to

enjoy a relief which is the more grateful because it is the rarer;

what is one of the dishes always put on the table? a turkey

stuffed with Lyons sausage and with chestnuts of Lyons.

 

In the highest gastronomical circles, in the most select reunions,

where politics yield to dissertations on the taste, for what do

people wait? What do they wish for? a dinde truffe at the second

course. My secret memoirs tell me that its flavor has more than

once lighted up most diplomatic faces.

 

FINANCIAL INFLUENCE OF THE TURKEY.

 

The importation of turkeys became the cause of a great addition to

the public fortune, and occasioned a very considerable commerce.

 

By raising turkeys the farmers were able the more surely to pay

their rents. Young girls often acquired a very sufficient dowry,

and towns-folk who wished to eat them had to