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

by the

medium in which they live, move, and breathe, extend the range of

our ideas and the indefinite modifications which result from their

nature, motions and lives.

 

For my part, I entertain to them a sentiment very like respect,

resulting from my belief that they belong to antediluvian races.

The great convulsion which doomed our ancestors, in the eighteenth

century of the world, to fish was a season of joy, triumph and

festivity.

 

Section VII. TRUFFLES.

 

Who ever says truffle, pronounces a great word, which awakens

eratic and gourmand ideas both in the sex dressed in petticoats

and in the bearded portion of humanity.

 

This honorable duplication results from the fact that the tubercle

is not only delicious to the taste, but that it excites a power

the exercise of which is accompanied by the most delicious

pleasures.

 

The origin of the truffle is unknown; they are found, but none

know how they vegetate. The most learned men have sought to

ascertain the secret, and fancied they discovered the seed. Their

promises, however, were vain, and no planting was ever followed by

a harvest. This perhaps is all right, for as one of the great

values of truffles is their dearness, perhaps they would be less

highly esteemed if they were cheaper.

 

“Rejoice, my friend,” said I, “a superb lace is about to be

manufactured at a very low price.”

 

“Ah!” replied she, “think you, if it be cheap, that any one would

wear it?”

 

ERATIC VIRTUE OF TRUFFLES.

 

The Romans were well acquainted with the truffle, but I do not

think they were acquainted with the French variety. Those which

were their delight were obtained from Greece and Africa, and

especially from Libia. The substance was pale, tinged with rose,

and the Libian truffles were sought for as being far the most

delicate and highly perfumed.

 

…… “Gustus elementa per omnia quaerunt.” JUVENAL.

 

From the Romans to our own time, there was a long interregnum, and

the resurrection of truffles is an event of recent occurrence. I

have read many old books, in which there is no allusion to them.

The generation for which I write may almost be said to witness its

resurrection.

 

About 1780 truffles were very rare in Paris, and they were to be

had only in small quantities at the Hotel des Americans, and at

the Hotel de Province. A dindon truffee was a luxury only seen at

the tables of great nobles and of kept women.

 

We owe their abundance to dealers in comestibles, the number of

whom has greatly increased, and who, seeing that their merchandise

was popular, had it sought for throughout the kingdom. Sending for

it by either the mail or by couriers, they made its search

general. As truffles cannot be planted, careful search alone can

obtain it.

 

At the time I write (1825) the glory of the truffle is at its

apogee. Let no one ever confess that he dined where truffles were

not. However good any entree may be, it seems bad unless enriched

by truffles. Who has not felt his mouth water when any allusion

was made to truffles a la provincale.

 

A saute of truffles is a dish the honors of which the mistress of

the house reserves to herself; in fine, the truffle is the diamond

of the kitchen.

 

I sought the reason of this preference; it seemed to me that many

other substances had an equal right to the honor, and I became

satisfied that the cause was that the truffle was supposed to

excite the genesiac sense. This I am sure is the chief quality of

its perfection, and the predilection and preference evinced for

it, so powerful is our servitude to this tyrannical and capricious

sense.

 

This discovery led me to seek to ascertain if the effect were real

or imaginary.

 

[The Translator here has thought it best to omit a very BROAD

dialogue, which Brillat-Savarin introduced into his book.]

 

………. I made ulterior researches, collected my ideas, and

consulted the men who were most likely to know, with all of whom I

was intimate. I united them into a tribunal, a senate, a

sanhedrim, an areopagus, and we gave the following decision to be

commented upon by the litterateures of the twenty-eighth century.

 

“The truffle is a positive aphrodisiac, and under certain

circumstances makes women kinder, and men more amiable.”

 

In Piedmont white truffles are met with, which are very highly

esteemed. They have a slight flavor, not injurious to their

perfection, because it gives no disagreable return.

 

The best truffles of France come from Perigord, and upper

Provence. About the month of January they have their highest

perfume.

 

Those from Bugey also have a high flavor, but can not be

preserved.

 

Those of Burgundy and Dauphiny are of inferior quality. They are

hard, and are deficient in farinacious matter. Thus, there are

many kinds of truffles.

 

To find truffles, dogs and hogs are used, that have been trained

to the purpose. There are men, however, with such practised eyes

that by the inspection of the soil they can say whether it

contains truffles or not, and what is their quality.

 

ARE TRUFFLES INDIGESTIBLES?

 

We have only to ascertain if the truffle be indigestible or not.

 

We say no.

 

This decision is ex cathedra, and well sustained.

 

1. By the nature of the substance. The truffle is easily

masticated, is light, and has nothing hard nor cartilaginous in

its composition.

 

2. During our observations for fifty years, we have never known

any indigestion to result from truffles. [Footnote: The translator

has known several such indigestions. He once nearly became a

martyr to a galatine de Perdrix truffee, at the restaurant of the

late M. Dandurand.]

 

3. The attestation of the most eminent of the faculty of Paris, a

city eminently gourmande and trufflivorous, sustains this idea.

 

4. From the daily conduct of the doctors of the law, who, caeteris

paribus, consume more truffles than any other class of citizens.

Doctor Malonet used to eat enough to give an elephant the

indigestion. He however lived to be eighty-six.

 

We may therefore look on it as certain, that the truffle is a food

healthy as it is agreeable, and that when taken in moderation it

passes through the system as a letter does through the post

office.

 

One may easily be indisposed after a great dinner, where other

things than truffles have been eaten; such accidents, however,

only happen to those who, after the first service, were already

stuffed like canons, and who failed in the second, leaving the

luxuries offered them untouched.

 

This is not then the fault of truffles, and we may be sure they

had swallowed so many glasses of pure water or eaten the same

number of potatoes.

 

Let us conclude by a circumstance which shows how easily we may be

mistaken without careful observation.

 

One day I invited Mr. S—, a very pleasant old man, to dine with

me. He was also a gourmand of the highest grade. Either because I

knew his tastes, or to satisfy all my guests that I wished to make

them happy, I was not sparing in truffles, and they appeared under

the egis of young turkeys most carefully stuffed.

 

Mr. S—ate with energy, and as I knew he could not injure himself

I left him alone, persuading him not to hurry himself because no

one would attack the property he had acquired.

 

All passed off very well, and we separated at a very late hour.

When we reached home, however, Mr. S— was attacked by a violent

cholic, a disposition to vomit, convulsive cramp, and general

indisposition.

 

This state of things lasted some time, and all said he suffered

from the indigestion caused by truffles; at last nature came to

the patient’s aid, and Mr. S— opened his mouth and threw up a

single truffle, which struck the wall and rebounded, luckily

without injury to the by-standers.

 

All unpleasant symptoms at once disappeared, tranquility was

restored, digestion recommenced its course, the patient went to

sleep and awoke in the morning perfectly well.

 

The cause was easily understood, Mr. S—had been eating a long

time, and his teeth were unable to sustain the labor imposed on

them. He had lost many of those precious members, and those he had

left did not always meet together.

 

A truffle had thus escaped mastication, and almost whole had been

swallowed. Digestion had carried it to the pylorus where it was

momentarily detained, and this mechanical detention had caused all

his trouble, as expulsion had cured it.

 

Thus there was no indigestion, but merely the interposition of a

foreign body.

 

This was decided on by the consulting body, which saw the corpus

delicti, and which selected me as its reporter.

 

Mr. S— did not on this account remain a whit less fond of

truffles. He always attacked them with the same audacity, but was

very careful to swallow them with more prudence. He used to thank

God that this sanitary precaution had prolonged his life and his

enjoyments.

 

Section VIII. SUGAR.

 

In the present state of science we understand by sugar a substance

mild to the taste, crystalizable, and which by fermentation

resolves itself into carbonic acid and alcohol.

 

By sugar once was understood only the crystalized juice of the

cane, (arundo saccharifera.)

 

A few pages of old authors would induce us to think the ancients

had observed in certain arundines a sweet and extractible portion.

Lucanus says:

 

“Qui bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos.”

 

Between water sweetened by the juice of the cane, and the sugar we

have, there is a great difference. Art in Rome was not far enough

advanced to accomplish it.

 

Sugar really originated in the colonies of the New World. The cane

was imported thither two centuries ago and prospered, and effort

was made to utilize the juice which flowed from it, and by gradual

experiments they accomplished the manufacture of all the variety

of its productions we know of.

 

The culture of the sugar cane has become an object of the greatest

importance; it is a great source of wealth both to the cultivators

and the vendors, and also to the taxes of governments who levy an

import on it.

 

INDIGENOUS SUGAR.

 

It has long been thought that tropical heat was not needed to form

sugar. About 1740 Morgroff discovered that many plants of the

temperate zones, and among others the beet contained it.

 

Towards the beginning of the nineteenth century, circumstances

having made sugar scarce, and consequently dear, the government

made it an object for savants to look for it.

 

The idea was successful, and it was ascertained that sugar was

found in the whole vegetable kingdom; that it existed in the

grape, chestnut, potato, and in the beet especially.

 

This last plant became an object of the greatest culture, and many

experiments proved that in this respect, the old world could do

without the new. France was covered with manufactories, which

worked with different success, and the manufacture of sugar became

naturalized; the art was a new one which may any day be recalled.

 

Among the various manufactories, the most prominent was that

established at Passy, near Paris, by Mr. Benjamin Delassert, a

citizen, the name of whom is always connected with the good and

useful.

 

By means of a series of extensive operations, he got rid of all

that was doubtful in the practice, and made no mystery of his plan

of procedure, even to those who were his rivals. He was visited by

the head of the government, and was ordered to furnish all