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

which man pretends to be the exclusive

possessor, first deserts him. He then loses the power of combining

his judgment, and soon after that of comparing, assembling,

combining, and joining together many ideas. They say then that the

invalid loses his mind, that he is delirious. All this usually

rests on ideas familiar to the individual. The dominant passion is

easily recognized. The miser talks most wildly about his

treasures, and another person is besieged by religious terrors.

 

“After reasoning and judgment, the faculty of association becomes

lost. This takes place in the cases known as defaillances, to

which I have myself been liable. I was once talking with a friend

and met with an insurmountable difficulty in combining two ideas

from which I wished to make up an opinion. The syncopy was not,

however, complete, for memory and sensation remained. I heard the

persons around me say distinctly he is fainting, and sought to

arouse me from this condition, which was not without pleasure.

 

“Memory then becomes extinct. The patient, who in his delirium,

recognized his friends, now fails even to know those with whom he

had been on terms of the greatest intimacy. He then loses

sensation, but the senses go out in a successive and determinate

order. Taste and smell give no evidence of their existence, the

eyes become covered with a mistful veil and the ear ceases to

execute its functions. For that reason, the ancients to be sure of

the reality of death, used to utter loud cries in the ears of the

dying. He neither tastes, sees, nor hears. He yet retains the

sense of touch, moves in his bed, changes the position of the arms

and body every moment, and has motions analogous to those of the

foetus in the womb. Death affects him with no terror, for he has

no ideas, and he ends as he begun life, unconsciously.

“(Richerand’s Elements on Physiology, vol. ii. p. 600.)

 

MEDITATION XXVII.

 

PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE KITCHEN.

 

COOKERY is the most ancient of arts, for Adam must have been born

hungry, and the cries of the infant are only soothed by the

mother’s breast.

 

Of all the arts it is the one which has rendered the greatest

service in civil life. The necessities of the kitchen taught us

the use of fire, by which man has subdued nature.

 

Looking carefully at things, three kinds of cuisine may be

discovered.

 

The first has preserved its primitive name.

 

The second analyzes and looks after elements: it is called

chemistry.

 

The third, is the cookery of separation and is called pharmacy.

 

Though different objects, they are all united by the fact that

they use fire, furnaces, etc., at the same time.

 

Thus a morsel of beef, which the cook converts into potage or

bouilli, the chemist uses to ascertain into how many substances it

may be resolved.

 

ORDER OF ALIMENTATION.

 

Man is an omnivorous animal: he has incisors to divide fruits,

molar teeth to crush grain, and canine teeth for flesh. Let it he

remarked however, that as man approaches the savage state, the

canine teeth are more easily distinguishable.

 

The probability was, that the human race for a long time, lived on

fruit, for it is the most ancient food of the human race, and his

means of attack until he had acquired the use of arms are very

limited. The instinct of perfection attached to his nature,

however, soon became developed, and the sentiment attached to his

instinct was soon exhibited, and he made weapons for himself. To

this he was impelled by a carniverous instinct, and he began to

make prey of the animals that surrounded him.

 

This instinct of destruction yet exists: children always kill the

animals that surround them, and if they were hungry would devour

them.

 

It is not strange that man seeks to feed on flesh: He has too

small a stomach, and fruit has not nourishment enough to renovate

him. He could subsist on vegetables, but their preparation

requires an art, only reached after the lapse of many centuries.

 

Man’s first weapons were the branches of trees, and subsequently

bows and arrows.

 

It is worthy of remark, that wherever we find man, in all climates

and latitudes, he has been found with and arrows. None can see how

this idea presented itself to individuals so differently placed:

it must be hidden by the veil of centuries.

 

Raw flesh has but one inconvenience. Its viscousness attaches

itself to the teeth. It is not, however, disagreeable. When

seasoned with salt it is easily digested, and must be digestible.

 

A Croat captain, whom I invited to dinner in 1815, was amazed at

my preparations. He said to me, “When in campaign, and we become

hungry, we knock over the first animal we find, cut off a steak,

powder it with salt, which we always have in the sabretasche, put

it under the saddle, gallop over it for half a mile, and then dine

like princes.”

 

When the huntsmen of Dauphiny go out in Septemher to shoot, they

take both pepper and salt with them. If they kill a very fat bird

they pluck, season it, carry it some time in their caps and eat

it. They say it is the best way to serve it up.

 

If our ancestors ate raw food we have not entirely gotten rid of

the habit. The most delicate palates like Aries’ sausages, etc.,

which have never been cooked, but which are not, on that account,

the less appetising.

 

DISCOVERY OF FIRE.

 

Subsequently to the Croat mode, fire was discovered. This was an

accident, for fire is not spontaneous. Many savage nations have

been found utterly ignorant of it.

 

BAKING.

 

Fire having been discovered it was made use of to perfect food; at

first it was made use of to dry it, and then to cook it.

 

Meat thus treated was found better than when raw. It had more

firmness, was eaten with less difficulty, and the osmazome as it

was condensed by carbonization gave it a pleasing perfume.

 

They began, however, to find out that flesh cooked on the coals

became somewhat befouled, for certain portions of coal will adhere

to it. This was remedied by passing spits through it, and placing

it above burning coals at a suitable height.

 

Thus grillades were invented, and they have a flavor as rich as it

is simple. All grilled meat is highly flavored, for it must be

partially distilled.

 

Things in Homer’s time had not advanced much further, and all will

be pleased here to read the account of Achilles’ reception of the

three leading Greeks, one of whom was royal.

 

I dedicate this story to the ladies, for Achilles was the

handsomest of all the Greeks, and his pride did not prevent his

weeping when Briseis was taken from him, viz:

 

[verse in Greek]

 

The following is a translation by Pope:

 

“Patroclus, crown a larger bowl, Mix purer wine, and open every

soul. Of all the warriors yonder host can send, Thy friend most

honours these, and these thy friend.”

 

He said: Patroclus o’er the blazing fire Heaps in a brazen vase

three chines entire: The brazen vase Automedon sustains, ‘Which

flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains: Achilles at the genial

feast presides, The parts transfixes, and with skill divides.

Meanwhile Patroclus sweats the fire to raise; The tent is

brightened with the rising blaze:

 

Then, when the languid flames at length subside, He strews a bed

of glowing embers wide, Above the coals the smoking fragments

turns And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns; With bread the

glittering canisters they load. Which round the board Menoetius’

son bestow’d: Himself, opposed to Ulysses, full in sight, Each

portion parts, and orders every rite. The first fat offerings, to

the immortals due, Amid the greedy Patroclus threw; Then each,

indulging in the social feast, His thirst and hunger soberly

repress’d. That done, to Phoenix Ajax gave the sign; Not

unperceived; Ulysses crown’d with wine The foaming bowl, and

instant thus began, His speech addressing to the godlike man:

“Health to Achilles!”

 

Thus then a king, a son of a king, and three Grecian leaders dined

very comfortably on bread, wine, and broiled meat.

 

We cannot but think that Achilles and Patroclus themselves

prepared the entertainment, if only to do honor to the

distinguished guests they received. Ordinarily the kitchen

business was abandoned to slaves and women, as Homer tells us in

Odyssey when he refers to the entertainment of the heralds.

 

The entrails of animals stuffed with blood were at that time

looked on as very great delicacies.

 

At that time and long before, beyond doubt, poetry and music, were

mingled with meals. Famous minstrels sang the wonders of nature,

the loves of the gods, and warlike deeds of man. Theirs was a kind

of priesthood and it is probable that the divine Homer himself was

sprung from one of those men favored by heaven. He would not have

been so eminent had not his poetical studies begun in his

childhood.

 

Madame Dacier observes that Homer does not speak of boiled meat

anywhere in his poems. The Jews had made much greater progress in

consequence of their captivity in Egypt. They had kettles. Esau’s

mess of potage must have been made thus. For this he sold his

birthright.

 

It is difficult to say how men learned the use of metals. Tubal

Cain, it is said, was the inventor.

 

In the present state of knowledge, we use one metal to

manufacture another. We overcome them with iron pincers; cut them

with steel files, but I never met with any one who could tell me

who made the first file or pair of pincers.

 

ORIENTAL ENTERTAINMENTS.—GRECIAN.

 

Cookery made great advances. We are ignorant however of its

utensils, whether of iron, pottery or of tin material.

 

The oldest books we know of make honorable mention of oriental

festivals. It is not difficult to believe that monarchs who

ruled such glorious realms abounded in all that was grateful. We

only know that Cadmus who introduced writing into Greece, was cook

of the king of Sidon.

 

The idea of surrounding the table with couches, originated from

this voluptuous prince.

 

Cookery and its flavors were then highly esteemed by the

Athenians, a people fond of all that was new. From what we read in

their histories, there is no doubt but that their festivals were

true feasts.

 

The wines of Greece, which even now we find excellent, have been

estimated by scientific gourmands the most delicious that were.

 

The most beautiful women that ever came to adorn our

entertainments were Greeks, or of Grecian origin.

 

The wisest men of old were anxious to display the luxury of such

enjoyments. Plato, Atheneus, and many others, have preserved their

names. The works of all of them, however, are lost, and if any

remember them, it is only those who have heard of a long forgotten

and lost book, the Gastronomy [Greek word]—the friend of one of

the sons of Pericles.

 

Such was the cookery of Greece, which sent forth a few men who

first established themselves in the Tiber, and then took

possession of the world.

 

ROMAN FESTIVALS.

 

Good cheer was unknown to the Romans as long as they thought to

preserve their independence or to overcome their neighbors, who

were poor as they were. Their generals therefore lived on

vegetables. Historians have never failed to praise these times,

when frugality was a matter of honor. When, however, their

conquests had extended into Africa, Sicily and Hellas, when they

had to live as people did where civilization was more advanced,

they