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

de Soubise once intended to give an entertainment, and

asked for the bill of fare.

 

The maitre d’hotel came with a list surrounded by vignettes, and

the first article that met the Prince’s eye was FIFTY HAMS.

“Bertrand,” said the Prince, “I think you must be extravagant;

fifty hams! Do you intend to feast my whole regiment?”

 

“No, Prince, there will be but one on the table, and the surplus I

need for my epagnole, my blonds, garnitures, etc.”

 

“Bertrand, you are robbing me. This article will not do.”

 

“Monsigneur,” said the artist, “you do not appreciate me! Give the

order, and I will put those fifty hams in a chrystal flask no

longer than my thumb.”

 

What could be said to such a positive operation? The Prince

smiled, and the hams were passed.

 

INFLUENCE OF GASTRONOMY IN BUSINESS.

 

In men not far removed from a state of nature, it is well known

that all important affairs are discussed at their feasts. Amid

their festivals savages decide on war and peace; we need not go

far to know that villages decide on all public affairs at the

cabinet.

 

This observation has not escaped those to whom the weightiest

affairs are often confided. They saw that a full stomached

individual was very different from a fasting one; that the table

established a kind of alliance between the parties, and made

guests more apt to receive certain impressions and submit to

certain influences. This was the origin of political gastronomy.

Entertainments have become governmental measures, and the fate of

nations is decided on in a banquet. This is neither a paradox nor

a novelty but a simple observation of fact. Open every historian,

from the time of Herodotus to our own days, and it will be seen

that, not even excepting conspiracies, no great event ever took

place, not conceived, prepared and arranged at a festival.

 

GASTRONOMICAL ACADEMY.

 

Such, at the first glance, appears to be the domain of gastronomy,

a realm fertile in results of every kind and which is aggrandized

by the discoveries and inventions of those who cultivate it. It is

certain that before the lapse of many years, gastronomy will have

its academicians, courses, professors, and premiums.

 

At first some rich and zealous gastronomer will establish

periodical assemblies, in which the most learned theorists will

unite with artists, to discuss and measure the various branches of

alimentation.

 

Soon (such is the history of all academies) the government will

intervene, will regularise, protect, and institute; it will seize

the opportunity to reward the people for all orphans made by war,

for all the Arianas whose tears have been evoked by the drum.

 

Happy will be the depository of power who will attach his name to

this necessary institution! His name will be repeated from age to

age with that of Noah, Bacchus, Triptolemus, and other benefactors

of humanity; he will be among ministers what Henri IV. was among

kings; his eulogy will be in every mouth, though no regulation

make it a necessity.

 

MEDITATION IV.

 

APPETITE.

 

DEFINITION OF APPETITE.

 

MOTION and life occasion in the animal portion of all that lives a

constant loss of substance, and the human body, that most

complicated machine, would soon be unfit for use, did not

Providence provide it with a mark to inform it of the very moment

when its power is no longer in equilibrium with its wants.

 

This monitor is appetite. By this word we understand the first

impression of the want of food.

 

Appetite declares itself by languor in the stomach, and a slight

sensation of fatigue.

 

The soul at the same time busies itself with things analogous to

its wants; memory recalls food that has flattered its taste;

imagination fancies that it sees them, and something like a dream

takes place. This state is not without pleasure, and we have heard

many adepts say, with joy in their heart, “What a pleasure it is

to have a good appetite, when we are certain of a good meal.”

 

The whole nutritive apparatus is moved. The stomach becomes

sensible, the gastric juices are moved and displace themselves

with noise, the mouth becomes moist, and all the digestive powers

are under arms, like soldiers awaiting the word of command. After

a few moments there will be spasmodic motion, pain and hunger.

 

Every shade of these gradations may be observed in every drawing-room, when dinner is delayed.

 

They are such in nature, that the most exquisite politeness cannot

disguise the symptoms. From this fact I deduced the apothegm, “THE

MOST INDISPENSABLE QUALITY OF A GOOD COOK IS PROMPTNESS.”

 

ANECDOTE.

 

I will sustain this grave maxim by the details of an observate,

made at an entertainment where I was,

 

“Quorum magna pars fui,”

 

and where the pleasures of observation preserved me from the

anguish of misery.

 

I was invited to dine with a high public functionary. The hour was

half past five, and at the appointed time all were present. We

knew he liked exactness, and always scolded the dilatory.

 

I was amazed, when I came, at the consternation which pervaded the

party. People whispered together, and looked into the court-yard

through the window—all betokened something extraordinary.

 

I approached the one of the guests I thought best able to satisfy

my curiosity, and asked him what the news was.

 

“Alas!” said they, “Monsieur has been sent for to the Council of

State; he has just gone, and none know when he will return.”

 

“Is that all!” said I. “Be of good cheer, we will be detained only

a quarter of an hour; something particular has happened. All know

to-day is his regular dinner, and we will not have to fast.” I was

not, however, easy, and wished I was away.

 

The first hour passed well enough, and those who were intimate sat

together. Common places were exhausted, and conjectures were

formed as to what could have called the Prince to the Tuilleries

 

At the commencement of the second hour there were many signs of

impatience; people looked anxiously at each other and the first

who murmured were three or four guests who, finding no place to

sit in, were not in a convenient position to wait.

 

At the third hour, the discontent became general, and every

symptom became exaggerated. “When will he return?” said one. “What

can he be thinking of?” said another. “This is death,” said a

third. This question was then put, but not determined, “Shall we

go or not?”

 

At the fourth hour every symptom became aggravated. People

stretched out their arms without the slightest regard whether they

interrupted their neighbors or not. Unpleasant sounds were heard

from all parts of the room, and everywhere the faces of the guests

bore the marks of concentration. No one listened to me when I

remarked that beyond doubt our absent amphytrion was more unhappy

than any one of us.

 

Our attention was for a moment arrested by an apparition. One of

the guests, better acquainted with the house than the others, had

gone into the kitchen, and returned panting. His face looked as if

the day of judgment had come, and in an almost inarticulate voice,

which announced at once both the fear of making a noise and of not

being heard, “Monsigneur went away without giving any orders, and

happen what may, dinner will not be served until his return.”

 

The terror caused by what he said could not be exceeded by that to

be expected at the last trump.

 

Among the martyrs, the most unfortunate was D’Aigrefeuille, whom

all Paris knew. His whole body seemed to suffer, and the agony of

Laocoon was marked on his face. Pale, terrified, he saw nothing

but sank in a chair, grasped his hands on his round stomach, and

closed his eyes, not to sleep but to die.

 

He did not though. About ten o’clock a carriage drove into the

yard. All were on the quivive and a arose spontaneously. Hilarity

succeeded suffering, and in five minutes we were at the table.

 

Appetite however was gone, all seemed amazed to sit down to dinner

at such an unusual hour; the jaws had not that isochronous measure

which announces a regular business. I know many were sufferers

thus.

 

The course to be taken is not to eat immediately after the

obstacle has ceased, but to drink a glass of eau-sucree, or take a

plate of soup to sustain the stomach, and then in ten or fifteen

minutes to begin dinner, to prevent the stomach being oppressed by

the weight of the aliments with which it is surcharged.

 

GREAT APPETITES.

 

When we see in early books a description of the preparations made

to receive two or three persons, and the enormous masses served up

to a single guest, we cannot refuse to think that those who lived

in early ages were gifted with great appetites.

 

The appetite was thought to increase in direct ratio to the

dignity of the personage. He to whom the saddle of a five year old

ox would be served was expected to drink from a cup he could

scarcely lift.

 

Some individuals have existed who testified to what once passed,

and have collected details of almost incredible variety, which

included even the foulest objects.

 

I will not inflict these disgusting details on my readers, and

prefer to tell them two particular circumstances which I

witnessed, and which do not require any great exertion of faith.

 

About forty years ago, I made a short visit to the cure at

Bregnier, a man of immense stature and who had a fearful appetite.

 

Though it was scarcely noon I found him at the table. Soup and

bouilli had been brought on, to these two indispensables had

succeeded a leg of mutton a la Royale, a capon and a salad.

 

As soon as he saw me he ordered a plate which I refused, and

rightly too. Without any assistance he got rid of every thing,

viz: he picked the bone of mutton and ate up all the salad.

 

They brought him a large white cheese into which he made an

angular breach measured by an arc of ninety degrees. He washed

down all with a bottle of wine and glass of water, after which he

laid down.

 

What pleased me was to see that during the whole of this business,

the venerable pastor did not seem busy. The large mouthfulls he

swallowed did not prevent him either from laughing or talking. He

dispatched all that was put before him easily as he would have a

pair of birds.

 

So it was with General Bisson who drank eight bottles of wine at

dinner every day, and who never appeared the worse for it. He had

a glass larger than usual and emptied it oftener. He did not care

for that though, for after having swallowed six ounces of fluids

he could jest and give his orders as if he had only swallowed a

thimble full.

 

This anecdote recalls to me my townsman, General P. Sibuet, long

the chief aide of Napoleon, and who was killed in 1813 at the

passage of the Bober.

 

He was eighteen years old, and had at that time the appetite by

which nature announces that its possessor is a perfect man, and

went one night into the kitchen of Genin, an inn keeper of Belley,

where the old men of the town used to meet to eat chestnuts and

drink the new white wine called in the country vin bourru.

 

The old men were not hungry and paid no attention to him. His

digestive powers were not shaken though, and he said “I have just