The Physiology of Taste; Or, Transcendental Gastronomy
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Title: The Physiology of Taste; Or, Transcendental Gastronomy
Author: Brillat-Savarin
Translator: Fayette Robinson
Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5434]
Most recently updated: December 28, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5434
Credits: Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE; OR, TRANSCENDENTAL GASTRONOMY ***
Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE;
OR,
TRANSCENDENTAL GASTRONOMY.
ILLUSTRATED BY ANECDOTES OF DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS AND STATESMEN OF
BOTH CONTINENTS. BY BRILLAT SAVARIN.
TRANSLATED FROM THE LAST PARIS EDITION BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.
CONTENTS.
APHORISMS of the Professor to serve as Prolegomena to his work,
and Eternal basis of the Science,
DIALOGUE, between the Author and his Friend,
BIOGRAPHY,
PREFACE,
MEDITATION I.
THE SENSES,
Number of the Senses,
Action of the Senses,
Perfectness of the Senses,
Powers of the Taste,
Object of the Action of the Senses,
MEDITATION II.
TASTE,
Definition of Taste,
Mechanism of Taste,
Sensation of Taste,
Flavors,
Influence of Smelling on the Taste,
Analyses of the Sensation of Taste,
Order of the Impressions of Taste,
Enjoyments due to the Taste,
Supremacy of Man,
Method of the Author,
MEDITATION III.
GASTRONOMY,
Origin of Sciences,
Origin of Gastronomy,
Definition of Gastronomy,
Different objects of Gastronomy,
Utility of Gastronomical Knowledge,
Influence of Gastronomy on Business,
Gastronomical Academy,
MEDITATION IV.
APPETITE,
Definition of Appetite,
Anecdote,
Great Appetites,
MEDITATION V.
FOOD IN GERMS--Section First,
Definitions,
Analyses,
Osmazome,
Principle of Aliments,
Vegetable Kingdom,
Difference between Fat and Lean,
Individual Instance,
MEDITATION VI.
FOOD IN GERMS--Section Second,
Specialities,
I. Pot-au-feu, Potage, etc.,
II. Bouilli,
III. Fowls,
IV. The Turkey,
Dindoniphiles,
Financial Influence of the Turkey,
Exploit of the Professor,
V. Game,
VI. Fish,
Anecdote,
Muria--Garum,
Philosophical Reflection,
VII. Truffles,
Erratic Virtue of Truffles,
Are Truffles Indigestible,
VIII. Sugar,
Indigenous Sugar,
Uses of Sugur,
IX. Origin of Coffee,
Different Modes of preparing Coffee,
Effects of Coffee,
X. Chocolate--its origin,
Properties of Chocolate,
True Method of preparing Chocolate,
MEDITATION VII.
THEORY OF FRYING,
Allocution,
I. Chemistry,
II. Application,
MEDITATION VIII.
ON THIRST,
Varieties of Thirst,
Causes of Thirst,
Example,
MEDITATION IX.
ON DRINKS,
Water,
Quick effect of Drinks,
Strong Drinks,
MEDITATION X.
AN EPISODE ON THE END OF THE WORLD,
MEDITATION XI.
ON GOURMANDISE,
Definitions,
Advantages of Gourmandise,
Sequel,
Power of Gourmandise,
A Lady Gourmand,
Anecdote,
Are Women Gourmands?
The effects of Gourmandise of Sociability,
Influence of Gourmandise on Conjugal Happiness,
Note of a Patriot Gastronomer,
MEDITATION XII.
GOURMANDS,
All who wish to be are not Gourmands,
Napoleon,
Gourmands by Destiny,
Gourmands by Profession,
Financiers,
Physicians,
Objurgation,
Men of Letters,
Devotees,
Chevaliers and Abbes,
Longevity of Gourmands,
MEDITATION XIII.
GASTRONOMICAL TESTS,
First Series--Income of 5,000 francs,
Second Series--Income of 15,000 francs,
Third Series--Income of 30,000 francs, or more,
MEDITATION XIV. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE,
Origin of the Pleasures of the Table,
Difference between the Pleasures of Eating and the Pleasures
of the Table,
Effects,
Accessories,
The 18th and 19th Century,
Summary,
MEDITATION XV.
HALTES DE CHASSE,
Ladies,
MEDITATION XVI.
ON DIGESTION,
Ingestion,
Duty of the Stomach,
Influence of Digestion,
MEDITATION XVII.
REPOSE,
Time of Rest,
MEDITATION XVIII.
SLEEP,
Definition,
MEDITATION XIX.
DREAMS,
Nature of Dreams,
System of Dr. Gall,
First Observation,
Second Observation,
Result,
Age,
Phenomena of Dreams,
First Observation,
Second Observation,
Third Observation,
Do as you will be done by,
MEDITATION XX.
INFLUENCE OF DIET ON REST, SLEEP AND DREAMS,
Effects of Diet on Labor,
Dreams,
Consequence,
Result,
MEDITATION XXI. OBESITY,
Causes of Obesity,
Sequel,
Sequel,
Anecdote,
Inconvenience of Obesity,
Examples of Obesity,
MEDITATION XXII.
PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT AND CURE OF OBESITY,
Generalities,
Sequel of the Regimen,
Dangers of Acids,
Antiobesic Belt,
Quinquina,
MEDITATION XXIII.
THINNESS,
Definition,
Varieties,
Effects of Thinness,
Natural Predestination,
Fattening Regimen,
MEDITATION XXIV.
FASTING,
Definition,
Origin,
How people used to Fast,
Origin of the removal of Restriction in Fasting,
MEDITATION XXV.
EXHAUSTION,
Treatment,
Cure by the Professor,
MEDITATION XXVI.
DEATH,
MEDITATION XXVII.
PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE KITCHEN,
Order of Alimentation,
Discovery of Fire,
Baking,
Oriental Entertainments--Grecian,
Roman Festivals,
Resurrection of Lucullus,
Poetry,
Irruption of the Barbarians,
MEDITATION XXVIII.
RESTAURATEURS,
Establishment,
PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE--Part Second,
TRANSITION,
VARIETIES,
I. L'omelette du Cure,
Omelette au Thon,
Observations,
II. A National Victory,
III. Mystification of the Professor and Defeat of a General,
IV. The Snare,
V. The Turbot,
VI. Pheasants,
VII. Gastronomical Industry of the Emigres,
VIII. Recollections of the Emigration,
The Weaver,
The Starving,
Sojourn in America,
Asparagus,
Fondue,
Recipe for Fondue, Copied from the Papers of M. Trollet,
Bailli of Mondon in Berne,
Disappointment,
Wonderful Effects of a Classical Dinner,
Effects and Danger of Strong Drinks,
Chevaliers and Abbes,
Miscellany--Wine,
Strawberries,
Judgment,
Raisins,
A Day with the Bernardines,
Prosperity en route,
H. ... DeP ...,
Conclusion,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
The excellent man to whom we are indebted for this book has
described himself, with so much charm, nature and truth; the
principal events of his life have been recorded in such an
agreeable and faithful manner that very few words will suffice to
finish the story.
Brillat Savarin (Anthelme) Counsel of the Court of Cassation,
member of the Legion of Honor, member of the Society for the
Encouragement of National Industry, of the Antiquarian Society of
France, of the Philoselic Society of Bourg, &c., &c., was born,
1st of April, 1755, at Belley, a little Alpine city, not far from
the banks of the Rhine, which at this place separates France from
Savoy. Like his forefathers, who had been for several generations
devoted to the bar, the profession which pleased him, in
consequence of his possession of great eloquence, he practised
with great success.
In, 1789, the unanimous vote of his fellow citizens deputed him
to the Constituent assembly, composed of all that was most
brilliant in the youth of France at that day. Less attached in
practice to the philosophy of Zeno than that of Epicurus, his name
does not figure very conspicuously, but always appears at epochs,
which show that he acted with the good and moderate.
His legislative functions being determined by the expiration of
the Constituent Assembly, he was first appointed President of the
Superior Civil court of the Department of Ain, and subsequently a
Justice of the Court of Cassation, newly instituted; a man of
talent, perfectly incorruptible and unhesitating in the discharge
of his duty, he would have been precisely calculated for the place
to which he had been appointed, had the warmth of political
discussion made practicable the advice either of moderation or of
prudence. In 1793, he was Mayor of Belley, and passed in anxiety
there, the season of the reign of Terror; whence he was forced to
fly to Switzerland for an asylum against the revolutionary
movement. Nothing can better man, without a personal enemy, should
be forced to pass in a foreign land the days he purposed to devote
to the improvement of his country.
This is the point when the character of Brillat Savarin assumes
its grandest proportions; proscribed, a fugitive, and often
without pecuniary resources, frequently unable to provide for his
personal safety, he was always able to console his companions in
exile and set them an example of honest industry. As time rolled
on, and his situation became more painful, he sought to find in
the new world a repose which Europe denied him; he came from
Europe, and in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Hartford passed
two years teaching the French language, and for a time playing the
first violin in the orchestra of the Park Theatre. Like many other
emigres, Brillat Savarin ever sought to make the pleasant and the
useful coincide. He always preserved very pleasant recollection of
this period of his life, in which he enjoyed, with moderate labor,
all that is necessary for happiness, liberty sweetened by honest
toil. He might say all is well, and to be able to enjoy the breath
of my native land would alone increase my happiness; he fancied
that he saw brighter days with the commencement of Vendemiaire
year 5, corresponding to September, of 1796. Appointed by the
Directory, as Secretary of the General in Chief of the Republican
armies in Germany, then Commisary of the government in the
department of the Seine and Oise, (this appointment he held at the
epoch of the 18th Brumaire, in which France fancied she exchanged
liberty for repose,) sustained by the Senate and the Court,
Brillat Savarin passed the remaining twenty-five years of his life
respected by his inferiors, loved by his equals, and honored by
all. A man of mind, a pleasant guest, with a deep fund of humor,
he delighted every body. His judicial labors did not at all
interfere with the composition of this book, which he esteemed the
great one of his life.
To the very facility of its composition, the "Physiology of the
Taste," owes its success; one would form a very erroneous opinion
of it, were he to estimate it at all as we do Montaigue's writings
on the Gueule. Savarin was naturally a thoughtful man, the
simplest meal satisfied him, all he required was that it should be
prepared artistically; and he maintained that the art of cookery
consisted in exciting the taste. He used to say, "to excite a
stomach of Papier Mache, and enliven vital powers almost ready to
depart, a cook needs more talent than he who has solved the
INFINTESIMAL CALCULUS."
The world was much surprised by finding in a book by Brillat
Savarin, a man it had always looked upon as simply a very pleasant
person, such a vast collection of general information; after his
laborious profession he had always seemed to expend the rest of
his time with the muses and graces, and none could divine where he
obtained so much information, as almost to recall the story of
some gray-haired sage of Greece. He had however already composed
more than one work unrecognised, if we except the two opuscula
"Critical and Historical Essay on Duel, with Relation to our
Legislation and Morals," and a work on judicial practice. They
were successful, but he was just then attacked by a violent cold,
contracted by being present at the annual ceremony, [Footnote: Not
only Brillat Savarin, but Robert De St. Vincent, and Attorney
General Marchangy, contracted their death in consequence of the
same ceremonial.] the 21st of January at the Church of St. Dennis.
In spite of every care and attention, on the 2d of February, 1826,
he died. For many years gifted with robust health and athletic
constitution, made the more remarkable by his tall stature,
Brillat Savarin had a presentiment of the approach of death; this
feeling, however, did not influence the tenor of his life, for his
habitual gaity was maintained unimpaired. When the fatal point was
reached, he died tanquam convivia satur, not without regret,
certainly, for he left many kind friends to whom his memory could
not but be dear.
APHORISMS OF THE PROFESSOR.
TO SERVE AS PROLEGOMENA TO HIS WORK AND ETERNAL BASIS TO THE
SCIENCE.
I. The universe would be nothing were it not for life and all that
lives must be fed.
II. Animals fill themselves; man eats. The man of mind alone knows
how to eat.
III. The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they
are fed.
IV. Tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what
kind of man you are.
V. The Creator, when he obliges man to eat, invites him to do so
by appetite, and rewards him by pleasure.
VI. Gourmandise is an act of our judgment, in obedience to which,
we grant a preference to things which are agreeable, over those
which nave not that quality.
VII. The pleasure of the table belongs to all ages, to all
conditions, to all countries, and to all aeras; it mingles with
all other pleasures, and remains at last to console us for their
departure.
VIII. The table is the only place where one does not suffer, from
ennui during the first hour.
IX. The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on
humanity, than the discovery of a new star.
X. Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk,
are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and
drinking.
XI. The order of food is from the most substantial to the
lightest.
XII. The order of drinking is from the mildest to the most foamy
and perfumed.
XIII. To say that we should not change our drinks is a heresy; the
tongue becomes saturated, and after the third glass yields but an
obtuse sensation.
XIV. A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has
lost an eye.
XV. A cook may be taught, but a man who can roast, is born with
the faculty.
XVI. The most indispensable quality of a good cook is promptness.
It should also be that of the guests.
XVII. To wait too long for a dilatory guest, shows disrespect to
those who are punctual.
XVIII. He who receives friends and pays no attention to the repast
prepared for them, is not fit to have friends.
XIX. The mistress of the house should always be certain that the
coffee be excellent; the master that his liquors be of the first
quality.
XX. To invite a person to your house is to take charge of his
happiness as long as he be beneath your roof.
DIALOGUE between the author and his friend. (after the usual
salutations.)
FRIEND. As my wife and myself were at breakfast this morning, we
came to the conclusion that you should print, as soon as possible,
your Gastronomical Observations.
AUTHOR. What the wife wishes God wills. In six words that is the
charta of Paris. I, though, am not subject to that law, for I am
an unmarried man.
FRIEND. Bachelors, though, are as subject to the law as others
are, sometimes much to our injury. Single blessedness here,
however, will not save you. My wife says she has a right to order,
because you began your book at her country-house.
AUTHOR. You know, dear Doctor, how I defer to the ladies; more
than once you have found my submission to their orders. You also
were one of those who said I would make an excellent husband. I
will not, however, print my book.
FRIEND. Why not?
AUTHOR. Because being devoted, from the nature of my profession,
to serious studies, I fear that those who only know the title of
my book will think that I devote myself to trifles.
FRIEND. A panic terror! Thirty-six years of constant toil and
labor for the public, have made you a reputation. Besides, my wife
and I think every body would read you.
AUTHOR. Indeed!
FRIEND. The learned will read your book to ascertain what you have
to tell.
AUTHOR. Perhaps.
FRIEND. Women will read your book because they will see---
AUTHOR. My dear friend, I am old, I am attacked by a fit of
wisdom. Miserere mei.
FRIEND. Gourmands will read you because you do them justice, and
assign them their suitable rank in society.
AUTHOR. Well, that is true. It is strange that they have so long
been misunderstood; I look on the dear Gourmands with paternal
affection. They are so kind and their eyes are so bright.
FRIEND. Besides, did you not tell me such a book was needed in
every library.
AUTHOR. I did. It is the truth--and I would die sooner than deny
it.
FRIEND: Ah! you are convinced! You will come home with me?
AUTHOR. Not so. If there be flowers in the author's path, there
are also thorns. The latter I leave to my heirs.
FRIEND. But then you disinherit your friends, acquaintances and
cotemporaries. Dare you do so?
AUTHOR. My heirs! my heirs! I have heard that shades of the
departed are always flattered by the praise of the living; this is
a state of beatitude I wish to reserve myself for the other world.
FRIEND. But are you sure that the praise you love so, will come to
the right address? Are you sure of the exactness of your heirs?
AUTHOR. I have no reason to think they will neglect a duty, in
consideration of which I have excused them the neglect of so many
others.
FRIEND. Will they--can they have for your book the paternal love,
the author's attention without which every work always comes
awkwardly before the public?
AUTHOR. My manuscript will be corrected, written out distinctly,
and in all respects prepared; they will only have to print it.
FRIEND. And the chapter of events? Alas! such circumstances have
caused the loss of many precious books,--among which was that of
the famous Lecat, on the state of the body during sleep, the work
of his whole life.
AUTHOR. This doubtless was a great loss; but I anticipate no such
regrets for my book.
FRIEND. Believe me, your friends will have enough to do-to arrange
matters with the church, with the law, and with the medical
faculty, so that if they had the will, they would not have the
time to devote them-selves to the various cares which precede,
accompany, and follow the publication of a book,--however small
the volume may be.
AUTHOR. But, my friend, what a title! Think of the ridicule!
FRIEND. The word Gastronomy makes every ear attentive; the subject
is a la mode, and those who laugh are as great votaries of the
science as any others are. This should satisfy you. Do you
remember too, that the greatest men have sometimes written books
on very trivial subjects,-Montesquieu, for example. [Footnote: M.
de Monjucla, known as the author of an excellent history of
mathematics, made a Dictionary of Gourmand Geography; he showed me
portions of it during my residence at Versailles. It is said that
M. Berryat-Professor of legal practice, has written a romance in
several volumes on the subject.]
AUTHOR. (Quickly.) On my word, that is true. He wrote the Temple
of Gnidus, and it would not be difficult to sustain that there is
more real utility in meditating on what is at once a necessity, a
pleasure, and an occupation every day of our lives, than in
telling what was done and said a thousand years ago by two mad
people, one of whom pursued through the woods of Greece the other,
who had not the least disposition to escape.
FRIEND. Ah! ha! Now you yield?
AUTHOR. Not I. The ass's ear of the author only was shown; and
this recalls to my memory a scene of English comedy, which amused
me very much; it is, I think, in the play called the Natural
Daughter. You shall see, however, for yourself. [Footnote: The
reader will observe that my friend permits me to be familiar with
him, without taking advantage of it. The reason is, that the
difference between our ages is that of a father and a son, and
that, though now a man of great note and importance in every
respect, he would be completely overcome with grief if I changed
my bearing towards him.] The subject relates to the Quakers, that
sect which uses "thee" and "thou" to everybody, which dresses
simply, never go to war, never swear or act with passion, and who
never get angry. The hero of this piece is a young and handsome
Quaker, who appears on the scene in a brown coat, a broad-brimmed
hat, and slick hair! All this, though, does not keep him from
being in love.
A fool who is his rival, emboldened by his exterior, ridicules and
outrages him so that the young man gradually becoming excited, and
finally made furious, gives his assailant a severe thrashing.
Having done this he at once resumes his habitual deportment and
says, sadly, "Alas! the flesh is too mighty for the spirit."
Thus say I, and after a brief hesitation resume my first opinion.
FRIEND. That is impossible. You have shown your ear; you are a
prize, and I will take you to my bookseller. I will tell you who
has gotten wind of your secret.
AUTHOR. Do not; for I would speak of yourself, and who knows what
I would say?
FRIEND. What could you say? Do not think you can intimidate me.
AUTHOR. I will not say that our native city [Footnote: Belley,
capital of Bugey, where high mountains, hills, vines, limpid
streams, cascades, dells, gardens of a hundred square leagues are
found, and where, BEFORE the revolution, the people were able to
control the other two orders.] is proud of having given you birth.
At the age of twenty-four you published an elementary book, which
from that day has become a classic. A deserved reputation has
attracted confidence to you. Your skill revives invalids; your
dexterity animates them; your sensibility consoles them. All know
this; but I will reveal to all Paris, to all France, the sole
fault of which I know you guilty.
FRIEND. (Seriously.) What do you mean?
AUTHOR. An habitual fault which no persuasion can correct.
FRIEND. Tell me what you mean! Why torment me?
AUTHOR. You eat too quickly.
(Here, the friend takes up his hat and leaves, fancying that he
has made a convert.)
BIOGRAPHY
The Doctor I have introduced into the dialogue we have just read,
is not a creature of imagination like the Chloris of other days,
but a real living Doctor. Those who know me, will remember
RICHERAND.
When I thought of him I could not but have reference to those who
preceded him, and I saw with pride that from Belley, from the
department of Ain, my native soil, for a long time physicians of
the greatest distinction had come. I could not resist the
temptation to erect a brief monument to them.
During the regency Doctors Genin and Civoct were in full
possession of practice, and expended in their country a wealth
they had honorably acquired. The first was altogether
HIPPOCRATITE; he proceeded secundum artem; the second was almost
monopolized by women, and had as his device, as Tacitus would have
said, res novas molientem.
About 1780 Chapelle became distinguished in the dangerous career
of a military surgeon. About 1781 Doctor Dubois had great success
in sundry maladies, then very much a la mode, and in nervous
diseases. The success he obtained was really wonderful.
Unfortunately he inherited a fortune and became idle, and was
satisfied to be a good story-teller. He was very amusing, and
contrived to survive the dinners of the new and old regime.
[Footnote: I smiled when I wrote the above, for it recalled to me
an Academician, the eulogium of whom Fontenelle undertook. The
deceased knew only how to play at all games. Fontenelle made a
very decent oration, however, about him.] About the end of the
reign of Louis XV., Dr. Coste, a native of Chatillon came to
Paris; he had a letter from Voltaire to the Duc de Choiseuil, the
good wishes of whom he gained as soon as he had seen him.
Protected by this nobleman, and by the Duchess of Grammont, his
sister, young Coste advanced rapidly, and in a short time became
one of the first physicians of Paris.
The patronage he had received took him from a profitable career to
place him at the head of the medical department of the army which
France sent to the United States, who then were contending for
their independence.
Having fulfilled his mission, Coste returned to France, and almost
unseen lived through the evil days of 1793. He was elected maire
of Versailles, and even now the memory of his administration, at
once mild, gentle and paternal, has been preserved.
The Directors now recalled him to the charge of the medical
department of the army. Bonaparte appointed him one of the three
Inspectors General of the service; the Doctor was always the
friend, protector, and patron of the young men who selected that
service. He was at last appointed Physician of the Invalides, and
discharged the duties until he died.
Such service the Bourbons could not neglect, and Louis XVIII.
granted to Doctor Coste the cordon of Saint Michel.
Doctor Coste died a few years since, leaving behind kind
recollections, and a daughter married to M. Lalot, who
distinguished himself in the Chamber of Deputies by his eloquent
and profound arguments.
One day when we had dined with M. Favre, the Cure of St. Laurent,
Doctor Coste told me of a difficulty he had, the day before, with
the Count de Le Cessac, then a high officer of the ministry of
war, about a certain economy which the latter proposed as a means
of paying his court Napoleon.
The economy consisted in retrenching the allowances of hospital,
so as to restrict men who had wounds from the comforts they were
entitled to.
Doctor Coste said such measures were abominable, and he became
angry.
I do not know what the result was, but only that the sick soldiers
had their usual allowances, and that no change was made.
He was appointed Professor of the Faculty of Medicine. His style
was simple and his addresses were plain and fruitful. Honors were
crowded on him. He was appointed Physician to the Empress Marie
Louise. He did not, however, fill that place long, the Emperor was
swept away, and the Doctor himself succumbed to a disease of the
leg, to which he had long been subject.
Bordier was of a calm disposition, kind and reliable.
About the 18th century appeared Bichat, all of the writings of
whom bear the impress of genius. He expended his life in toil to
advance science, and joined the patience of restricted minds to
enthusiasm. He died at the age of thirty, and public honors were
decreed to his memory.
At a later day came Doctor Montegre, who carried philosophy into
clinics. He was the editor of the Gazette de Sante, and at the age
of forty died in the Antilles whither he had gone to complete his
book on the Vomite Negro.
At the present moment Richerand stands on the highest degree of
operative medicine, and his Elements of Physiology have been
translated into every language. Appointed at an early date a
Professor of the Faculty of Paris, he made all rely fully on him.
He is the keenest, gentlest, and quickest operator in the world.
Recamier, a professor of the same faculty, sits by his side.
The present being thus assured, the future expands itself before
us! Under the wings of these mighty Professors arise young men of
the same land, who seek to follow their honorable examples.
Janin and Manjot already crush the pavement of Paris. Manjot
devotes himself to the diseases of children; he has happy
inspirations, and soon will tell the public what he has
discovered.
I trust my readers will pardon this digression of an old man, who,
during an absence of thirty years, has neither forgotten his
country nor his countrymen. I could not however omit all those
physicians, the memory of whom is yet preserved in their birth-
place, and who, though not conspicuous, had not on that account
the less merit or worth. [Footnote: The translator thinks several
have made world-renowned names.]
PREFACE.
In offering to the public the work I now produce, I have
undertaken no great labor. I have only put in order materials I
had collected long ago. The occupation was an amusing one, which I
reserved for my old age.
When I thought of the pleasures of the table, under every point of
view, I saw that something better than a common cookery book could
be made out of it, and that much might be said about essential and
continuous things, which have a direct influence on health,
happiness, and even on business.
When I had once gotten hold of the idea, all the rest came
naturally. I looked around, took notes, and amidst the most
sumptuous festivals looked at the guests. Thus I escaped many of
the dangers of conviviality.
To do what I have undertaken, one need not be a physician,
chemist, physiologist, or even a savant. All I learned, I learned
without the least idea that I would ever be an author. I was
impressed by a laudable curiosity, by the fear of remaining behind
my century, and by an anxiety to be able to sit at table on equal
terms with the savants I used to meet.
I am essentially an amateur medecin, and this to me is almost a
mania. Among the happiest days of my life, when with the
Professors, I went to hear the thesis of Doctor Cloquet; I was
delighted when I heard the murmur of the students' voices, each of
whom asked who was the foreign professor who honored the College
with his presence.
One other day is, I think, almost as dear to me. I refer to the
meeting of the society for the encouragement of national industry,
when I presented the irrorator, an instrument of my own invention,
which is neither more nor less than a forcing pump filled with
perfumes.
I had an apparatus fully charged in my pocket. I turned the cock,
and thence pressed out a perfume which filled the whole room.
Then I saw, with inexpressible pleasure, the wisest heads of the
capital bend beneath my irrigation, and I was glad to see that
those who received most, were the happiest.
Thinking sometimes of the grave lucubrations to which I was
attracted by my subject, I really as afraid that I would be
troublesome. I have often read very stupid books.
I did all that I could to escape this reproach. I have merely
hovered over subjects which presented themselves to me; I have
filled my book with anecdotes, some of which to a degree are
personal. I have omitted to mention many strange and singular
things, which critical judgment induced me to reject, and I
recalled popular attention to certain things which savants seemed
to have reserved to themselves. If, in spite of all these efforts,
I have not presented to my readers a science rarely understood, I
shall sleep just as calmly, being certain that the MAJORITY will
acquit me of all evil intention.
It may perhaps be said that sometimes I wrote too rapidly, and
that sometimes I became garrulous. Is it my fault that I am old?
Is it my fault that, like Ulysses, I have seen the manners and
customs of many cities? Am I therefore blamable for writing a
little bit of autobiography? Let the reader, however, remember
that I do not inflict my political memoirs on him, which he would
have to read, as he has many others, since during the last thirty
years I have been exactly in the position to see great men and
great things.
Let no one assign me a place among compilers; had I been reduced
thus low, I would have laid down my pen, and would not have lived
less happily.
I said, like Juvenal:
"Semper ego auditor tantum! nunquamne reponam!"
and those who know me will easily see that used to the tumult of
society and to the silence of the study I had to take advantage of
both one and the other of these positions.
I did too many things which pleased me particularly; I was able to
mention many friends who did not expect me to do so, and recalled
some pleasant memories; I seized on others which would have
escaped, and, as we say familiarly, took my coffee.
It may be a single reader may in some category exclaim,----"I
wished to know if----." "What was he thinking of," etc., etc. I am
sure, though, the others will make him be silent and receive with
kindness the effusions of a praiseworthy sentiment.
I have something to say about my style, which, as Buffon says, is
all the man.
Let none think I come to ask for a favor which is never granted to
those who need it. I wish merely to make an explanation.
I should write well, for Voltaire, Jean Jacques, Fenelon, Buffon,
and Cochin and Aguesseau were my favorite authors. I knew them by
heart.
It may be though, that the gods ordered otherwise; if so, this is
the cause of the will of the gods.
I know five languages which now are spoken, which gives me an
immense refectory of words.
When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from
other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or
translate me. Such is my fate.
I could have acted otherwise, but was prevented by a kind of
system to which I was invincibly attached.
I am satisfied that the French language which I use is
comparatively poor. What could I do? Either borrow or steal.
I did neither, for such borrowings, cannot be restored, though to
steal words is not punishable by the penal code.
Any one may form an idea of my audacity when I say I applied the
Spanish word volante to any one I had sent on an errand, and that
I had determined to GALLICISE the English word TO SIP, which means
to drink in small quantities. I however dug out the French word
siroter, which expresses nearly the same thing.
I am aware the purists will appeal to Bosseux, to Fenelon, Raceri,
Boilleau, Pascal, and others of the reign of Louis XIV. I fancy I
hear their clamor.
To all this I reply distinctly, that I do not depreciate the merit
of those authors; but what follows? Nothing, except that if they
played well on an inferior instrument, how much better would they
have done on a superior one. Therefore, we may believe that
Tartini would have played on the violin far better than he did, if
his bow had been long as that of Baillot.
I do not belong to the neologues or even to the romanticists; the
last are discoverers of hidden treasures, the former are like
sailors who go about to search for provisions they need.
The people of the North, and especially the English, have in this
respect an immense advantage over us. Genius is never restricted
by the want of expression, which is either made or created. Thus
it is that of all subjects which demand depth and energy, our
translations make but pale and dull infusions.
Once I heard at the institute a pleasant discourse on the danger
of neologism, and on the necessity of maintaining our language as
it was when the authors of the great century wrote.
"Like a chemist, I sifted the argument and ascertained that it
meant:
"We have done so well, that we neither need nor can do better."
Now; I have lived long enough to know that each generation has
done as much, and that each one laughs at his grandfather.
Besides, words must change, when manners and ideas undergo
perpetual modifications. If we do things as the ancients did, we
do not do them in the same manner. There are whole pages in many
French books, which cannot be translated into Latin or Greek.
All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline. None of
those which have been famous from the days of Sesostris to that of
Philip Augustus, exist except as monuments. The French will have
the same fate, and in the year 2825 if read, will be read with a
dictionary.
I once had a terrible argument on this matter with the famous M.
Andrieux, at the Academie Francaise.
I made my assault in good array, I attacked him vigorously, and
would have beaten him had he not made a prompt retreat, to which I
opposed no obstacle, fortunately for him, as he was making one
letter of the new lexicon.
I end by one important observation, for that reason I have kept it
till the last.
When I write of ME in the singular, I gossip with my reader, he
may examine, discuss, doubt or laugh; but when I say WE I am a
professor, and all must bow to me.
"I am, Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark."
Merchant of Venice.
PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE.
MEDITATION FIRST.
THE SENSES.
The senses are the organs by which man places himself in connexion
with exterior objects.
NUMBER OF THE SENSES.
1. They are at least six--
Sight, which embraces space, and tells us by means of light, of
the existence and of the colors of the bodies around us.
Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion
of sounding or vibrating bodies.
Scent, by means of which we are made aware of the odors bodies
possess.
Taste, which enables us to distinguish all that has a flavor from
that which is insipid.
Touch informs us of the consistency and resistance of bodies.
The last is genesiac or physical love, which attracts the sexes to
each other, and the object of which is the reproduction of the
species.
It is astonishing that, almost to the days of Buffon, so important
a sense was misunderstood, and was confounded with the touch.
Yet the sensation of which it is the seat, has nothing in common
with touch; it resides in an apparatus as complete as the mouth or
the eyes, and what is singular is that each sex has all that is
needed to experience the sensation; it is necessary that the two
should be united to reach nature's object. If the TASTE, the
object of which is the preservation of the individual, be
incontestibly a sense, the same title must indubitably be
preserved on the organs destined to the preservation of the
species.
Let us then assign to the genesiac the sensual place which cannot
be refused to it, and let us leave to posterity the assignment of
its peculiar rank.
ACTION OF THE SENSES.
If we were permitted, even in imagination, to refer to the first
moments of the existence of the human race, we would believe that
the first sensations were direct; that is to say that all saw
confusedly and indirectly, smelled without care, ate without
tasting, etc.
The centre of all these sensations, however, being the soul, the
sensual attribute of humanity and active cause of perfectibility,
they are reflected, compared, and judged by it; the other senses
then come to the assistance of each other, for the utility and
well-being of the sensitive; one or individual.
Thus touch rectifies the errors of sight; sound, by means of
articulate speech, becomes the interpreter of every sentiment;
taste is aided by sight and smell; hearing compares sounds,
appreciates distance; and the genesiac sense takes possession of
the organs of all the senses.
The torrent of centuries rolling over the human race, has
continually brought new perfections, the cause of which, ever
active though unseen, is found in the demands made by our senses,
which always in their turns demand to be occupied.
Sight thus gave birth to painting, to sculpture, and to spectacles
of every kind.
Sound, to melody, harmony, to the dance, and to music in all its
branches, and means of execution.
Smell, to the discovery, manufacture and use of perfumes.
Taste, to the production, choice and preparation of all that is
used for food.
Touch, to all art, trades and occupations.
The genesiac sense, to all which prepares or embellishes the
reunion of senses, and, subsequently to the days of Francois I.,
to romantic love, to coquetry, which originated in France and
obtained its name there, and from which the elite of the world,
collected in the capital of the universe, take their lessons every
day.
This proposition, strange as it seems, is very susceptible of
demonstration; we cannot express with clearness in any ancient
language, ideas about these three great motives of actual society.
I had written a dialogue on this subject, but suppressed it for
the purpose of permitting the reader, each in his own way, to
think of the matter for himself. There is enough to occupy the
mind and display intelligence and erudition during a whole
evening.
We said above, that the genesiac sense took possession of the
organs of all the others; the influence it has exerted over all
sciences is not less. When we look closer, we will find that all
that is most delicate and ingenious is due to the desire, to hope,
or to gratitude, in connexion with the union of the sexes.
Such is, indeed, the genealogy of the senses, even the most
abstract ones, all being the immediate result of continuous
efforts made to gratify our senses.
PERFECTNESS OF THE SENSES.
These senses, our favorites, are far from being perfect, and I
will not pause to prove it. I will only observe, that that
ethereal sense--sight, and touch, which is at the other extremity
of the scale, have from time acquired a very remarkable additional
power.
By means of spectacles the eye, so to say, escapes from the decay
of age, which troubles almost all the other organs.
The telescope has discovered stars hitherto unknown and
inaccessible to all our means of mensuration; it has penetrated
distances so great, that luminous and necessarily immense bodies
present themselves to us only like nebulous and almost
imperceptible spots.
The microscope has made us acquainted with the interior
configuration of bodies; or has shown the existence of a
vegetation and of plants, the existence of which we were ignorant
of.
Animals a hundred thousand times smaller than any visible with the
naked eye have been discovered; these animalculae, however, move,
feed and multiply, establishing the existence of organs of
inconceivable tenuity.
Mechanics have multiplied our power; man has executed all that he
could conceive of, and has moved weights nature made inaccessible
to his weakness.
By means of arms and of the lever, man has conquered all nature;
he has subjected it to his pleasure, wants and caprices. He has
overturned its surfaces, and a feeble biped has become king of
creation.
Sight and touch, being thus increased in capacity, might belong to
some species far superior to man; or rather the human species
would be far different had all the senses been thus improved.
We must in the meantime remark, that if touch has acquired a great
development as a muscular power, civilization has done almost
nothing for it as an organ of sensation. We must, however, despair
of nothing, but remember that the human race is yet young, and
that only after a long series of years can the senses aggrandise
their domain.
For instance. Harmony was only discovered about four centuries
ago, and that celestial science is to sound what painting is to
colors.
Certainly, the ancients used to sing and accompany themselves in
unison. Their knowledge, however, ended there. They knew neither
how to decompose sounds, nor to appreciate their relations.
[Footnote: We are aware that the contrary has been maintained; the
idea though cannot be supported. Had the ancients been acquainted
with harmony, their writings would have preserved some precise
notion on the matter, instead of a few obscure phrases, which may
be tortured to mean anything. Besides, we cannot follow the birth
and progress of harmony in the monuments left to us; this
obligation we owe to the Arabs, who made us a present of the
organ, which produces at one time many continuous sounds, and thus
created harmony.]
Tone was only reduced to system, and accords measured in the
fifteenth century. Only then it was used to sustain the voice and
to reinforce the expression of sentiments.
This discovery, made at so late a day, yet so natural, doubled the
hearing, and has shown the existence of two somewhat independent
faculties, one of which receives sound and the other appreciates
resonance.
The German Doctors say that persons sensible of harmony have one
sense more than others.
Of those persons to whom music is but a confused mass of sounds,
we may remark that almost all sing false. We are forced to think
that they have the auditory apparatus so made, as to receive but
brief and short undulation, or that the two ears not being on the
same diapason, the difference in length and sensibility of these
constituent parts, causes them to transmit to the brain only an
obscure and undetermined sensation, like two instruments played in
neither the same key nor the same measure, and which can produce
no continuous melody.
The centuries last passed have also given the taste important
extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations,
of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have
given us flavors hitherto unknown.
Who knows if touch will not have its day, and if some fortuitous
circumstance will not open to us thence some new enjoyments? This
is especially probable as tactile sensitiveness exists every where
in the body, and consequently can every where be excited.
We have seen that physical love has taken possession of all the
sciences. In this respect it acts with its habitual tyranny.
The taste is a more prudent measure but not less active faculty.
Taste, we say, has accomplished the same thing, with a slowness
which ensures its success.
Elsewhere we will consider the march. We may, however, observe,
that he who has enjoyed a sumptuous banquet in a hall decked with
flowers, mirrors, paintings, and statues, embalmed in perfume,
enriched with pretty women, filled with delicious harmony, will
not require any great effort of thought to satisfy himself that
all sciences have been put in requisition to exalt and to enhance
the pleasures of taste.
OBJECT OF THE ACTION OF THE SENSES.
Let us now glance at the system of our senses, considered
together, and we will see that the Author of creation had two
objects, one of which is the consequence of the other,--the
preservation of the individual and the duration of the species.
Such is the destiny of man, considered as a sensitive being; all
his actions have reference to this double purpose.
The eye perceives external objects, reveals the wonders by which a
man is surrounded, and tells him he is a portion of the great
whole.
Hearing perceives sounds, not only as an agreeable sensation, but
as warnings of the movement of bodies likely to endanger us.
The sense of touch watches to warn us by pain of any immediate
lesion.
That faithful servant the hand has prepared his defence, assured
his steps, but has from instinct seized objects it thought needed
to repair losses caused by the use of life.
The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always
have an unpleasant smell.
The taste decides; the teeth are put in action, the tongue unites
with the palate in tasting, and the stomach soon commences the
process of assimilation.
In this state a strange languor is perceived, objects seem
discolored, the body bends, the eyes close, all disappears, and
the senses are in absolute repose.
When he awakes man sees that nothing around him has changed, a
secret fire ferments in his bosom, a new organ is developed. He
feels that he wishes to divide his existence.
This active unquiet and imperious sentiment is common to both
sexes. It attracts them together and unites them, and when the
germ of a new being is fecundated, the individuals can sleep in
peace.
They have fulfilled the holiest of their duties by assuring the
duration of the species. [Footnote: Buffon describes, with all the
charms of the most brilliant eloquence, the first moments of Eve's
existence. Called on to describe almost the same subject, we have
drawn but one feature. The reader will complete the picture.]
Such are the general and philosophical principles I wished to
place before my readers, to lead them naturally to the examination
of the organ of taste.
MEDITATION II.
TASTE.
DEFINITION OF TASTE.
Taste is the sense which communicates to us a knowledge of vapid
bodies by means of the sensations which they excite.
Taste, which has as its excitement appetite, hunger and thirst, is
the basis of many operations the result of which is that the
individual believes, developes, preserves and repairs the losses
occasioned by vital evaporation.
Organized bodies are not sustained in the same manner. The Author
of creation, equally varied in causes and effects, has assigned
them different modes of preservation.
Vegetables, which are the lowest in the scale of living things,
are fed by roots, which, implanted in the native soil, select by
the action of a peculiar mechanism, different subjects, which
serve to increase and to nourish them.
As we ascend the scale we find bodies gifted with animal life and
deprived of locomotion. They are produced in a medium which favors
their existence, and have special and peculiar organs which
extract all that is necessary to sustain the portion and duration
of life allotted them. They do not seek food, which, on the
contrary, comes to seek them.
Another mode has been appointed for animals endowed with
locomotion, of which man is doubtless the most perfect. A peculiar
instinct warns him of the necessity of food; he seeks and seizes
the things which he knows are necessary to satisfy his wants; he
eats, renovates himself, and thus during his life passes through
the whole career assigned to him.
Taste may be considered in three relations.
In physical man it is the apparatus by means of which he
appreciates flavors.
In moral man it is the sensation which the organ impressed by any
savorous centre impresses on the common centre. Considered as a
material cause, taste is the property which a body has to impress
the organ and to create a sensation.
Taste seems to have two chief uses:
1. It invites us by pleasure to repair the losses which result
from the use of life.
2. It assists us to select from among the substances offered by
nature, those which are alimentary.
In this choice taste is powerfully aided by the sense of smell, as
we will see hereafter; as a general principle, it may be laid down
that nutritious substances are repulsive neither to the taste nor
to the smell.
It is difficult to say in exactly what the faculty of taste
consists. It is more complicated than it appears.
The tongue certainly plays a prominent part in the mechanism of
degustation--for, being endued with great muscular power, it
enfolds, turns, presses and swallows food.
Also, by means of the more or less numerous pores which cover it,
it becomes impregnated with the sapid and soluble portions of the
bodies which it is placed in contact with. Yet all this does not
suffice, for many adjacent parts unite in completing the sensation
--viz: jaws, palate, and especially the nasal tube, to which
physiologists have perhaps not paid attention enough.
The jaws furnish saliva, as necessary to mastication as to the
formation of the digestible mass. They, like the palate, are
gifted with a portion of the appreciative faculties; I do not know
that, in certain cases, the nose does not participate, and if but
for the odor which is felt in the back of the mouth, the sensation
of taste would not be obtuse and imperfect.
Persons who have no tongue or who have lost it, yet preserve the
sensation of taste. All the books mention the first case; the
second was explained to me by an unfortunate man, whose tongue had
been cut out by the Algerines for having, with several of his
companions, formed a plot to escape from captivity.
I met this man at Amsterdam, where he was a kind of broker. He was
a person of education, and by writing was perfectly able to make
himself understood.
Observing that his whole tongue, to the very attachment, had been
cut away, I asked him if he yet preserved any sense of taste when
he ate, and if the sense of taste had survived the cruel operation
he had undergone.
He told me his greatest annoyance was in swallowing, (which indeed
was difficult;) that he had a full appreciation of tastes and
flavors, but that acid and bitter substances produced intense
pain.
He told me the abscission of the tongue was very common in the
African kingdoms, and was made use of most frequently to punish
those thought to be the leaders of any plot, and that they had
peculiar instruments to affect it with. I wished him to describe
them, but he showed such painful reluctance in this matter, that I
did not insist.
I reflected on what he said, and ascending to the centuries of
ignorance, when the tongues of blasphemers were cut and pierced, I
came to the conclusion that these punishments were of Moorish
origin, and were imported by the crusaders.
We have seen above, that the sensation of taste resided chiefly in
the pores and feelers of the tongue. Anatomy tells us that all
tongues are not exactly alike, there being three times as many
feelers in some tongues as in others. This circumstance will
explain why one of two guests, sitting at the same table, is
delighted, while the other seems to eat from constraint; the
latter has a tongue but slightly provided. These are recognized in
the empire of the taste--both deaf and dumb.
SENSATION OF TASTE.
Five or six opinions have been advanced as to the modus operandi
of the sensation of taste. I have mine, viz:
The sensation of taste is a chemical operation, produced by
humidity. That is to say, the savorous particles must be dissolved
in some fluid, so as to be subsequently absorbed by the nervous
tubes, feelers, or tendrils, which cover the interior of the
gastatory apparatus.
This system, whether true or not, is sustained by physical and
almost palpable proofs.
Pure water creates no sensation, because it contains no sapid
particle. Dissolve, however, a grain of salt, or infuse a few
drops of vinegar, and there will be sensation.
Other drinks, on the contrary, create sensation because they are
neither more nor less than liquids filled with appreciable
particles.
It would be in vain for the mouth to fill itself with the divided
particles of an insoluble body. The tongue would feel by touch the
sensation of their presence, but not that of taste.
In relation to solid and savorous bodies, it is necessary in the
first place for the teeth to divide them, that the saliva and
other tasting fluids to imbibe them, and that the tongue press
them against the palate, so as to express a juice, which, when
sufficiently saturated by the degastory tendrils, deliver to the
substance the passport it requires for admission into the stomach.
This system, which will yet receive other developments, replies
without effort to the principal questions which may present
themselves.
If we demand what is understood by sapid bodies, we reply that it
is every thing that has flavor, which is soluble, and fit to be
absorbed by the organ of taste.
If asked how a sapid body acts, we reply that it acts when it is
reduced to such a state of dissolution that it enters the cavities
made to receive it.
In a word, nothing is sapid but what is already or nearly
dissolved.
FLAVORS.
The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a
peculiar flavor, like none other.
Flavors are also modified by their simple, double, or multiple
aggregation. It is impossible to make any description, either of
the most pleasant or of the most unpleasant, of the raspberry or
of colocynth. All who have tried to do so have failed.
This result should not amaze us, for being gifted with an infinite
variety of simple flavors, which mixture modifies to such a number
and to such a quantity, a new language would he needed to express
their effects, and mountains of folios to describe them. Numerical
character alone could label them.
Now, as yet, no flavor has ever been appreciated with rigorous
exactness, we have been forced to be satisfied with a limited
number of expressions such as SWEET, SUGARY, ACID, BITTER, and
similar ones, which, when ultimately analyzed, are expressed by
the two following AGREEABLE and DISAGREEABLE, which suffice to
make us understood, and indicate the flavor of the sapid
substances referred to.
Those who come after us will know more, for doubtless chemistry
will reveal the causes or primitive elements of flavors.
INFLUENCE OF SMELLING ON THE TASTE.
The order I marked out for myself has insensibly led me to the
moment to render to smell the rights which belong to it, and to
recognise the important services it renders to taste and the
application of flavors. Among the authors I have met with, I
recognise none as having done full justice to it.
For my own part, I am not only persuaded that without the
interposition of the organs of smell, there would be no complete
degustation, and that the taste and the sense of smell form but
one sense, of which the mouth is the laboratory and the nose the
chimney; or to speak more exactly, that one tastes tactile
substances, and the other exhalations.
This may be vigorously defended; yet as I do not wish to establish
a school, I venture on it only to give my readers a subject of
thought, and to show that I have carefully looked over the subject
of which I write. Now I continue my demonstration of the
importance of the sense of smell, if not as a constituent portion
of taste, at least as a necessary adjunct.
All sapid bodies are necessarily odorous, and therefore belong as
well to the empire of the one as of the other sense.
We eat nothing without seeing this, more or less plainly. The nose
plays the part of sentinel, and always cries "WHO GOES THERE?"
Close the nose, and the taste is paralyzed; a thing proved by
three experiments any one can make:
1. When the nasal membrane is irritated by a violent coryza (cold
in the head) the taste is entirely obliterated. There is no taste
in anything we swallow, yet the tongue is in its normal state.
2. If we close the nose when we eat, we are amazed to see how
obscure and imperfect the sense of touch is. The most disgusting
medicines thus are swallowed almost without taste.
3. The same effect is observed if, as soon as we have swallowed,
instead of restoring the tongue to its usual place, it be kept
detached from the palate. Thus the circulation of the air is
intercepted, the organs of smell are not touched, and there is no
taste.
These effects have the same cause, from the fact that the sense of
smell does not co-operate with the taste. The sapid body is
appreciated only on account of the juice, and not for the odorous
gas which emanates from it.
ANALYSIS OF THE SENSATION OF TASTE.
Principles being thus determined, I look on it as certain that
taste has given place to sensations of three different orders,
viz: DIRECT, COMPLETE and REFLECTED.
Direct sensation is the first perception emanating from the
intermediate organs of the mouth, during the time that the sapid
body rests on the tongue.
Complete sensation is that composed of the first impression which
is created when the food abandons this first position, passes into
the back of the mouth, and impresses all the organ with both taste
and perfume.
Reflected sensation is the judgment which conveys to the soul the
impressions transmitted to it by the organ.
Let us put this system in action by observing what takes place
when a man either eats or drinks. Let a man, for instance, eat a
peach, and he will first be agreeably impressed by the odor which
emanates from it. He places it in his mouth, and acid and fresh
flavors induce him to continue. Not, though, until he has
swallowed it, does the perfume reveal itself, nor does he till
then discover the peculiar flavor of every variety. Some time is
necessary for any gourmet [Footnote: Any gentleman or lady, who
may please, is at perfect liberty to translate the word gourmet
into any other tongue. I cannot. As much may be said of gourmand.-
-TRANSLATOR.] to say, "It is good, passable, or bad. It is
Chambertin, or something else."
It may then be seen that in obedience to principles and practice
well understood, true amateurs sip their wine. Every mouthful thus
gives them the sum total of pleasure which they would not have
enjoyed had they swallowed it at once.
The same thing takes place, with however much more energy, when
the taste is disagreeably affected.
Just look at the patient of some doctor who prescribes immense
doses of black medicine, such as were given during the reign of
Louis XIV.
The sense of smell, like a faithful counsellor, foretells its
character. The eyes expand as they do at the approach of danger;
disgust is on the lips and the stomach at once rebells. He is
however besought to take courage, gurgles his throat with brandy,
closes his nose and swallows.
As long as the odious compound fills the mouth and stuns the organ
it is tolerable, but when it has been swallowed the after drops
develop themselves, nauseous odors arise, and every feature of the
patient expresses horror and disgust, which the fear of death
alone could induce him to bear.
If the draught be on the contrary merely insipid, as for instance
a glass of water, there is neither taste nor after taste. Nothing
is felt, nothing is experienced, it is swallowed, and all is over.
ORDER OF THE IMPRESSIONS OF TASTE.
Taste is not so richly endowed as the hearing; the latter can
appreciate and compare many sounds at once; the taste on the
contrary is simple in its action; that is to say it cannot be
sensible to two flavors at once.
It may though be doubled and multipled by succession, that is to
say that in the act of swallowing there may be a second and even a
third sensation, each of which gradually grows weaker and weaker
and which are designated by the words AFTER-TASTE, perfume or
fragrance. Thus when a chord is struck, one ear exercises and
discharges many series of consonances, the number of which is not
as yet perfectly known.
Those who eat quickly and without attention, do not discern
impressions of the second degree. They belong only to a certain
number of the elect, and by the means of these second sensations
only can be classed the different substances submitted to their
examination.
These fugitive shadows for a long time vibrate in the organ of
taste. The professors, beyond doubt, always assume an appropriate
position, and when they give their opinions they always do so with
expanded nostrils, and with their necks protruded far as they can
go.
ENJOYMENTS DUE TO THE TASTE.
Let us now look philosophically at the pleasure and pain
occasioned by taste.
The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so
as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure.
In fact the imbibing of acid or bitter substances subjects us to
sensations more or less painful, according to their degree. It is
said that the cause of the rapid effects of hydrocyanic acid is
that the pain is so great as to be unbearable by the powers of
vitality.
The scale of agreeable sensations on the other hand is very
limited, and if there, be a sensible difference between the
insipid and that which flatters the taste, the interval is not so
great between the good and the excellent. The following example
proves this:--FIRST TERM a Bouilli dry and hard. SECOND TERM a
piece of veal. THIRD TERM a pheasant done to a turn.
Of all the senses though with which we have been endowed by
nature, the taste is the one, which all things considered,
procures us the most enjoyments.
1. Because the pleasure of eating is the only one, when moderately
enjoyed, not followed, by fatigue.
2. It belongs to all aeras, ages and ranks.
3. Because it necessarily returns once a day, and may without
inconvenience be twice or thrice repeated in the same day.
4. It mingles with all other pleasures, and even consoles us for
their absence.
5. Because the impressions it receives are durable and dependant
on, our will.
6. Because when we eat we receive a certain indefinable and
peculiar impression of happiness originating in instinctive
conscience. When we eat too, we repair our losses and prolong our
lives.
This will be more carefully explained in the chapter we devote to
the pleasures of the table, considered as it has been advanced by
civilization.
SUPREMACY OF MAN.
We were educated in the pleasant faith that of all things that
walk, swim, crawl, or fly, man has the most perfect taste.
This faith is liable to be shaken.
Dr. Gall, relying on I know not what examinations, says there are
many animals with the gustatory apparatus more developed and
extended than man's.
This does not sound well and looks like heresy. Man, jure divino,
king of all nature, for the benefit of whom the world was peopled,
must necessarily be supplied with an organ which places him in
relation to all that is sapid in his subjects.
The tongue of animals does not exceed their intelligence; in
fishes the tongue is but a movable bone, in birds it is usually a
membranous cartilage, and in quadrupeds it is often covered with
scales and asperities, and has no circumflex motion.
The tongue of man on the contrary, from the delicacy of its
texture and the different membranes by which it is surrounded and
which are near to it announces the sublimity of the operations to
which it is destined.
I have, at least, discovered three movements unknown to animals,
which I call SPICATION, ROTATION and VERRATION (from the Latin
verb verro, I sweep). The first is when the tongue, like a PIKE,
comes beyond the lips which repress it. The second is when the
tongue rotates around all the space between the interior of the
jaws and the palate. The third is when the tongue moves up and
down and gathers the particles which remain in the half circular
canal formed by the lips and gums.
Animals are limited in their taste; some live only on vegetables,
others on flesh; others feed altogether on grain; none know
anything of composite flavors.
Man is omnivorous. All that is edible is subjected to his vast
appetite, a thing which causes gustatory powers proportionate to
the use he has to make of them. The apparatus of taste is a rare
perfection of man and we have only to see him use it to be
satisfied of it.
As soon as any esculent body is introduced into the mouth it is
confiscated hopelessly, gas, juice and all.
The lips prevent its retrogression. The teeth take possession of
it and crush it. The salva imbibes it; the tongue turns it over
and over, an aspiration forces it to the thorax; the tongue lifts
it up to suffer it to pass. The sense of smell perceives it en
route, and it is precipitated into the stomach to undergo ulterior
transformations, without the most minute fragment during the whole
of this escaping. Every drop every atom has been appreciated.
In consequence of this perfection, gourmandise is the exclusive
apanage of man.
This gourmandise is even contagious, and we impart it without
difficulty to the animals we have appropriated to our use, and
which in a manner associate with us, such as elephants, dogs,
cats, and parrots even.
Besides taste requiring to be estimated only by the value of the
sensation it communicates to the common centre, the impression
received by the animal cannot be compared to that imparted to man.
The latter is more precise and clear, and necessarily supposes a
superior quality in the organ which transmits it.
In fine, what can we desire in a faculty susceptible of such
perfection that the gourmands of Rome were able to distinguish the
flavors of fish taken above and below the bridge? Have we not seen
in our own time, that gourmands can distinguish the flavor of the
thigh on which the partridge lies down from the other? Are we not
surrounded by gourmets who can tell the latitude in which any wine
ripened as surely as one of Biot's or Arago's disciples can
foretell an eclipse?
The consequence then is that we must render to Caesar the things
which are Caesar's and proclaim man the great GOURMAND OF NATURE,
and not be surprised if the good Doctor does sometimes as Homer
did:--"Much zumeilen ichlafert der gute."
METHOD OF THE AUTHOR.
As yet we have treated the taste only from the physical point of
view, and in some anatomical details which none will regret, we
have remained pari passu with science. This does not however
conclude the task we have imposed on ourselves, for from its usual
attributes especially does this reparatory sense derive its
importance.
We have then arranged in analytical order the theories and facts
which compose the ensemble of this history, so that instruction
without fatigue will result from it.
Thus in the following chapters, we will often show how sensations
by repetition and reflection have perfected the organs and
extended the sphere of our powers. How the want of food, once a
mere instinct, has become a passion which has assumed a marked
ascendency of all that belongs to society
We will also say, how all sciences which have to do with the
composition of substances, have agreed to place in a separate
category all those appreciable to the taste; and how travellers
have followed in the same pathway when they placed before us
substances nature apparently never meant us to see.
We will follow chemistry to the very moment when it penetrated our
subterraneous laboratories to enlighten our PREPARERS, to
establish principles, to create methods and to unveil causes which
had remained occult.
In fine we will see by the combined power of time and experience
that a new science has all at once appeared, which feeds,
nourishes, restores, preserves, persuades, consoles, and not
content with strewing handsfull of flowers over the individual,
contributes much to the power and prosperity of empires.
If, amid the grave lucubrations, a piquante anecdote, or an
agreeable reminiscence of a stormy life drips from my pen, we will
let it remain to enable the attention to rest for a moment, so
that our readers, the number of whom does not alarm us, may have
time to breathe. We would like to chat with them. If they be men
we know they are indulgent as they are well informed. If women
they must be charming. [Footnote: Here the Professor, full of his
subject, suffers his hand to fall and rises to the seventh heaven.
He ascends the torrent of ages, and takes from their cradle all
sciences, the object of which is the gratification of taste. He
follows their progress through the night of time and seeing that
in the pleasures they procure us, early centures were not so great
as those which followed them: he takes his lyre and sings in the
Dorian style the elegy which will be found among the varieties at
the end of the volume.]
MEDITATION III.
GASTRONOMY.
ORIGIN OF SCIENCES.
THE sciences are not like Minerva who started ready armed from the
brain of Jupiter. They are children of time and are formed
insensibly by the collection of the methods pointed out by
experience, and at a later day by the principles deduced from the
combination of these methods.
Thus old men, the prudence of whom caused them to be called to the
bed-side of invalids, whose compassion taught to cure wounds, were
the first physicians.
The shepherds of Egypt, who observed that certain stars after the
lapse of a certain period of time met in the heavens, were the
first astronomers.
The person who first uttered in simple language the truth, 2 + 2 =
4 created mathematics, that mighty science which really placed man
on the throne of the universe.
In the course of the last sixty years, many new sciences have
taken their place in the category of our knowledge, among which is
stereotomy, descriptive geometry, and the chemistry of gas.
All sciences cultivated for a long time must advance, especially
as the art of printing makes retrogression impossible. Who knows,
for instance, if the chemistry of gases will not ultimately
overcome those, as yet, rebellious substances, mingle and combine
them in proportions not as yet tempted, and thence obtain
substances and effects which would remove many restrictions in our
powers.
ORIGIN OF GASTRONOMY.
Gastronomy has at last appeared, and all the sister sciences have
made a way for it.
Well; what could be refused to that which sustains us, from the
cradle to the grave, which increases the gratifications of love
and the confidence of friendship which disarms hatred and offers
us, in the short passage of our lives, the only pleasure which not
being followed by fatigue makes us weary of all others.
Certainly, as long as it was confided to merely hired attendants,
as long as the secret was kept in cellars, and where dispensaries
were written, the results were but the products of an art.
At last, too late, perhaps, savants drew near.
They examined, analyzed, and classified alimentary substances, and
reduced them to simple elements.
They measured the mysteries of assimilation, and following most
matter in all its metamorphoses saw how it became vivified.
They watched diet in its temporary and permanent effects, for
days, months and lives.
They even estimated its influence and thought to ascertain if the
savor he impressed by the organs or if it acts without them. From
all this they deduced a lofty theory which embraces all mankind,
and all that portion of creation which may be animalized.
While all this was going on in the studies of savants, it was said
in drawing-rooms that the science which fed man was at least as
valuable as that which killed him. Poets sang the pleasures of the
table and books, the object of which was good cheer, awakened the
greatest and keenest interest in the profound views and maxims
they presented.
Such were the circumstances which preceded the invention of
gastronomy.
DEFINITION OF GASTRONOMY.
Gastronomy is a scientific definition of all that relates to man
as a feeding animal.
Its object is to watch over the preservation of man by means of
the best possible food.
It does so by directing, according to certain principles, all
those who procure, search for, or prepare things which may be
converted into food.
To tell the truth this is what moves cultivators, vine-dressers,
fishermen, huntsmen, and the immense family of cooks, whatever
title or qualification they bear, to the preparation of food.
Gastronomy is a chapter of natural history, for the fact that it
makes a classification of alimentary substances.
Of physics, for it examines their properties and qualities.
Of chemistry, from the various analysis and decomposition to which
it subjects them.
Of cookery, from the fact that it prepares food and makes it
agreeable.
Of commerce, from the fact that it purchases at as low a rate as
possible what it consumes, and displays to the greatest advantage
what it offers for sale.
Lastly it is a chapter of political economy, from the resources it
furnishes the taxing power, and the means of exchange it
substitutes between nations.
Gastronomy rules all life, for the tears of the infant cry for the
bosom of the nurse; the dying man receives with some degree of
pleasure the last cooling drink, which, alas! he is unable to
digest.
It has to do with all classes of society, for if it presides over
the banquets of assembled kings, it calculates the number of
minutes of ebullition which an egg requires.
The material of gastronomy is all that may be eaten; its object is
direct, the preservation of individuals. Its means of execution
are cultivation, which produces; commerce, which exchanges;
industry, which prepares; and experience, which teaches us to put
them to the best use.
DIFFERENT OBJECTS OF GASTRONOMY.
Gastronomy considers taste in its pleasures and in its pains. It
has discovered the gradual excitements of which it is susceptible;
it regularizes its action, and has fixed limits, which a man who
respects himself will never pass.
It also considers the action of food or aliments on the moral of
man, on his imagination, his mind, his judgment, his courage, and
his perceptions, whether he is awake, sleeps, acts, or reposes.
Gastronomy determines the degree of esculence of every alimentary
subject; all are not presentable under the same circumstances.
Some can be eaten until they are entirely developed. Such like as
capres, asparagus, sucking pigs, squabs, and other animals eaten
only when they are young.
Others, as soon as they have reached all the perfection to which
they are destined, like melons, fruit, mutton, beef, and grown
animals. Others when they begin to decompose, such as snipe, wood-
cock and pheasant. Others not until cooking has destroyed all
their injurious properties, such as the potato, manioc, and other
substances.
Gastronomy classifies all of these substances according to their
qualities, and indicates those which will mingle, and measuring
the quantity of nourishment they contain, distinguishes those
which should make the basis of our repast, from those which are
only accessories, and others which, though not necessary, are an
agreeable relief, and become the obligato accompaniment of
convivial gossip.
It takes no less interest in the beverages intended for us,
according to time, place and climate. It teaches their preparation
and preservation, and especially presents them in an order so
exactly calculated, that the pleasure perpetually increases, until
gratification ends and abuse begins.
Gastronomy examines men and things for the purpose of
transporting, from one country to another, all that deserves to be
known, and which causes a well arranged entertainment, to be an
abridgement of the world in which each portion is represented.
UTILITY OF GASTRONOMICAL KNOWLEDGE.
Gastronomical knowledge is necessary to all men, for it tends to
augment the sum of happiness. This utility becomes the greater in
proportion as it is used by the more comfortable classes of
society; it is indispensable to those who have large incomes, and
entertain a great deal, either because in this respect they
discharge an obligation, follow their own inclination, or yield to
fashion.
They have this special advantage, that they take personal pleasure
in the manner their table is kept; they can, to a certain point,
superintend the depositories of their confidence, and even on many
occasions direct them.
The Prince 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 qui-vive 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
left the table, but I will bet that I eat a whole turkey."
"If you eat it I will pay for it," said Bouvier du Bouchet, a rich
farmer who was present, "and if you do not I will eat what is left
and you shall pay for it." [Footnote: This sentence is patois, and
the translator inserts the original. "Sez vosu meze, z'u payo,
repondit Bouvier du Bouchet, gros fermier qui se trouvait present;
e sez vos caca en rotaz, i-zet vo ket paire et may ket mezerai la
restaz."]
They set to work at once, and the young athlete at once cut off a
wing, he ate it at two mouthfulls and cleaned his teeth by gnawing
the bone and drank a glass of wine as an interlude.
He then went into the thigh which he ate and drank another glass
of wine to prepare a passage for the rest. The second went the
same way, and he had come to the last limb when the unfortunate
farmer said, "alas! I see it is all over, but Mr. Sibouet as I
have to pay, let me eat a bit." [Footnote: This also is patois.
"Hai! ze vaie praou qu'izet fotu; m'ez, monche Chibouet, poez kaet
zu daive paiet, lesse m'en a m'en mesiet on mocho."]
Prosper was as good a fellow as he was a soldier, and consented.
The farmer had the carcass at spolia opima, and paid for the fowl
with a good grace.
General Sibuet used always to love to tell of this feat of his
youth. He said that his admitting the farmer to eat was a pure
courtesy, and that he could easily have won the bet. His appetite
at forty permitted none to doubt the assertion.
Brillat-Savarin, says in a note, "I quote this fragment of the
patois of Bugey with pleasure. In it is found the English 'th and
the Greek 0, and in the word praou and others, a dipthong existing
in no language, the sound of which no character can describe."
(See 3d Volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Society of Antiquarians
of France.)
MEDITATION V.
FOOD IN GERMS.
SECTION FIRST.
DEFINITIONS.
WHAT is understood by aliments?
POPULAR ANSWER. All that nourishes us.
SCIENTIFIC ANSWER. By aliments are understood the substances
which, when submitted to the stomach, may be assimulated by
digestion, and repair the losses which the human body is subjected
to in life.
The distinctive quality of an aliment, therefore, is its liability
to animal assimulation.
ANALYSIS.
The animal and vegetable kingdoms are those which until now have
furnished food to the human race.
Since analytical chemistry has become a certain science, much
progress has been made into the double nature of the elements of
which our body is composed, and of the substances which nature
appears to have intended to repair their losses.
These studies had a great analogy, for man is to a great degree
composed both of the substances on which animals feed, and was
also forced to look in the vegetable kingdom for affinities
susceptible of animalization.
In these two walks the most praiseworthy efforts have been made
always as minute as possible, and the curious have followed either
the human body or the food which invigorates it, first to their
secondary principles, and then to their elements, beyond which we
have not been permitted to penetrate.
Here I intended to have given a little treatise on alimentary
chemistry, and to tell my readers, to how many thousands of
hydrogen, carbon, etc., may be reduced the dishes that sustain us.
I did not do so, however, because I remembered I would only have
to copy many excellent treatises on chemistry in the hands of
every body. I feared, too, that I would relapse into very barren
details, and limited myself to a very reasonable nomenclature,
which will only require the explanation of a small number of very
usual terms.
OSMAZOME.
The greatest service chemistry has rendered to alimentary science,
is the discovery of osmazome, or rather the determination of what
it was.
Osmazome is the purely sapid portion of flesh soluble in cold
water, and separated from the extractive portion which is only
soluble in boiling water.
Osmazome is the most meritorious ingredient of all good soups.
This portion of the animal forms the red portion of flesh, and the
solid parts of roasts. It gives game and venison its peculiar
flavor.
Osmazome is most abundant in grown animals which have red or black
hair; it is scarcely found at all in the lamb, sucking pig,
chicken, and the white meat of the largest fowls. For this reason
true connoisseurs always prefer the second joint; instinct with
them was the precursor of science.
Thus a knowledge of the existence of osmazome, caused so many
cooks to be dismissed, who insisted on always throwing away the
first bouillon made from meat. This made the reputation of the
soupe des primes, and induced the canon Chevrier to invent his
locked kettles. The Abbe Chevrier was the person who never would
eat until Friday, lobsters that had not been cooked on the
previous Sunday, and every intervening day placed on the fire with
the addition of fresh butter.
To make use of this subject, though yet unknown, was introduced
the maxim, that to make good bouillon the kettle should only
smile.
Osmazome, discovered after having been so long the delight of our
fathers, may be compared to alcohol, which made whole generations
drunk before it was simply exhibited by distillation.
PRINCIPLE OF ALIMENTS.
The fibre is what composes the tissue of the meat, and what is
apparent after the juices have been extracted. The fibres resist
boiling water, and preserve their form, though stripped of a
portion of their wrappings. To carve meat properly the fibres
should be cut at right angles, or nearly so, with the blade of the
knife. Meat thus carved looks better, tastes better, and is more
easily chewed.
The bones are composed principally of gelatine and the phosphate
of lime.
The quantity of gelatine diminishes as we grow older. At seventy
the bones are but an imperfect marble, the reason why they are so
easily broken, and why old men should carefully avoid any fall.
Albumen is found both in the flesh and the blood. It coagulates at
a heat above 40 Reaumur, and causes the scum on the pot-au-feu.
Gelatine is also found in the bones, the soft and the
cartilaginous parts. Its distinctive quality is to coagulate at
the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere; to effect this only
two and a half per cent. are needed.
Gelatine is the basis of all jelleys, of blanc manges, and other
similar preparations.
Grease is a concrete oil formed in the interstices of the cellary
tissue. It sometimes agglomerates in animals whom art or nature
has so predisposed, such as pigs, fowls, ortolans and snipe. In
some of these animals it loses its insipidity and acquires a
slight and agreeable aroma.
Blood is composed of an albuminous serum and of fibrine, some
gelatine and a little osmazome. It coagulates in warm water and is
most nourishing, (e. g.) the blood pudding.
All the principles, we have passed in review, are common to man
and to animals which feed.
All the principles we pass in review are common both to man and
animals which he eats. It is not then surprising that animal food
is eminently restorative and invigorating. The particles of which
it is composed having a great similitude with those of which we
are formed may easily be animalized when they are subjected to the
vital action of our digestive organs.
VEGETABLE KINGDOM.
The vegetable kingdom however presents not less varied sources of
nutrition.
The fecula is especially nutritious, especially as it contains
fewer foreign principles.
By fecula we mean farina or flower obtained from cereals, from
legumes and various kinds of roots, among which the potato holds a
prominent place.
The fecula is the substance of bread, pastry and purees of all
kinds. It thus enters to a great degree into the nourishment of
almost all people.
Such food diminishes the fibres and even the courage. [Footnote:
The H. E. I. Co. Sepoys, however, fight well. It may be doubted
though if either Ireland or Italy will be free, until the one
gives up the potato and the other macaroni. The reason why
Irishmen fight better in other countries than their own, is
possibly that abroad they are better fed than at home.] We must,
to sustain this, refer to the Indians (East) who live on rice and
serve every one who chosea to command them.
Almost all domestic animals eat the fecula, and are made by it
extremely strong; for it is a more substantial nourishment than
the dry and green vegetables which are their habitual food.
Sugar is not less important, either as a remedy or as an aliment.
This substance once obtained, either from the Indies or from the
colonies became indigenous at the commencement of this century. It
has been discovered in the grape, the turnip, the chestnut, and
especially in the beet. So that speaking strictly Europe need
appeal neither to India or America for it. Its discovery was a
great service rendered by science to humanity, and furnishes an
example which cannot but have the happiest results. (Vide enfro
Sugar.)
Sugar, either in a solid state or in the different plants in which
nature has placed it, is extremely nourishing. Animals are fond of
it, and the English give large quantities to their blood-horses,
and have observed that it sustained them in the many trials to
which they were subjected.
Sugar in the days of Louis XIV. was only found in apothecary
shops, and gave birth to many lucrative professions, such as
pastry-cooks, confectioners, liquourists, &c. Mild oils also come
from the vegetable kingdom. They are all esculent, but when
mingled with other substances they should be looked on only as a
seasoning. Gluten found in the greatest abundance in cheese,
contributes greatly to the fermentation of the bread with which it
is united. Chemists assign it an animal nature.
They make at Paris for children and for birds, and in some of the
departments for men also, patisseries in which gluten
predominates, the fecula having been removed by water.
Mucilage owes its nourishments to the many substances of which it
is the vehicle.
Gum may be considered an aliment, not a strong thing, as it
contains nearly the same elements as sugar.
Vegetable gelatine, extracted from many kinds of fruits,
especially from apples, goose-berries, quinces, and some others,
may also be considered a food. It is more nutritious when united
with sugar, but it is far inferior in that respect to what is
extracted from bones, horns, calves' feet and fish. This food is
in general light, mild and healthy. The kitchen and the
pharmaceutist's laboratory therefore dispute about it.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAT AND LEAN.
Next to the JUICE, which, as we have said, is composed of asmazome
and the extractus, there are found in fish many substances which
also exist in land animals, such as fibrine, gelatine, albumen. So
that we may really say JUICE distinguishes the flesh diet from
what the church calls maigre.
The latter too has another peculiarity. Fish contains a large
quantity of phosphorus and hydrogen, that is to say of the two
most combustible things in nature. Fish therefore is a most
heating diet. This might legitimate the praise once bestowed on
certain religious orders, the regime of whom was directly opposed
to the commonly esteemed most fragile.
INDIVIDUAL 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 pay round prices for
them.
In a purely financial point of view turkeys demand much attention.
I have reason to believe, that between the first of November and
the end of February, three hundred dindon truffees are consumed
per diem. The sum total is 30,000 turkeys.
The price of every turkey in that condition is at least twenty
francs, and the sum of the whole is not less than 720,000 francs--
a very pretty sum of money. One must add a similar sum for the
fowls, pheasants, pullets and partridges, suffered in the same
way, and which are every day exhibited in the provision shops, as
a punishment for beholders who are too poor to buy them.
EXPLOIT OF THE PROFESSOR.
While I was living at Hartford, in Connecticut, I was lucky enough
to kill a wild turkey. This exploit deserves to be transmitted to
posterity, and I tell it with especial complaisance as I am myself
the hero.
An American farmer had invited me to hunt on his grounds; he lived
in the remotest part of the State, [Footnote: Brillat-Savarin uses
the French words "derrieres de l'etat" and translates them in
English, in parenthesis "Backwoods."] and promised me partridges,
grey squirrels and wild turkeys. [Footnote: He also translates in
the same manner "dindes sauvages" welp cocks.] He also permitted
me to bring a friend or two if I pleased.
One fine day in October, 1794, therefore, with a friend, I set out
with the hope of reaching the farm of Mr. Bulow, five mortal
leagues from Hartford, before night.
Though the road was hardly traced, we arrived there without
accident, and were received with that cordial hospitality
expressed by acts, for before we had been five minutes on the
farm, dogs, horses and men were all suitably taken care of.
About two hours were consumed in the examination of the farm and
its dependencies. I would describe all this if I did not prefer to
display to the reader the four buxom daughters of Mr. Bulow, to
whom our arrival was a great event.
Their ages were from sixteen to twenty-four, and there was so much
simplicity in their persons, so much activity and abandon, that
every motion seemed full of grace.
After our return from walking we sat around a well furnished
table. A superb piece of corned beef, a stewed goose, and a
magnificent leg of mutton, besides an abundance of vegetables and
two large jugs of cider, one at each end of the table, made up our
bill of fare.
When we had proven to our host, that in appetite at least, we were
true huntsmen, we began to make arrangements for our sport. He
told us where we would find game, and gave us land-marks to guide
us on our return, not forgetting farm-houses where we could obtain
refreshments.
During this conversation the ladies had prepared excellent tea, of
which we drank several cups, and were then shown into a room with
two beds, where exercise and fatigue procured us a sound sleep.
On the next day we set out rather late, and having come to the end
of the clearings made by Mr. Bulow, I found myself in a virgin
forest for the first time. The sound of the axe had never been
heard there.
I walked about with delight, observing the blessings and ravages
of time which creates and destroys, and I amused myself by tracing
all the periods on the life of an oak since the moment when its
two leaves start from the ground, until it leaves but a long black
mark which is the dust of its heart.
My companion, Mr. King, reproached me for my moodiness, and we
began the hunt. We killed first some of those pretty grey
partridges which are so round and so tender. We then knocked down
six or seven grey squirrels, highly esteemed in America, and at
last were fortunate enough to find a flock of turkeys.
They rose one after the other, flying rapidly and crying loudly.
Mr. King fired on the first and ran after it. The others were soon
out of shot. The most sluggish, of all arose at last, not ten
paces from me. It flew through an opening, I fired and it fell
dead.
One must be a sportsman to conceive the extreme pleasure this shot
caused me. I siezed on the superb bird and turned it over and over
for a quarter of an hour, until I heard my companion's voice
calling for assistance. I hurried to him and found that he called
me to aid him in looking for a turkey he claimed to have killed,
but which had disappeared.
I put my dog on the scent but he led us into an under growth, so
thick and thorny that a snake could scarcely penetrate it; I had
then to give up the search, and my companion was in a bad humor
all day long.
The rest of the day scarcely deserves the honors of printing. On
our return we lost ourselves in boundless woods, and we were in
not a little danger of having to stay out all night, when the
silvery tones of Mr. Bulow's daughters, and the deep bass of their
father, who had come to look for us, guided us home.
The four sisters were fully armed with clean dresses, new ribbons,
pretty hats, and so carefully shod that it was evident that they
had formed a high opinion of us. I tried to make myself agreeable
to the one of the ladies who took my arm, a thing she did as
naturally as if it had belonged to her jure conjugali.
When we reached the farm supper was ready, but before we sat down
to the table we drew near to a bright and brilliant fire which had
been lighted for us, though the season did not indicate that such
a a precaution was necessary. We found it very comfortable,
fatigued as we were, and were rested as if by enchantment.
This custom doubtless comes from the Indians who always have a
fire in their huts. It may be, this is a tradition of St. Francis
de Sales, who said that fire was good eleven months of the year
(non liquet).
We ate as if we were famished; a large bowl of punch enabled us to
finish the evening, and a conversation, which our host made
perfectly free, led us far into the night.
We spoke of the war of Independence, in which Mr. Bulow [Footnote:
The M. Bulow of whom Savarin speaks, is none other than Lieut.
Col. Bellows of the Connecticut Line, many of whose relations yet
remain in the Valley of the Connecticut.] had served as a field
officer of M. de La Fayette, who every day becomes greater in the
eyes of the Americans, who always designate him as "the Marquis"
of agriculture, which at that time enriched the United States, and
finally of my native land, which I loved the more because I was
forced to leave it.
When wearied of conversation the father would say to his eldest
daughter, "Maria, give us a song." She without any embarrassment
sung the American national airs. The complaints of Mary Stuart and
of Andre, all popular in America. Maria had taken a few lessons,
and in that remote country passed for a virtuosa; her singing
though, derived its charm from the quality of her voice, which was
at once clear, fresh and accentuated.
On the next day, in spite of Mr. Bulow's persuasions, we set out.
I had duties to discharge; and while the horses were being
prepared, Mr. Bulow took me aside and used these remarkable words.
"You see in me, sir, a happy man, if there be one under heaven;
all that you see here is derived from my own property. My
stockings were knit by my daughters, and my cloths were furnished
by my flocks. They also, with my garden, furnish me with an
abundance of healthy food. The greatest eulogium of our government
is, that in the State of Connecticut there are a thousand farmers
as well satisfied as I am, the doors of whom have no locks.
"Taxes are almost nothing, and as long as they be paid any one can
sleep calmly. Congress favors national industry as much as it can,
and merchants are always ready to take from us whatever we wish to
sell. I have ready money for a long time, for I have just sold at
twenty-four dollars a barrel, flour I usually receive eight for.
"All this is derived from the liberty we have acquired, and
established on good laws. I am master of my own house; and you
will not be astonished when you know that we never fear the sound
of the drum, and, except on the 4th of July, the glorious
anniversary of our Independence, neither soldiers, uniforms, nor
bayonets are seen."
On my way back I seemed absorbed by profound reflection. Perhaps
the reader may think I mused on my host's parting words; I had
very different thoughts, however, for I was studying how I should
cook my turkey. I was in some trouble, for I feared I would not
find all I needed at Hartford, and wished to make a trophy of my
spolia opima.
I make a painful sacrifice in suppressing the details of the
profound science I exhibited in the preparation of an
entertainment, to which I invited several friends. Suffice it to
say that the partridge wings were served en papillote, and the
grey squirrels stewed in madeira.
The turkey, which was our only roast dish, was charming to the
sight, flattering to the sense of smell, and delicious to taste.
Therefore, until the last fragment was eaten, there were heard
around the table, "Very good;" "Exceedingly good;" "Dear sir; what
a nice piece." [Footnote: The flesh of the wild turkey is more
highly colored and more perfumed than the domestic fowl. I am glad
to learn that my amiable colleague, M. Bosc, had killed many in
Carolina, which he found excellent, and far better than those in
Europe. He therefore recommends that they be allowed the largest
liberty, that they be driven into the woods and fields, to enhance
the flavor and bring it as nearly as possible back to the original
species.--Annales d'Agriculture cah. du 28 Fevr. 1821.] By game we
mean all wild animals which are fit to eat, and live in a state of
natural liberty.
We say fit to eat, because many animals which are in a state of
nature are not fit to eat. Such as foxes, crows, pies, wild-cats,
etc. They are called in French Betes puantes vermin.
Game is divided into three series.
The first contains all birds, from the grive to the smallest of
the feathered tribe.
The second ascends from the rail to the snipe, partridge, and
pheasant, including the rabbit and the hare; it is divided into
three categories, of the marsh, hairy, and feathered.
The third, which bears the name of venison, is composed of the
wild-boar, kid, and all other horny-footed cattle.
Game is one of the great luxuries of our tables; it is a healthy,
warm, highly-flavored and high tasted flesh, easily digested,
whenever one is hungry.
These qualities, however, are not so inherent as not to a certain
degree to depend on the skill of the cook. Put some water, salt
and beef into a pot, and you can obtain from them a very good
soup. Substitute venison for the beef, and the result will not be
fit to eat. Butcher's meat, in this respect, has the advantage.
Under the manipulation, however, of a skilful cook, game undergoes
various modifications and transformations, and furnishes the
greater portions of the dishes of the transcendental kitchen.
Game derives, also, a great portion of its value from the soil on
which it is fed. The taste of a Perigord partridge is very
different from that of one from Sologne, and the hare killed in
the vicinity of Paris is a very different dish from one shot on
the hills of Valromey or upper Dauphiny. The latter is probably
the most perfumed of all beasts.
Among small birds, beyond all doubt, the best is the "beccafico."
It becomes at least as fat as the red-throat or the ortolan, and
nature has besides given it a slight bitterness, and a peculiar
and exquisite perfume, which enables it to fill and delight all
the gustatory organs. Were the beccafico as large as a pheasant,
an acre of land would be paid for it.
It is a pity this bird is so rare, that few others than those who
live in the southern departments of France, know what it is.
[Footnote: I am inclined to think the bird is utterly unknown in
America.--TRANSLATOR.] Few people know how to eat small birds. The
following method was imparted confidentially to me by the Canon
Charcot, a gourmand by profession, and a perfect gastronome,
thirty years before the word gastronomy was invented:
Take a very fat bird by the bill and sprinkle it with salt, take
out the entrailles, I mean gizzard, liver, etc., and put it whole
in your mouth. Chew it quickly, and the result will be a juice
abundant enough to permeate the whole organ. You will then enjoy a
pleasure unknown to the vulgar.
"Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." HORACE.
The quail, of all game properly so-called, is the nicest and the
most pleasant. A very fat quail is pleasant both to eat, see, and
smell. Whenever it is either roasted, or served en papillote, a
great folly is committed, because its perfume is very volatile,
and when ever in contact with a liquid, its flavor is dissolved
and lost.
The snipe is a charming bird, but few people know all its charms.
It is in its glory only when it has been cooked under the
huntsman's eyes; and the huntsman must have killed it. Then the
roast is perfected according to rule, and the mouth is inundated
with pleasure.
Above the preceding, and above all others, the pheasant should be
placed. Few mortals, however, know exactly how to cook it.
A pheasant eaten only a week after its death is not good as a
partridge or a pullet, for its merit consists in its aroma.
Science has considered the expansion of this aroma, experience has
utilised science, so that a pheasant ready for the spit is a dish
fit for the most exalted gourmands.
In the varieties will be found a recipe for roasting a pheasant, a
la Sainte Alliance. The time has come when this method, hitherto
concentrated in a small circle of friends, should be made known
for the benefit of humanity. A pheasant with truffles is not good
as one would be apt to think it. The bird is too dry to actuate
the tubercle, and the scent of the one and the perfume of the
other when united neutralize each other--or rather do not suit.
Section VI. FISH.
Savants, in other respects orthodox, have maintained that ocean
was the common cradle of all that exists, and that man himself
sprang from the sea and owes his actual habits to the influence of
the air, and the mode of life he has been obliged to adopt.
Be this as it may, it is at least certain, that the waters contain
an immense quantity of beings of all forms and sizes, which
possess vitality in very different proportions, and according to
mode very different from that of warm blooded animals.
It is not less true that water has ever presented an immense
variety of aliments, and that in the present state of science it
introduces to our table the most agreeable variety.
Fish, less nutritious than flesh and more succulent than
vegetables, is a mezzo termine, which suits all temperments and
which persons recovering from illness may safely eat.
The Greeks and Romans, though they had not made as much progress
as we have in the art of seasoning fish, esteemed it very highly,
and were so delicate that they could even tell where it had been
taken.
Large fish ponds were maintained, and the cruelty of Vellius
Pollis who fed his lampreys on the bodies of slaves he caused to
be slain is well known. This cruelty Domitian disapproved of but
should have punished.
There has been much discussion as to which is the best fish.
The question will never be decided, for as the Spanish proverb
says, sobre los gustos no hai disputa. Every one is effected in
his own way. These fugitive sensations can be expressed by no
known character, and there is no scale to measure if a CAT-FISH
(!), a sole, or a turbot are better than a salmon, trout, pike, or
even tench of six or seven pounds.
It is well understood that fish is less nourishing than meat,
because it contains no osmazome, because it is lighter in weight,
and contains less weight in the same volume. Shell-fish, and
especially oysters, furnish little nutrition, so that one can eat
a great many without injury.
It will be remembered that not long ago any well arranged
entertainment began with oysters, and that many guests never
paused without swallowing a gross (144). I was anxious to know the
weight of this advance guard, and I ascertained that a dozen
oysters, fluid included, weighed four ounces averdupois. Now look
on it as certain that the same persons who did not make a whit the
worse dinner, on account of the oysters would have been completely
satisfied if they had eaten the same weight of flesh or of
chicken.
ANECDOTE.
In 1798 I was at Versailles as a commissary of the Directory, and
frequently met M. Laperte, greffier of the count of the
department. He was very fond of oysters, and used to complain that
he had never had enough.
I resolved to procure him this satisfaction, and invited him to
dine with me on the next day.
He came. I kept company with him to the tenth dozen, after which I
let him go on alone. He managed to eat thirty-two dozen within an
hour for the person who opened them was not very skilful.
In the interim, I was idle, and as that is always a painful state
at the table, I stopped him at the moment when he was in full
swing. "Mon cher," said I, "you will not to-day eat as many
oysters as you meant--let us dine." We did so, and he acted as if
he had fasted for a week.
Muria-Garum
The ancients extracted from fish two highly flavored seasonings,
muria and garum.
The first was the juice of the thuny, or to speak more precisely,
the liquid substance which salt causes to flow from the fish.
Garum was dearer, and we know much less of it. It is thought that
it was extracted by pressure from the entrailles of the scombra or
mackerel; but this supposition does not account for its high
price. There is reason to believe it was a foreign sauce, and was
nothing else but the Indian soy, which we know to be only fish
fermented with mushrooms.
Certainly, people from their locality are forced to live almost
entirely upon fish. They also feed their working animals with it,
and the latter from custom gradually grow to like this strange
food. They also manure the soil with it, yet always receive the
same quantity from the sea which surrounds them.
It has been observed that such nations are not so courageous as
those that eat flesh. They are pale, a thing not surprising, for
the elements of fish must rather repair the lymph than the blood.
Among ichthyophages, remarkable instances of longevity are
observed, either because light food preserves them from plethora,
or that the juices it contains being formed by nature only to
constitute cartilages which never bears long duration, their use
retards the solidification of the parts of the body which, after
all, is the cause of death.
Be this as it may, fish in the hands of a skilful cook is an
inexhaustible source of enjoyment. It is served up whole, in
pieces, truncated with water, oil, vinegar, warm, cold; and is
always well received. It is, however never better than when
dressed en matilotte.
This ragout, though made a necessary dish to the boatmen on our
rivers, and made in perfection only by the keepers of cobarets on
their banks, is incomparably good. Lovers of fish never see it
without expressing their gratification, either on account of its
freshness of taste, or because they can without difficulty eat an
indefinite quantity, without any fear of satiety or indigestion.
Analytical gastronomy has sought to ascertain what are the effects
of a fish diet on the animal system. Unanimous observation leads
us to think that it has great influence on the genesiac sense, and
awakens the instinct of reproduction in the two sexes. This effect
being once known, two causes were at once assigned for it:
1st. The different manner of preparing fish, all the seasoning for
it being irritating, such as carar, hering, thon marine, etc.
2d. The various juices the fish imbibes, which are highly
inflammable and oxigenise in digestion.
Profound analysis has discovered a yet more powerful cause: the
presence of phosphorous in all the portions, and which
decomposition soon developes.
These physical truths were doubtless unknown to the ecclesiastical
legislators, who imposed the lenten diet on different communities
of monks, such as Chartreux, Recollets, Trappists, and the
Carmelites reformed by Saint Theresa; no one thinks that they
wished to throw a new difficulty into the way of the observance of
the already most anti-social vow of chastity.
In this state of affairs, beyond doubt, glorious victories were
won, and rebellious senses were subjected; there were, however,
many lapses and defeats. They must have been well averred, for the
result was the religious orders had ultimately a reputation like
that of Hercules and the daughters of Danaus, or Marshal Saxe with
M'lle Lecouvreur.
They might also have been delighted by an anecdote, so old as to
date from the crusades.
Sultan Saladin being anxious to measure the continence of devises,
took two into his palace, and for a long time fed them on the most
succulent food.
Soon all traces of fasting began to disappear, and they reached a
very comfortable embonpoint. At that time they were given as
companions two odalisques of great beauty, all of whose well-
directed attacks failed, and they came from the ordeal pure as the
diamond of Visapor.
The Sultan kept them in his palace, and to celebrate their triumph
fed them for several weeks on fish alone.
After a few days they were again submitted to the ordeal of the
odalisques, and.........
In the present state of our knowledge, it is probable that if the
course of events were to establish any monastic order, the
superiors would adopt some regimen better calculated to maintain
its objects.
PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION.
Fish, considered in general, is an inexhaustible source of
reflection to the philosopher.
The varied forms of these strange animals, the senses they are
deprived of, and the limited nature of those they have, their
various modes of existence, the influence exerted over them 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 that
was needed at the Tuilleries.
New circumstances, the restoration of peace, having again reduced
colonial sugar to a lower price, the French manufacturers lost the
advantages they had gained. Many, however, yet prosper, and
Delassert makes some thousands every year. This also enables him
to preserve his processes until the time comes when they may again
he useful. [Footnote: We may add, that at the session for the
general encouragement of national industry, a medal was ordered to
be presented to M. Crespel, a manufacturer of arrus, who
manufactures every year one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of
beet sugar, which he sells at a profit, even--when Colonial sugar
is 2 francs 50 centimes the kilogramme. The reason is, that the
refuse is used for distillation, and subsequently fed out to
cattle.]
When beet sugar was in the market, party men, up-starts and fools,
took it into their heads that its flavor was unpleasant, and some
even said it was unhealthy.
Many experiments have proved the contrary, and the Count de
Chaptal, in his excellent book, Chemistry Applied to Agriculture,"
(vol. ii. page 13,) says:
"Sugars obtained from various plants, says a celebrated chemist,
are in fact of the same nature, and have no intrinsic difference
when they are equally pure. Taste, crystalization, color, weight,
are absolutely identical, and the most acute observer cannot
distinguish the one from the other."
An idea of the force of prejudice is afforded by the fact, that
out of one hundred British subjects, taken at random, not ten
believe in the possibility of obtaining sugar from the beet.
USES OF SUGAR.
Sugar was introduced by the apothecaries. With them it was a most
important article, for when a person was greatly in want of any
article, there was a proverb, "Like an apothecary without sugar."
To say that it came thence, is to say that it was received with
disfavor; some said that it was heating, others that it injured
the chest; some that it disposed persons to apoplexy. Calumny,
however, had to give way to truth, and for eighty years this
apothegm has been current, "Sugar hurts nothing but the purse."
Under this impenetrable aegis the use of sugar has increased every
day, and no alimentary substance has undergone so many
transformations. Many persons like sugar in a pure state, and in
hopeless cases the faculty recommend it as a substance which can
do no possible harm, and which is not unpleasant.
Mixed with water, it gives us eau sucree, a refreshing drink,
which is healthful, agreeable, and sometimes salutary.
Mingled in large quantities with water it constitutes sirops,
which are perfumed, and from their variety are most refreshing.
Mingled with water, the caloric of which is artificially
extracted, it furnishes two kinds, which are of Italian origin,
and were introduced into France by Catharine de Medici.
With wine it furnishes such a restorative power that in some
countries roasted meats taken to the bride and groom are covered
with it, just as in Persia soused sheeps' feet are given them.
Mingled with flour and eggs, it furnishes biscuits, maccaronies,
etc., etc., ad infinitum.
With milk it unites in the composition of creams, blanc-mangers
and other dishes of the second course, substituting for the
substantial taste of meat, ethereal perfumes.
It causes the aroma of coffee to be exhaled.
Mingled with cafe au lait, a light, pleasant aliment is produced,
precisely suited to those who have to go to their offices
immediately after breakfast.
With fruits and flowers it contributes to furnish confitures,
marmalades, preserves, pates and candies, and enables us to enjoy
the perfume of those flowers long after they have withered.
It may be that sugar might be advantageously employed in
embalming, an art of which we know little.
Sugar mingled with alcohol furnishes spirituous liquors, such as
were used, it is said, to warm the old blood of Louis XIV., which,
by their energy, seized the palate and the taste by the perfumed
gas united to them, the two qualities forming the ne plus ultra of
the pleasures of the taste.
Such is the substance which the French of the time of Louis XIII.
scarcely knew the name of, and which to the people of the
nineteenth century is become so important; no woman, in easy
circumstances, spends as much money for bread as she does for
sugar.
M. Delacroix, a man of letters, who is as industrious as he is
profound, was one day complaining of the price of sugar, which
then cost five francs a pound, "Ah!" said he, "if sugar should
ever again be thirty sous a pound, I will drink nothing but eau
sucree." His wishes were granted; he yet lives, and I trust he
keeps his word.
Section IX. ORIGIN OF COFFEE.
The first coffee tree was found in Arabia, and in spite of the
various transplantations it has undergone, the best coffee is yet
obtained there. An old tradition states that coffee was discovered
by a shepherd of old, who saw that his flock was always in the
greatest state of excitement and hilarity when they browsed on the
leaves of the coffee tree.
Though this may be but an old story, the honor of the discovery
belongs only in part to the goat-herd. The rest belongs to him who
first made use of the bean, and boiled it.
A mere decoction of green coffee is a most insipid drink, but
carbonization develops the aroma and forms an oil which is the
peculiarity of the coffee we drink, and which would have been
eternally unknown but for the intervention of heat.
The Turks excel us in this. They employ no mill to torturate the
coffee, but beat it with wooden pestles in mortars. When the
pestles have been long used, they become precious and are sold at
great prices.
I had to examine and determine whether in the result one or the
other of the two methods be preferable.
Consequently, I burned carefully a pound of good mocha, and
separated it into two equal portions, the one of which was passed
through the mill, and the other beaten Turkish fashion in a
mortar.
I made coffee of each, taking equal weights of each, poured on an
equal weight of boiling water and treated them both precisely
alike.
I tasted this coffee myself, and caused others who were competent
judges to do so. The unanimous opinion was that coffee which had
been beaten in a mortar was far better than that which had been
ground.
Any one may repeat the experiment. In the interim I will tell you
a strange anecdote of the influence of one or the other kind of
manipulation.
"Monsieur," said Napoleon, one day to Laplace, "how comes it that
a glass of water into which I put a lump of loaf sugar tastes more
pleasantly than if I had put in the same quantity of crushed
sugar." "Sire," said the philosophic Senator, "there are three
substances the constituents of which are identical--Sugar, gum
and amidon; they differ only in certain conditions, the secret of
which nature has preserved. I think it possible that in the effect
produced by the pestle some saccharine particles become either gum
or amidon, and cause the difference."
This remark became public, and ulterior observations has confirmed
it.
DIFFERENT MODES OF PREPARING COFFEE.
Some years ago all directed their attention to the mode of
preparing coffee; the reason doubtless was that the head of the
government was fond of it.
Some proposed not to burn nor to powder it, to boil it three
quarters of an hour, to strain it, &c.
I have tried this and all the methods which have been suggested
from day to day, and prefer that known as a la Dubelloy, which
consists in pouring boiling water on coffee placed in a porcelain
or silver vessel pierced with a number of very minute holes. This
first decoction should be taken and brought to the boiling point,
then passed through the strainer again, and a coffee will be
obtained clear and strong as possible.
I have also tried to make coffee in a high pressure boiling
apparatus; all I obtained however was a fluid intensely bitter,
and strong enough to take the skin from the throat of a Cossack.
EFFECTS OF COFFEE.
Doctors have differed in relation to the sanitary properties of
coffee. We will omit all this, and devote ourselves to the more
important point, its influence on the organs of thought.
There is no doubt but that coffee greatly excites the cerebral
faculties. Any man who drinks it for the first time is almost sure
to pass a sleepless night.
Sometimes the effect is softened or modified by custom, but there
are many persons on whom it always produces this effect, and who
consequently cannot use coffee.
I have said that the effect was modified by use, a circumstance
which does not prevent its having effect in another manner. I have
observed persons whom coffee did not prevent from sleeping at
night, need it to keep them awake during the day, and never failed
to slumber when they had taken it for dinner. There are others who
are torpid all day when they have not taken their cup in the
morning.
Voltaire and Buffon used a great deal of coffee. Perchance the
latter was indebted to it for the admirable clearness we observe
in his works, and the second for the harmonious enthusiasm of his
style. It is evident that many pages of the treatise on man, the
dog, the tiger, lion and horse, were written under a strange
cerebral excitement.
The loss of sleep caused by coffee is not painful, for the
perceptions are very clear, and one has no disposition to sleep.
One is always excited and unhappy when wakefulness comes from any
other cause. This, however, does prevent such an excitement, when
carried too far, from being very injurious.
Formerly only persons of mature age took coffee. Now every one
takes it, and perhaps it is the taste which forces onward the
immense crowd that besiege all the avenues of the Olympus, and of
the temple of memory.
The Cordwainer, author of the tragedy of Zenobia, which all Paris
heard read a few years ago, drank much coffee; for that reason he
excelled the cabinetmaker of Nevers, who was but a drunkard.
Coffee is a more powerful fluid than people generally think. A man
in good health may drink two bottles of wine a day for a long
time, and sustain his strength. If he drank that quantity of
coffee he would become imbecile and die of consumption. I saw at
Leicester square, in London, a man whom coffee had made a cripple.
He had ceased to suffer, and then drank but six cups a day.
All fathers and mothers should make their children abstain from
coffee, if they do not wish them at twenty to be puny dried up
machines. People in large cities should pay especial attention to
this, as their children have no exaggeration of strength and
health, and are not so hearty as those born in the country.
I am one of those who have been obliged to give up coffee, and I
will conclude this article by telling how rigorously I was
subjected to its power.
The Duke of Mossa, then minister of justice, called on me for an
opinion about which I wished to be careful, and for which he had
allowed me but a very short time.
I determined then to sit up all night, and to enable me to do so
took two large cups of strong and highly flavored coffee.
I went home at seven o'clock to get the papers which had been
promised me, but found a note telling me I would not get them
until the next day.
Thus in every respect disappointed, I returned to the house where
I had dined, and played a game of piquet, without any of the moody
fits to which I was ordinarily subject.
I did justice to the coffee, but I was not at ease as to how I
would pass the night.
I went to bed at my usual hour, thinking that if I did not get my
usual allowance, I would at least get four or five hours,
sufficient to carry me through the day.
I was mistaken. I had been two hours in bed and was wider awake
than ever; I was in intense mental agitation, and fancied my brain
a mill, the wheels of which revolved, grinding nothing.
The idea came to me to turn this fancy to account, and I did so,
amusing myself by putting into verse a story I had previously read
in an English paper.
I did so without difficulty, and as I did not sleep I undertook
another, but in vain. A dozen verses had exhausted my poetic
faculty, and I gave it up.
I passed the night without sleep, and without even being stupified
for a moment, I arose and passed the day in the same manner. When
on the next night I went to bed at my usual hour I made a
calculation, and found out that I had not slept for forty hours.
Section X. CHOCOLATE--ITS ORIGIN.
The first visiters of America were impelled by a thirst of gold.
At that time nothing was appreciated but the products of the
mines. Agriculture and commerce were in their infancy, and
political economy was as yet unborn. The Spaniards found then the
precious metals, an almost sterile discovery, for they decreased
in value as they became more abundant. We have other and better
ways to increase wealth.
In those regions, however, where a genial sun confers immense
fruitfulness on the soil, the cultivation of sugar and coffee was
found advantageous. The potato, indigo, vanilla, guano, cocoa,
were also discovered; these are its real treasures.
If these discoveries took place in spite of the barriers opposed
to curiosity by a jealous nation, we may reasonably hope that they
will be multiplied ten-fold in the course of the years to come;
and that the explorations of the savants of old Europe will enrich
the three kingdoms with a multitude of substances which will give
us new sensations, as vanilla has, or augment our alimentary
resources, as cocoa.
It has been determined to call chocolate the result of the paste
of cocoa burnt with sugar and the bark of the cinnamon. This is
the technical definition of chocolate. Sugar is the integral part,
for without sugar the compound is cocoa and, chocolate. To sugar,
cinnamon and cocoa is joined the delicious aroma of vanilla, and
thus is obtained the ne plus ultra to which this preparation can
be carried.
To this small number of ingredients has been reduced the number of
things sought to mingle with cocoa in the manufacture of
chocolate. Pepper, pimento, anise seed, ginger and others, have
necessarily been tried.
The cocoa tree is a native of South America, and is found both in
the islands and on the continent. It has been confessed, however,
that the best fruit is produced by the trees which grow on the
banks of Moracaibo, in the valleys of Caracas, and in the province
of Sokomusko. The fruit is larger, the sugar less bitter, and the
taste higher. Since these regions have become accessible, a
comparison may be made every day and the palate will never be
deceived.
The Spanish women of the new world are passionately fond of
chocolate; and not satisfied with taking it two or three times a
day, have it even sent after them to church. This sensuality has
often drawn down the censure of their bishops, who, however,
gradually closed their eyes to it. The reverend father Escobar,
the metaphysics of whom was subtle as his morals were
accommodating, used to declare that chocolate made with water did
not break a fast; thus for the use of his penitents reproducing
the old adage, "Liquidum non frangit jejunium."
Chocolate was brought to Spain about the end of the seventeenth
century, and the use became at once common. Women especially
showed great fondness for it. Manners have not changed in this
particular as yet, and now throughout all the peninsula chocolate
is presented on all occasions when it is usual to offer any
refreshment.
Chocolate crossed the mountains with Anne of Austria, the daughter
of Philip II., and wife of Louis XIII. The Spanish monks also made
it known, by presents to their brethren in France. The Spanish
ambassadors also made it popular, and during the regency it was
more universally used than coffee, because it was taken as an
agreeable food, while coffee was esteemed a luxury.
Linnaeus calls the cocoa cacao theobroma, (cocoa, the drink of the
gods). A cause for this name has been sought. Some assign his
passionate fondness for it, and the other his desire to please his
confessor; there are those who attribute it to gallantry, a Queen
having first introduced it. (Incertum.)
PROPERTIES OF CHOCOLATE.
Chocolate has given occasion to profound dissertations, with the
object of determining its nature and properties, and to place it
in the category of warm, cold, or temperate drinks. We must own
all their lucubrations have contributed but slightly to the
elucidation of truth.
It was left for time and experience, those two great masters, to
show that chocolate prepared with care is as healthful as it is
agreeable. That it is nourishing, easily digested, and is not so
injurious to beauty as coffee said to be. It is very suitable to
persons who have much mental toil, to professors and lawyers,
especially to lawyers. It also suits certain feeble stomachs, and
has been thought most advantageous in chronic diseases. It is the
last resource in affections of the pylorus.
These various properties chocolate owes to nothing but an
eloesaccharum. Few substances contain in the same volume more
nutrition. It becomes almost entirely animalised.
During the war, cocoa was rare and very dear. Substitutes were
sought for, but all efforts were vain. One of the blessings of
peace was that it rid us of all those humbugs one was forced to
taste, but which were no more chocolate than chicory is mocha.
Some persons complain that they cannot digest chocolate. Others
say that it does not nourish them, and that it passes away too
quickly.
The probability is that the first have only to blame themselves,
and that the chocolate they use is of bad quality. Good and well
made chocolate can be digested even by the weakest stomach.
The others have an easy remedy, and they need only strengthen
their stomachs by a pate, a cotelette, or a jerked kidney. Then
let them take a bowl of sokomusko, and thank God for such a
powerful stomach.
Here I have an opportunity to give two examples, the correctness
of which may be relied on.
After a good breakfast one may drink a full bowl of chocolate, and
digestion in three hours will be perfect, so that one may dine at
any hour that is pleasant. ... In zeal for the advancement of the
science, I tried this experiment on many ladies who assured me
they would die. They did not, though, and lived to glorify the
professor.
Those who use chocolate, ordinarily enjoy the most perfect health,
and are the least subject to the multitude of ailments which
destroy life; their embonpoint is stationary. These two examples
any one can verify in society by a scrutiny of those the regimen
of whom is known.
This is the true place to speak of the properties of chocolate,
which I have verified by many examples and experiments, which I am
delighted to exhibit to my readers. (See varieties at the end of
the volume.)
Now, then, let any man who has indulged too much in the cup of
volupte; let every man who has passed in toil too much of the time
when he should have slept; let every man of mind, who finds his
faculties temporarily decay; every man who finds the air humid and
the atmosphere painful to breathe; let every man who has a fixed
idea which would deprive him of the liberty of thought; let them
each take a demi litre of chocolate ambre, (sixty grains of amber
to the kilogramme), and they will see wonders.
In my way of distinguishing things, I have called this chocolate
des affliges; because in all the conditions I have referred to,
there is something very like affliction.
Very good chocolate is made in Spain; one is indisposed to send
thither for it, for all manufacturers are not equally skillful,
and when it comes it has to be used as it is.
Italian chocolates do not suit the French, for the cocoa is burned
too much. This makes the chocolate bitter, and deprives it of its
nourishment. A portion of the bean has been reduced to carbon.
Chocolate having become common in France, all sought to learn how
to make it. Few, however, approximated to perfection for the art
is not easy.
In the first place it was necessary to know good cocoa and to use
it in all its purity. There is no first quality case that has not
its inferiorities, and a mistaken interest often causes damaged
beans to be put in, which should have been rejected. The roasting
of the cocoa is also a delicate operation, and requires a tact
very like inspiration. Some have the faculty naturally, and are
never mistaken.
A peculiar talent is necessary to regulate the quantity of sugar
which enters into the composition. It is not invariable and a
matter of course, but varies in proportion to the aroma of the
bean and the degree of torrefaction.
The trituration and mixture do not demand less care, and on them
depends the greater or less digestibility of chocolate.
Other considerations should also preside over the choice and
quantity of aromas, which should not be the same with chocolate
made for food and those taken as luxuries. It should also be
varied according if the mass is intended to receive vanilla or
not. In fine, to make good chocolate a number of very subtle
equations must be resolved, and which we take advantage of without
suspecting that they ever took place.
For a long time machines have been employed for the manufacture of
chocolate. We think this does not add at all to its perfection,
but it diminishes manipulation very materially, so that those who
have adopted it should be able to sell chocolate at a very low
rate. [Footnote: One of those machines is now in operation in a
window in Broadway, New York. It is a model of mechanical
appropriateness.] They, however, usually sell it more dearly, and
this fact demonstrates that the true spirit of commerce has not
yet entered France; the use of machines should be as advantageous
to the consumer as to the producer.
TRUE METHOD OF PREPARING CHOCOLATE.
The Americans [Footnote: South Americans.--TRANSLATOR.] make their
chocolate without sugar. When they wish to take chocolate, they
send for chocolate. Every one throws into his cup as much cocoa as
it needs, pours warm water in, and adds the sugar and perfumes he
wishes.
This method neither suits our habits nor our tastes, for we wish
chocolate to come to us ready prepared.
In this state, transcendental chemistry has taught us that it
should neither be rasped with the knife nor bruised with a pestle,
because thus a portion of the sugar is converted into starch, and
the drink made less attractive.
Thus to make chocolate, that is to say, to make it fit for
immediate use, about an ounce and a half should be taken for each
cup, which should be slowly dissolved in water while it is heated,
and stirred from time to time with a spatula of wood. It should be
boiled a quarter of an hour, in order to give it consistency, and
served up hot.
"Monsieur," said madame d'Arestrel, fifty years ago, to me at
Belley, "when you wish good chocolate make it the evening before
in a tin pot. The rest of the night gives it a velvet-like flavor
that makes it far better. God will not be offended at this little
refinement, for in himself is all excellence."
MEDITATION VII.
THEORY OF FRYING.
It was a fine morning in May; the sun shed his brightest rays on
the smoky roofs of the city of enjoyments, and the streets
(strangely enough) were filled neither with mud nor dust.
The heavy diligences had long ceased to shake the streets; the
heavy wagons had ceased to pass, and only open carriages were
seen, in which indigenous and exotic beauties under beautiful
hats, cast disdainful looks on ugly, and smiling ones on good-
looking cavaliers.
It was three o'clock when the professor sought his arm chair to
meditate.
His right leg rested vertically on the floor, his left formed a
diagonal angle with, and rested on it. His back was comfortably
supported, and his hands rested on the lions' heads which
terminated the arms of the venerable piece of furniture in which
he sat.
His lofty brow indicated intense study, and his mouth a taste for
pleasant amusement. His air was collected, and any one to have
seen him would have said, "that is a sage of ancient days." The
professor sent for his preparateur en chef, (chief COOK) and that
officer arrived, ready to receive orders, advice or lessons.
ALLOCUTION.
"Master la Planche," said the professor with that deep grave
accent which penetrates the very depth of our hearts, "all who sit
at my table pronounce your potages of the first class, a very
excellent thing, for potage is the first consolation of an empty
stomach. I am sorry to say though that you are uncertain as a
friturier. [Footnote: Anglice. Fryer.]
"I heard you sigh yesterday over that magnificent sole you served
to us, pale, watery and colorless. My friend R. [Footnote: Mr. R--
-, born at Seyssel, in the district of Belley, in 1757, an elector
of the grand college. He may be considered an example of the good
effects of prudence and probity.] looked disapprovingly of it,
M.H.R. turned his gastronomical nose to the left, and the
President S. declared such a misfortune equal to a public
calamity.
"This happened because you neglected the theory, the importance of
which you are aware of. You are rather obstinate, though I have,
taken the trouble to impress on you the facts, that the operations
of your laboratory are only the execution of the eternal laws of
nature, and that certain things which you do carelessly, because
you have seen others do so; yet these are the results of the
highest science. Listen to me, therefore, with attention, that you
may never again blush at your works."
Section 1. CHEMISTRY.
"Liquids which you subject to the action of fire cannot all
receive the same quantity of heat. Nature has formed them
differently, and this secret, which we will call CAPACITY FOR
CALORIC, she has kept to herself.
"You may, therefore, with impunity dip your finger in boiling
spirits of wine; you would take it very quickly from boiling
brandy; more rapidly yet from water; while the most rapid
immersion in boiling oil would heat you easily.
"Consequently warm fluids act differently on the sapid bodies
presented to them. Those subject to water soften, dissolve, and
reduce themselves to boilli. The result is bouillon and its
extracts. Those on the contrary treated with oil harden, assume a
color more or less deep, and finally are carbonized.
"In the first instance, water dissolves and conveys away the
interior juices of the alimentary substances placed in it. In the
second the juices are preserved, for they are insoluble in oil. If
these things dry up it is because a continuous heat vaporizes the
humid parts.
"The two methods have different names, and FRYING is BOILING in
oil or grease substances intended to be eaten. I think I have told
you that officially oil and grease are synonymous; heating the
latter being but a concrete oil."
Section II. APPLICATION.
"Fritures are well received in entertainments into which they
introduce an agreeable variety. They are agreeable to the taste,
preserve their primitive flavor, and may be eaten with the hand, a
thing women are always fond of.
"Thus cooks are able to hide many things that have appeared on the
day before, and remedy unforeseen requisitions on them. It takes
no longer to fry a four pound chop than it does to boil an egg.
"All the merit of the friture is derived from the surprise, or the
invasion of the boiling liquid which carbonizes or burns at the
very instant of immersion of the body placed in it.
"To effect a purpose, the liquid must be hot enough to act
instantaneously. It does not, however, reach S this point until it
has long been submitted to the action of a blazing and hot fire.
"By the following means it may be ascertained if the friture be
heated to the wished-for degree, cut a piece of bread in the form
of a cube, and dip it in the pan for five or six seconds, if you
take it out firm and dark put in what you wish to prepare
immediately. If it be not, stir the fire and begin again.
"The surprise being once effected, moderate the fire that the
action may not be too hurried, and that by a prolonged heat the
juices it contains may be changed and the flavor enhanced.
"You have doubtless observed that fritures dissolve neither the
sugar nor salt their respective natures require. You should not
fail then to reduce those substances to a very fine powder in
order that they may adhere the more readily, and season the dish
by juxtaposition.
"I do not tell you about oils and greases for the different
treatises I have put in your library give you sufficient light.
"Do not forget, however, when you get one of those trout which do
not weigh more than half a pound, and which come from murmuring
streams, far from the capitol, to use the finest olive oil. This
delicate dish duly powdered and garnished with slices of lemon is
fit for a cardinal. [Footnote: Mr. Aulissin, a very well informed
Neapolitan lawyer, and a good amateur performer on the
violoncello, dining one day with me, and eating some thing that
pleased him, said--"Questo e un vero boccone di cardinale."
"Why," said I, in the same tongue, not say "boccone in Re."
"Seignore," said he, "we Italians do nothing; a king cannot be a
gourmand, for royal dinners are too short and solemn. With
cardinals things are very different." He shrugged his shoulders as
he spoke.]
"Eperlans (smelt or sprat) should be treated in the same manner.
This is the becfique of the water, and has the same perfume and
excellence.
"These two prescriptions are founded in the very nature of things.
Experience tells us that olive oil should only be used with things
which are soon cooked, and which do not demand too high a
temperature, because prolonged ebullition developes an
empyreumatic and disagreable taste produced by a few particles of
pulp, which can, being impossible to be gotten rid of, carbonize.
"You tried my furnace, and were the first person who ever
succeeded in producing an immense fried turbot. On that day there
was great rejoicing among the elect.
"Continue to be coeval in all you attempt, and never forget that
from the moment guests enter the salon WE are responsible for
their happiness."
MEDITATION VIII.
ON THIRST.
THIRST is the internal feeling of a wish to drink.
A heat of about 32 [degrees] Reaumur, constantly vaporizing the
different fluids the circulation of which sustains life, the
diminution they undergo would unfit them for their purposes, if
they were not renewed and refreshed. The necessity of this renewal
is what we call thirst.
We think the seat of thirst is in the digestive system. When
athirst (we have often felt the sensation when hunting) we feel
distinctly that all the inhaling portions of the nostrils, mouth
and throat are benumbed and hardened, and that if thirst be
sometimes appeased by the application of fluids to other parts of
the body, as in the bath, the reason is that as soon as they are
absorbed they hurry rapidly to the seat of the evil and become
remedies.
VARIETIES OF THIRST.
Looking at the subject in all its bearings we may count three
varieties of thirst: latent, factitious and permanent.
Latent or habitual thirst, is the insensible equilibrium
established between transpiratory vaporization and the necessity
of supplying what is lost. Thus, though we experience no pain, we
are invited to drink while we eat, and are able to drink at almost
every moment of the day. This thirst accompanies us every where,
and is almost a portion of our existence.
Factitious thirst is peculiar to man, and results from the
instinct which impels him to seek in drink the strength he needs.
It is an artificial enjoyment rather than a natural want. This
thirst is really governless, because the fluids we take have the
faculty of reviving it, and this thirst becomes habitual, makes
drunkards in every country. The consequence is, that they drink as
long as liquor lasts, or until they are utterly overcome.
When, on the other hand, thirst is appeased by pure water, which
seems the most natural remedy, we never drink more than we
actually need.
Hardening thirst is the result of the increase of the want, and of
the impossibility to satisfy latent thirst.
It is so called because it is accompanied by hardness of the
tongue, dryness of the palate, and a devouring heat in all the
body.
The sensation of thirst is so intense, that in all tongues it is
synonymous with excessive desire, and irrepressible longing: thus
we thirst for gold, wealth, power, science, &c., expressions which
never would have become common had men not have been athirst and
aware of their vengeance.
Appetite is pleasant when it does not reach the point of hunger.
Thirst is not so, and as soon as we feel it we are uncomfortable
and anxious. When there is no possibility of appeasing it, the
state of mind is terrible.
To compensate us for this, the sense of thirst procures us great
pleasure; and when great thirst is appeased, or a delicious drink
is offered to one moderately athirst, the whole papillary system
is aroused, from the tip of the tongue to the extremity of the
stomach.
We die of thirst more rapidly than of hunger. Men with an
abundance of water, have lived for eight days without bread.
Without water, the system succumbs on the fifth.
The reason is that in starving, man dies more of weakness; in
thirst of a burning fever.
People are not always able to resist thirst so long: in 1787, one
of the hundred Swiss of Louis XVI., died from having been twenty-
four hours without drink.
He was at a cabaret with some of his comrades, and as he was about
to carry his glass to his lips, he was reproached with drinking
oftener than the rest, and with not being able to do a moment
without it.
He then made a bet of ten bottles of wine, that he would not drink
for twenty-four hours.
He ceased at once, and sat by, for two hours, seeing the others
drink.
The night passed well enough, but at dawn he found it difficult to
do without his habitual glass of brandy.
All the morning he was uneasy and troubled; he went hither and
thither without reason, and seemed not to know what he was about.
At one o'clock he laid down, fancying he would be calmer: he was
really sick, but those about him could not induce him to drink. He
said he could get on till evening: he wished to gain his bet, and
it is probable also, that some military pride was mingled in the
matter, which prevented him from yielding to pain.
He kept up until seven o'clock, but at half-after seven was very
sick and soon died, without being able to swallow a glass of wine
which was presented to him.
I was informed of all these details that very night, by the Sieur
Schneider, the fifer of the hundred Swiss, in the house of whom I
lived at Versailles.
CAUSES OF THIRST.
Many circumstances, either united or separate, contribute to
thirst. We shall mention some which are not without influence on
our habits.
Heat augments thirst. Whence comes the disposition men have always
had to build their habitations near the sea.
Corporeal labor augments thirst. Persons who employ labourers,
always gratify them by drink--hence the proverb that wine given
them is always well sold.
Dancing increases thirst, and for this reason the ball-room is
always supplied with invigorating drinks.
Declamation also increases thirst, which accounts for the glass of
water readers always seek to drink with grace, and which is always
beside the white handkerchief on the desk.
Genesiac pleasure excites thirst, and accounts for the poetical
descriptions of Cyprus, Amathonte, Gnidus, and other homes of
Venus, in which there are always shady groves and murmuring
streamlets.
Song augments thirst, and therefore all vocalists are said to be
such huge drinkers. A musician myself, I protest against this
assertion, which has neither rhyme nor reason.
The artists in our saloons drink with as much prudence as
sagacity; what they lose in this, however, they atone for on the
other side; if not given to drink, they are untiring gourmands, so
much so, that I am told at the Circle of Transcendental Harmony,
[Footnote: A well known "Musical Society."] the festivals of St.
Cecile lasted twenty-four hours.
EXAMPLE.
Exposure to a rapid current of air, causes a rapid augmentation of
thirst, and I think the following observations will be read with
pleasure by all the lovers of the chase.
It is well known that quail are fond of huge mountains, where
their broods are in more safety, from the fact that the harvests
are later.
When the rye is cut, they go into the barley and oats; and when
the latter is being harvested, they go into that portion which is
less matured.
This is the time to shoot them; because in a small number of
acres, are found all the birds which a few months before were
strewn through a whole commune and are at that time fat as
possible.
I went with some friends for the purpose of shooting to a mountain
in the arrondissiment of Nantua, in the canton known as plan
d'Hotonne, where we were about to commence the day's work under a
brighter sun than any Parisian badaud ever saw.
While we were at breakfast a violent north wind arose which was
much in the way of our sport: we however continued.
We had scarcely been out a quarter of an hour, when the most
effeminate of the party said he was thirsty. We now, doubtless,
would have laughed at him, had we not all experienced the same
sensation.
We all drank, for an ass loaded with refreshments followed us, but
the relief afforded was of brief duration. The thirst soon
appeared with increased intensity, so that some fancied themselves
sick, and others were becoming so, and all talked of returning. To
do so was to have travelled ten leagues for no purpose.
I had time to collect my ideas, and saw the reason of this strange
thirst; and told them we suffered from the effects of three
causes. The dimunition of atmospheric pressure made our
circulation more rapid. The sun heated us, and walking had
increased transpiration. More than all these--the wind dried up
this transpiration, and prevented all moistness of the skin.
I told them that there was no danger, that the enemy was known,
and that we must oppose it.
Precaution however was ineffectual, for their thirst was
quenchless. Water, wine and water, and brandy, all were powerless.
We suffered from thirst even while we drank, and were
uncomfortable all day.
We got through the day, however; the owner of the domain of Latour
entertaining us, joining the provisions we had, to his own stores.
We dined very well and got into the hay-loft, where we slept
soundly.
The next day's experience showed my theory to be true. The wind
lulled, the sun was not so warm, and we experienced no
inconvenience from thirst.
But a great misfortune had befallen us. We had very prudently
filled our canteens, but they had not been able to resist the many
assaults made on them. They were bodies without souls, and we all
fell into the hands of the cabaret-keepers.
We had to come to that point, not however without murmuring. I
addressed an allocution full of reproaches to the wind, when I saw
a dish fit to be set before a king, "D'epinards a la graisse de
cailles," destined to be eaten with a wine scarcely as good as
that of Surene. [Footnote: A village two leagues from Paris,
famous for its bad wine. There is a proverb which says that to get
rid of a glass of Surene, three things are needed, "a drinker and
two men to hold him in case his courage fail." The same may be
said of Perieux, which people however will drink.]
MEDITATION IX.
ON DRINKS. [Footnote: This chapter is purely philosophical: a
description of different kinds of wine does not enter into the
plan I have marked out for myself. If it was, I would never have
finished my book.]
By drinks we mean all liquids which mingle with food.
Water seems to be the natural drink. Wherever there is animal life
it is found, and replaces milk. For adults it is as necessary as
air. WATER. Water is the only fluid which really appeases thirst,
and for that reason only a small quantity of it can be drank. The
majority of other fluids that man drinks are only palliatives, and
had he drank nothing else he never would have said that he drank
without being thirsty. QUICK EFFECT OF DRINKS. Drinks are absorbed
by the animal economy with the most extreme facility. Their effect
is prompt and the relief they furnish is almost instantaneous.
Give the most hungry man you can meet with the richest possible
food, he will eat with difficulty. Give him a glass of wine or of
brandy, and at once he will find himself better.
I can establish this theory by a very remarkable circumstance I
received from my nephew, Colonel Guigard, a man not disposed to
tell long stories. All may rely upon the accuracy of what he has
said.
He was at the head of a detachment returning from the siege of
Jaffa, and was but a few hundred paces from the place where he
expected to find water, and where he met many of the advanced
guard already dead with heat.
Among the victims of this burning climate was a carabinier who was
known to many persons of the detachment.
Many of his comrades who approached him for the last time, either
to inherit what he had left, or to bid him adieu, were amazed to
find his limbs flexible and something flexible around his heart.
"Give him a drop of sacre chien" said the lustig of the troupe.
"If he is not too far gone into the other world, he will come back
to taste it."
At the reception of the first spoonful of spirits he opened his
eyes: they then rubbed his temples and gave him a drop or two.
After about an hour he was able to sit up in the saddle.
He was taken to a fountain, nursed during the night, and carefully
attended to. On the next day he reached Cairo.
STRONG DRINKS.
There is one thing very worthy of attention; the instinct which
leads us to look for intoxicating drinks.
Wine, the most pleasant of all drinks, whether due to Noah who
planted the vine, or to Bacchus who expressed the juice of the
grape, dates back to the infancy of the world. Beer, which is
attributed to Osiris, dates to an age far beyond history.
All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the
passion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were,
they were yet able to manufacture them.
They made the milk of their domestic animals sour: they extracted
the juice of many animals and many fruits in which they suspected
the idea of fermentation to exist. Wherever men are found, strong
liquors are met with, and are used in festivities, sacrifices,
marriages, funeral rites, and on all solemn occasions.
For many centuries wine was drank and sung before any persons had
an idea that it was possible to extract the spirituous portion,
which is the essence of its power. The Arabs, however, taught us
the art of distillation, invented by them to extract the perfume
of flowers, and especially of the rose, so celebrated in their
poems. Then persons began to fancy that in wine a source of
excitement might be found to give taste a peculiar exaltation. By
gradual experiments alcohol, spirits of wine, and brandy were
discovered.
Alcohol is the monarch of liquids, and takes possession of the
extreme tastes of the palate. Its various preparations offer us
countless new flavors, and to certain medicinal remedies, it gives
an energy they could not well do without. It has even become a
formidable weapon: the natives of the new world having been more
utterly destroyed by brandy than by gunpowder.
The method by which alcohol was discovered, has led to yet more
important results, as it consisted in the separation and
exhibition of the constituent parts of a body, it became a guide
to those engaged in analogous pursuits, and made us acquainted
with new substances, such as quinine, morphine, strychnine and
other similar ones.
Be this as it may, the thirst for a liquid which nature has
shrouded in veils, the extraordinary appetite acting on all races
of men, under all climates and temperatures, is well calculated to
attract the attention of the observer.
I have often been inclined to place the passion for spirituous
liquors, utterly unknown to animals, side by side with anxiety for
the future, equally strange to them, and to look on the one and
the other as distinctive attributes of the last sublunary
revolution.
MEDITATION X.
AN EPISODE ON THE END OF THE WORLD.
I said--last sublunary revolution, and this idea awakened many
strange ideas.
Many things demonstrate to us that our globe has undergone many
changes, each of which was, so to say, "an end of the world." Some
instinct tells us many other changes are to follow.
More than once, we have thought these revolutions likely to come,
and the comet of Jerome Lalande has sent many persons to the
confessional.
The effect of all this has been that every one is disposed to
surround this catastrophe with vengeance, exterminating angels,
trumps and other accessories.
Alas! there is no use to take so much trouble to ruin us. We are
not worth so much display, and if God please, he can change the
surface of the globe without any trouble.
Let us for a moment suppose that one of those wandering stars, the
route and mission of which none know, and the appearance of which
is always accompanied by some traditional terror; let us suppose
that it passes near enough to the sun, to be charged with a
superabundance of caloric, and approach near enough to us to
create a heat of sixty degrees Reaumur over the whole earth (as
hot again as the temperature caused by the comet of 1811.)
All vegetation would die, all sounds would cease. The earth would
revolve in silence until other circumstances had evolved other
germs: yet the cause of this disaster would have remained lost in
the vast fields of air, and would never have approached us nearer
than some millions of leagues.
This event, which in the main, has ever seemed to me a fit subject
for reverie, and I never ceased for a moment to dwell on it.
This ascending heat is curious to be looked after, and it is not
uninteresting to follow its effects, expansion, action, and to
ask:
How great it was during the first, second, and subsequent days.
What effect it had on the earth, and water, and on the formation
and mingling, and detonation of gasses.
What influence it had on men, as far as age, sex, strength and
weakness are concerned.
What influence it has on obedience to the laws, submission to
authority, and respect to persons and property.
What one should do to escape from danger.
What influence it has on love, friendship, parental affection,
self-love and devotion.
What is its influence on the religious sentiments, faith,
resignation and hope.
History can furnish us a few facts on its moral influence, for the
end of the world has more than once been predicted and determined.
I am very sorry that I cannot tell my readers how I settled all
this, but I will not rob them of the pleasure of thinking of the
matter themselves. This may somewhat shorten some of their
sleepless hours, and ensure them a few siestas during the day.
Great danger dissolves all bonds. When the yellow fever was in
Philadelphia, in 1792, husbands closed the doors on their wives,
children deserted their fathers, and many similar phenomena
occurred.
Quod a nobis Deus avertat!
MEDITATION XI.
ON GOURMANDISE.
I HAVE looked through various dictionaries for the word
gourmandise and have found no translation that suited me. It is
described as a sort of confusion of gluttony and voracity. Whence
I have concluded that lexicographers, though very pleasant people
in other respects, are not the sort of men to swallow a partridge
wing gracefully with one hand, with a glass of Laffitte or clos de
Vougeot in the other.
They were completely oblivious of social gourmandise, which unites
Athenian elegance, Roman luxury and French delicacy; which
arranges wisely, flavors energetically, and judges profoundly.
This is a precious quality which might be a virtue and which is
certainly the source of many pure enjoyments.
DEFINITIONS.
Let us understand each other.
Gourmandise is a passionate preference, well determined and
satisfied, for objects which flatter our taste.
Gourmandise is hostile to all excesses: any man who becomes drunk
or suffers from indigestion is likely to be expunged from the
lists.
Gourmandise also comprehends, friandise (passion for light
delicacies) for pastry, comfitures, etc. This is a modification
introduced for the special benefit of women, and men like the
other sex.
Look at gourmandise under any aspect you please, and it deserves
praise.
Physically, it is a demonstration of the healthy state of the
organs of nutrition.
Morally, it is implicit resignation to the orders of God, who made
us eat to live, invites us to do so by appetite, sustains us by
flavor, and rewards us by pleasure.
ADVANTAGES OF GOURMANDISE.
Considered from the points of view of political economy,
gourmandise is the common bond which unites the people in
reciprocal exchanges of the articles needed for daily consumption.
This is the cause of voyages from one pole to the other, for
brandy, spices, sugars, seasonings and provisions of every kind,
even eggs and melons.
This it is which gives a proportional price to things, either
mediocres, good or excellent, whether the articles derive them out
of, or from nature.
This it is that sustains the emulation of the crowd of fishermen,
huntsmen, gardeners and others, who every day fill the wealthiest
kitchens with the result of their labours.
This it is which supports the multitude of cooks, pastry-cooks,
confectioners, etc., who employ workmen of every kind, and who
perpetually put in circulation, an amount of money which the
shrewdest calculator cannot imagine.
Let us observe that the trades and occupations dependent on
gourmandise have this great advantage, that on one hand it is
sustained by great misfortunes and on the other by accidents which
happen from day to day.
In the state of society we now have reached, it is difficult to
conceive of a people subsisting merely on bread and vegetables.
Such a nation if it existed would certainly be subjected by
carnivorous enemies, as the Hindoos were, to all who ever chose to
attack them. If not it would be converted by the cooks of its
neighbors as the Beotiens were, after the battle of Leuctres.
SEQUEL.
Gourmandise offers great resources to fiscality, for it increases
customs, imports, etc. All we consume pays tribute in one degree
or another, and there is no source of public revenue to which
gourmands do not contribute.
Let us speak for a moment of that crowd of preparers who every
year leave France, to instruct foreign nations in gourmandise. The
majority succeed and obedient to the unfasting instinct of a
Frenchman's fever, return to their country with the fruits of
their economy. This return is greater than one would think.
Were nations grateful, to what rather than to gourmandise should
France erect a monument.
POWER OF GOURMANDISE.
In 1815, the treaty of the month of November, imposed on France
the necessity of paying the allies in three years, 750,000,000
francs.
Added to this was the necessity of meeting the demands of
individuals of various nations, for whom the allied sovereigns had
stipulated, to the amount of more than 300,000,000.
To this must be added requisitions of all kinds by the generals of
the enemies who loaded whole wagons, which they sent towards the
frontier, and which the treasury ultimately had to pay for. The
total was more than 1,500,000,000 francs.
One might, one almost should have feared, that such large
payments, collected from day to day, would have produced want in
the treasury, a deprecation of all fictitious values, and
consequently all the evils which befall a country that has no
money, while it owes much.
"Alas," said the rich, as they saw the wagon going to the Rue
Vivienne for its load; "all our money is emigrating, next year we
will bow down to a crown: we are utterly ruined; all our
undertakings will fail, and we will not be able to borrow. There
will be nothing but ruin and civil death."
The result contradicted all these fears; the payments, to the
amazement of financiers, were made without trouble, public credit
increased, and all hurried after loans. During the period of this
superpurgation, the course of exchange, an infallible measure of
the circulating of money, was in our favor. This was an
arithmetical proof that more money came into France than left it.
What power came to our aid? What divinity operated this miracle?
Gourmandise.
When the Britons, Germans, Teutons, Cimmerians, and Scythes, made
an irruption into France, they came with extreme voracity and with
stomachs of uncommon capacity.
They were not long contented with the cheer furnished them by a
forced hospitality, but aspired to more delicate enjoyments. The
Queen City, ere long, became one immense refectory. The new comers
ate in shops, cafes, restaurants, and even in the streets.
They gorged themselves with meat, fish, game, truffles, pastry and
fruit.
They drank with an avidity quite equal to their appetite, and
always called for the most costly wine, expecting in those unknown
enjoyments, pleasures they did not meet with.
Superficial observers could not account for this eating, without
hunger, which seemed limitless. All true Frenchmen, however,
rubbed their hands, and said, "they are under the charm; they have
spent this evening more money than they took from the treasury in
the morning."
This epoch was favorable to all those who contributed to the
gratification of the taste. Very made his fortune, Achard laid the
foundation of his, and Madame Sullot, the shop of whom, in the
Palais Royal, was not twenty feet square, sold twelve thousand
petits pates a day.
The effect yet lasts, for strangers crowd to Paris from all parts
of Europe, to rest from the fatigues of war. Our public monuments,
it may be, are not so attractive as the pleasures of gourmandise,
everywhere elaborated in Paris, a city essentially gourmand.
A LADY GOURMAND.
Gourmandise is not unbecoming to women: it suits the delicacy of
their organs and recompenses them for some pleasures they cannot
enjoy, and for some evils to which they are doomed.
Nothing is more pleasant than to see a pretty woman, her napkin
well placed under her arms, one of her hands on the table, while
the other carries to her mouth, the choice piece so elegantly
carved. Her eyes become brilliant, her lips glow, her conversation
is agreeable and all her motions become graceful. With so many
advantages she is irresistible, and even Cato, the censor, would
feel himself moved.
ANECDOTE.
I will here record what to me is a bitter reflection.
I was one day most commodiously fixed at table, by the side of the
pretty Madame M----d, and was inwardly rejoicing at having
obtained such an advantageous position, when she said "your
health." I immediately began a complimentary phrase, which
however, I did not finish, for turning to her neighbor on the
right, she said "Trinquons," they touched each others glasses.
This quick transition seemed a perfidy, and the passage of many
years have not made me forget it.
ARE WOMEN GOURMANDS?
The penchant of the fair sex for
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