The Physiology of Taste - Brillat Savarin (black female authors TXT) 📗
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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 gourmandise is not unlike
instinct; for gourmandise is favorable to beauty.
A series of exact and rigorous examinations, has shown that a
succulent and delicate person on careful diet, keeps the
appearance of old age long absent.
It makes the eyes more brilliant, and the color more fresh. It
makes the muscles stronger, and as the depression of the muscles
causes wrinkles, those terrible enemies of beauty, it is true that
other things being
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