The Physiology of Taste - Brillat Savarin (black female authors TXT) 📗
- Author: Brillat Savarin
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have bequeathed to you, even if you take the three hundred
Spartans who died at Thermopylae; such a fate should be yours.”
Nobody contradicted me.
At dinner I made a remark which was worthy of notice:—
Doctor Corvisart was a very pleasant man when he pleased, and was
very fond of iced champagne. For this reason, while all the rest
of the company were dull and idle, he dealt in anecdotes and
stories. On the contrary, when the dessert was put on, and
conversation became animated, he became serious and almost morose.
From this and other observations, I deduced the following
conclusion: Champagne, the first effect of which is exhilarating,
in the result is stupefying, on account of the excessant carbonic
gases it contains.
OBJUGATION.
As I measure doctors by their diplomatu, I will not reproach them
for the severity with which they treat their invalids.
As soon as one has the misfortune to fall into their hands, one
has to give up all we have previously thought agreeable.
I look on the majority of these prohibitions as useless. I say
useless, because patients never desire what is injurious to them.
A reasonable physician should never lose sight of the natural
tendency of our inclinations, nor forget to ascertain if our
penchants are painful in themselves, or improving to health. A
little wine, or a few drops of liquor, brings the smiles to the
most hypochondriac faces.
Besides, they know that their severe prescriptions are almost
always without effect, and the patient seeks to avoid him. Those
who are around him, never are in want of a reason to gratify him.
People, however, will die.
The ration of a sick Russian, in 1815, would have made a porter
drunk. There was no retrenchment to be made, for military
inspectors ran from day to day through the hospitals, and watched
over the furnishment and the service of the various houses.
I express my opinions with the more confidence, because it is
sustained by much experience, and that the most fortunate
practitioners rely on my system.
The canon Rollet who died about fifty years ago, was a great
drinker; and the first physician he employed, forbid him to use
wine at all. When, however, he came again, the doctor found his
patient in bed, and before him the corpus delicti, i.e., a table
covered with a white cloth, a chrystal cup, a handsome bottle, and
a napkin to wipe his lips with.
The doctor at once became enraged, and was about to withdraw, when
the canon said in a lamentable voice, “doctor, remember, if you
forbade my drinking, you did not prohibit my looking at the
bottle.”
The physician who attended M. Montlusin de Point de Veyle was far
more cruel, for he not only forbid his patient to touch wine, but
made him drink large quantities of water.
A short time after the doctor had left, Mme. de Montlusin, anxious
to fulfil the requisition of the prescription, and contribute to
her husband’s recovery, gave him a great glass of water, pure and
limpid as possible.
The patient received it kindly and sought to drink it with
resignation. At the first swallow, however, he stopped, and giving
the glass back to his wife, said, “Take this, dear, and keep it
for the next dose; I have always heard, one should never trifle
with remedies.” Men of letters in the world of gastronomy, have a
place nearly equal to that of men of medical faculty.
Under the reign of Louis XIV., men of letters were all given to
drink. They conformed to fashion and the memoirs of the day, in
this respect, are very defying. They are now gourmands,—a great
amelioration.
I am far from agreeing with the cynic Geoffroy, who used to say
that modern works were deficient in power because authors now
drank only eau sucree.
I think he made two mistakes, both in the fact and the
consequences.
The age we live in is rich in talents; they injure each other
perhaps by their multitude; but posterity, judging with more
calmness, will see much to admire. Thus we do justice to the great
productions of Racine and Moliere which when written were coldly
received.
The social position of men of letters was never more agreeable.
They no longer live in the garrets they used to inhabit, for the
field of literature has become fertile. The stream of Hippocrene
rolls down golden sands: equals of all, they never hear the
language of protection, and gourmandise overwhelms them with its
choicest favours.
Men of letters are courted on account of their talent, and because
their conversation is in general piquant, and because it has for
some time been established, that every society should have its man
of letters.
These gentlemen always come a little too late: they are not
however received the most on that account, for they have been
anxiously expected: they are petted up to induce them to come
again, are flattered to make them brilliant, and as they find all
this very natural, they grow used to it and become genuine
gourmands.
DEVOTEES.
Among the friends of gourmandise are many very devout persons.
By the word devotee, we understand what Louis XIV. and Moliere
did, persons the piety of whom consists in external observances;
pious and charitable persons have nothing to do with this class.
Let us see how they effect this—among those who work out their
salvation, the greatest number seek the mildest method. Those who
avoid society, sleep on the ground and wear hair cloth, are always
exceptions.
Now there are to them certain damnable things never to be
permitted, such as balls, plays, and other amusements.
While they and those who enjoy them are abominated, gourmandise
assumes an altogether different aspect, and becomes almost
theological.
Jure divino, man is the king of nature and all that earth creates
was produced for him. For him the quail becomes fat, the mocha has
its perfume, and sugar becomes beneficial to the health.
Why then should we not use with suitable moderation the goods
which Providence offers us, especially as we continue to look on
them as perishable things, and as they exalt our appreciation of
the Creator.
Other not less weighty reasons strengthen these—can we receive
too kindly those persons who take charge of our souls? Should we
not make a meeting with them pleasant and agreeable?
Sometimes the gifts of Comus come unexpectedly. An old college
companion, an old friend, a penitent who humbles himself, a
kinsman who makes himself known or a protege recalls them.
This has ever been the case.
Convents were the true ware-houses of the most adorable delacies:
for that reason they have been so much regretted. [Footnote: The
best liquors in France were made of the Visitandines. The monks of
Niort invented the conserve of Angelica, and the bread flavoured
with orange flowers by the notes of Chiteau-Thierry is yet
famous. The nuns of Belley used also to make a delicious conserve
of nuts. Alas, it is lost, I am afraid.]
Many monastic orders, especially the Bernardins paid great
attention to good cheer. The cooks of the clergy reached the very
limits of the art, and M. de Pressigny (who died Archbishop of
Besancon) returned from the conclave which elected Pro Sesto, he
said the best dinner he ate in Rome was given by the General of
the Capuchins.
CHEVALIERS AND ABBES.
We cannot bring this article to a better end than to make an
honourable mention of two corporations we saw in all their glory:
we mean the Chevaliers and the Abbes.
How completely gourmand they were. Their expanded nostrils, their
acute eyes, and coral lips could not he mistaken, neither could
their gossiping tongue; each class, however, ate in a peculiar
manner.
There was something military in the bearing of the Chevaliers.
They ate their delicacies with dignity, worked calmly, and cast
horizontal looks of approbation at both the master and mistress of
the house.
The Abbes however, used to come to the table with more care, and
reached out their hands as the cat snatches chestnuts from the
fire. Their faces were all enjoyment, and there was a
concentration about their looks more easy to conceive of, than to
describe.
As three-fourths of the present generation have seen nothing like
either the Abbes, or Chevaliers, and as it is necessary to
understand them, to be able to appreciate many books written in
the eighteenth century, we will borrow from the author of the
Historical Treatise on Duels, a few pages which will fully satisfy
all persons about this subject. (See Varieties, No. 20.)
LONGEVITY OF GOURMANDS.
I am happy, I cannot be more so, to inform my readers that good
cheer is far from being injurious, and that all things being
equal, gourmands live longer than other people. This was proved by
a scientific dissertation recently read at the academy, by Doctor
Villermet.
He compares the different states of society, in which good cheer
is attended to, with those where no attention is paid to it, and
has passed through every scale of the ladder. He has compared the
various portions of Paris, in which people were more or less
comfortable. All know that in this respect there is extreme
difference, as for instance between the Faubourg St. Antoine and
the Chaussee d’ Antin.
The doctor extended his research to the departments of France, and
compared the most sterile and fertile together, and always
obtained a general result in favor of the diminution of mortality,
in proportion universally as the means of subsistence improve.
Those who cannot well sustain themselves will be at least wise, to
know that death will deliver them soon.
The two extremes of this progression are, that in the most highly
favored ranks of life but one individual in fifty dies, while of
those who are poorer four do.
Those who indulge in good cheer, are rarely, or never sick. Alas!
they often fall into the domain of the faculty, who call them good
patients: as however they have no great degree of vitality, and
all portions of their organization are better sustained, nature
has more resources, and the body incomparably resists destruction.
This physiological truth may be also sustained by history, which
tells us that as often as impervious circumstances, such as war,
sieges, the derangement of seasons, etc., diminish the means of
subsistence, such times have ever been accompanied by contagious
disease and a great increase of mortality.
The idea of Lafarge would beyond a doubt have succeeded in Paris,
if those who had advanced it had introduced into their
calculations the truths developed by Doctor Villermet.
They calculated mortality according to Buffoon’s tables, and those
of Parcieux and others, all of which were based on the aggregate
of all classes and conditions. Those who made the estimate,
however, forgot the dangers of infancy, indulged in general
calculations, and the speculation failed.
This may not have been the only, hut it was the principal cause.
For this observation, we are indebted to the Professor Pardessus.
M. de Belloy, archbishop of Paris, had a slight appetite, but a
very distinct one. He loved good cheer and I have often seen his
patriarchal face lighten up at the appearance of any choice dish.
Napoleon always on such occasions paid him deference and respect.
MEDITATION XIII.
GASTRONOMICAL TESTS.
IN the preceding chapter, we have seen that the distinctive
characteristics of those who have more pretension than right to
the honors of gourmandise, consists in the fact, that, at the best
spread table, their eyes are
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