The Physiology of Taste - Brillat Savarin (black female authors TXT) 📗
- Author: Brillat Savarin
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“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
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