Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy: 

The Physiology of Taste

Bekki

We said above that the sense of physical desire had influenced the organs of all the other senses: its effect on the sciences has been no less profound, for a close examination will show that all the most delicate and ingenious achieve-ments of science are due to the hope or desire of one sex to be united with the other.

Such then, in reality, is the genealogy of even the most abstract sciences: they are simply the immediate result of the continuous efforts we have made to gratify our senses.

The sciences are not like Minerva, who sprang fully armed from the brain of Jupiter; they are daughters of time, and take shape imperceptibly, first by the combination of methods learned from experience, and later by the discovery of principles deduced from the combination of those methods.

Thus, the first greybeards whose wisdom caused them to be summoned to the bedsides of the sick, and whose com-passion led them to dress the sores of the afflicted, were also the first doctors.

The Egyptian shepherds who observed that certain stars, at the end of a certain period of time, returned to the same positions in the sky, were the first astronomers.

The man who first expressed in characters the simple proposition two plus two equals four created mathematics, that mighty science which raised man to the throne of the universe.

In the course of the last sixty years several new sciences have been added to our system of knowledge, among them stereotomy, descriptive geometry, and the chemistry of gases.

All these sciences are the product of countless generations, and they will progress all the more steadily in the future in that printing will preserve them from all risk of regression. 

Who knows, for example, but that the chemistry of gases may eventually master those rebel elements, combine them one with another in hitherto untried proportions, and so ob-tain substances and results which would greatly extend the limit of our powers.

Fish, taken collectively in all their species, offer the philosopher an endless source of meditation and surprise.

The various forms of these strange creatures, the senses which they lack, the limited powers of those which they possess, the influence on their habits of the element, in which they live and breathe and move, all combine to extend the range of our ideas, and our understanding of the infinite modifications which may arise from matter, movement, and life.

I once saw a man in London, in Leicester Square, who had been crippled by immoderate indulgence in coffee; he was no longer in any pain, having grown accustomed to his con-dition, and had cut himself down to five or six cups a day.

It is the duty of all papas and mammas to forbid their children to drink coffee, unless they wish to have little dried-up machines, stunted and old at the age of twenty. 

This warning is particularly directed to Parisians, whose children are not always as strong and healthy as if they had been born in other parts of the country, such as the Department of the Ain.

I myself am one of those who have been forced to give up coffee, and I will end this chapter by relating how one day I fell completely beneath its spell.

Mixed with coffee and milk, it makes a light, agreeable and easily procurable form of nourishment, most suitable for those persons who have to begin work immediately after breakfast. 

Coffee and milk is also a source of supreme pleasure to the ladies; but the perceptive eye of science has observed that excessive indulgence in it may prove harmful to that which they hold most dear.

Over fifty years ago Madame d'Arestrel, Superior of the Convent of the Visitation at Belley, said to me: 'Monsieur, when you wish to drink good chocolate, have it made the day before in a porcelain coffee-pot, and left overnight: The night's rest concentrates it, and God cannot frown on this little refinement, for He is himself all excellence.'

"What is this I hear?' I reply, putting on my stern ex-pression, which I only use once a year; 'very well, then, eat and grow fat; grow ugly, heavy, and asthmatic, and die of inflammation of the stomach; I shall be there to take notes, and you will appear in my second edition.... What? A single phrase has 

convinced you? You are terrified and beg me to hold back the thunderbolt?... .

Calm yourselves; I am going to describe your diet and show you that some pleasure still remains for you, in this world in which we live to eat.

Few among the crowds which patronize our restaurants every day pause to think that the man who founded the first restaurant must have been a genius endowed with profound insight into human nature.

We shall therefore aid the process of reflection and follow the thread of ideas which gave rise to this most popular and convenient institution.

When she takes her place in a quadrille, she seems to grow two inches taller, and you would think she is about to take flight; yet her dancing is restrained, and her steps unpretentious; she is content to glide lightly round the room, a charming, graceful figure; but now and then there appears a hint of latent powers, and we suspect that if she chose to exert herself, Madame Montessu would have a rival:

Even when a bird walks, we see that it has wings.

I was afraid that some malicious person, suffering from insomnia and indigestion, might exclaim: 'Here's a Professor who thinks very highly of himself! Here's a Professor who never tires of paying himself compliments! Here's a Professor who... Here's a Professor whom...!'

To which I shall reply in advance, putting myself on guard, that someone who speaks ill of no man has every right to treat himself with some indulgence; and that I can see no reason why I, who have always been innocent of all thoughts of hatred, should be cut off from my own benevolence.

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