The Physiology of Taste, Brillat Savarin [the best motivational books .txt] 📗
- Author: Brillat Savarin
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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
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