The Physiology of Taste by Brillat Savarin (bearly read books txt) 📖

cook, game undergoes

various modifications and transformations, and furnishes the

greater portions of the dishes of the transcendental kitchen.

 

Game derives, also, a great portion of its value from the soil on

which it is fed. The taste of a Perigord partridge is very

different from that of one from Sologne, and the hare killed in

the vicinity of Paris is a very different dish from one shot on

the hills of Valromey or upper Dauphiny. The latter is probably

the most perfumed of all beasts.

 

Among small birds, beyond all doubt, the best is the “beccafico.”

 

It becomes at least as fat as the red-throat or the ortolan, and

nature has besides given it a slight bitterness, and a peculiar

and exquisite perfume, which enables it to fill and delight all

the gustatory organs. Were the beccafico as large as a pheasant,

an acre of land would be paid for it.

 

It is a pity this bird is so rare, that few others than those who

live in the southern departments of France, know what it is.

[Footnote: I am inclined to think the bird is utterly unknown in

America.—TRANSLATOR.] Few people know how to eat small birds. The

following method was imparted confidentially to me by the Canon

Charcot, a gourmand by profession, and a perfect gastronome,

thirty years before the word gastronomy was invented:

 

Take a very fat bird by the bill and sprinkle it with salt, take

out the entrailles, I mean gizzard, liver, etc., and put it whole

in your mouth. Chew it quickly, and the result will be a juice

abundant enough to permeate the whole organ. You will then enjoy a

pleasure unknown to the vulgar.

 

“Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.” HORACE.

 

The quail, of all game properly so-called, is the nicest and the

most pleasant. A very fat quail is pleasant both to eat, see, and

smell. Whenever it is either roasted, or served en papillote, a

great folly is committed, because its perfume is very volatile,

and when ever in contact with a liquid, its flavor is dissolved

and lost.

 

The snipe is a charming bird, but few people know all its charms.

It is in its glory only when it has been cooked under the

huntsman’s eyes; and the huntsman must have killed it. Then the

roast is perfected according to rule, and the mouth is inundated

with pleasure.

 

Above the preceding, and above all others, the pheasant should be

placed. Few mortals, however, know exactly how to cook it.

 

A pheasant eaten only a week after its death is not good as a

partridge or a pullet, for its merit consists in its aroma.

 

Science has considered the expansion of this aroma, experience has

utilised science, so that a pheasant ready for the spit is a dish

fit for the most exalted gourmands.

 

In the varieties will be found a recipe for roasting a pheasant, a

la Sainte Alliance. The time has come when this method, hitherto

concentrated in a small circle of friends, should be made known

for the benefit of humanity. A pheasant with truffles is not good

as one would be apt to think it. The bird is too dry to actuate

the tubercle, and the scent of the one and the perfume of the

other when united neutralize each other—or rather do not suit.

 

Section VI. FISH.

 

Savants, in other respects orthodox, have maintained that ocean

was the common cradle of all that exists, and that man himself

sprang from the sea and owes his actual habits to the influence of

the air, and the mode of life he has been obliged to adopt.

 

Be this as it may, it is at least certain, that the waters contain

an immense quantity of beings of all forms and sizes, which

possess vitality in very different proportions, and according to

mode very different from that of warm blooded animals.

 

It is not less true that water has ever presented an immense

variety of aliments, and that in the present state of science it

introduces to our table the most agreeable variety.

 

Fish, less nutritious than flesh and more succulent than

vegetables, is a mezzo termine, which suits all temperments and

which persons recovering from illness may safely eat.

 

The Greeks and Romans, though they had not made as much progress

as we have in the art of seasoning fish, esteemed it very highly,

and were so delicate that they could even tell where it had been

taken.

 

Large fish ponds were maintained, and the cruelty of Vellius

Pollis who fed his lampreys on the bodies of slaves he caused to

be slain is well known. This cruelty Domitian disapproved of but

should have punished.

 

There has been much discussion as to which is the best fish.

 

The question will never be decided, for as the Spanish proverb

says, sobre los gustos no hai disputa. Every one is effected in

his own way. These fugitive sensations can be expressed by no

known character, and there is no scale to measure if a CAT-FISH

(!), a sole, or a turbot are better than a salmon, trout, pike, or

even tench of six or seven pounds.

 

It is well understood that fish is less nourishing than meat,

because it contains no osmazome, because it is lighter in weight,

and contains less weight in the same volume. Shell-fish, and

especially oysters, furnish little nutrition, so that one can eat

a great many without injury.

 

It will be remembered that not long ago any well arranged

entertainment began with oysters, and that many guests never

paused without swallowing a gross (144). I was anxious to know the

weight of this advance guard, and I ascertained that a dozen

oysters, fluid included, weighed four ounces averdupois. Now look

on it as certain that the same persons who did not make a whit the

worse dinner, on account of the oysters would have been completely

satisfied if they had eaten the same weight of flesh or of

chicken.

 

ANECDOTE.

 

In 1798 I was at Versailles as a commissary of the Directory, and

frequently met M. Laperte, greffier of the count of the

department. He was very fond of oysters, and used to complain that

he had never had enough.

 

I resolved to procure him this satisfaction, and invited him to

dine with me on the next day.

 

He came. I kept company with him to the tenth dozen, after which I

let him go on alone. He managed to eat thirty-two dozen within an

hour for the person who opened them was not very skilful.

 

In the interim, I was idle, and as that is always a painful state

at the table, I stopped him at the moment when he was in full

swing. “Mon cher,” said I, “you will not to-day eat as many

oysters as you meant—let us dine.” We did so, and he acted as if

he had fasted for a week.

 

Muria-Garum

 

The ancients extracted from fish two highly flavored seasonings,

muria and garum.

 

The first was the juice of the thuny, or to speak more precisely,

the liquid substance which salt causes to flow from the fish.

 

Garum was dearer, and we know much less of it. It is thought that

it was extracted by pressure from the entrailles of the scombra or

mackerel; but this supposition does not account for its high

price. There is reason to believe it was a foreign sauce, and was

nothing else but the Indian soy, which we know to be only fish

fermented with mushrooms.

 

Certainly, people from their locality are forced to live almost

entirely upon fish. They also feed their working animals with it,

and the latter from custom gradually grow to like this strange

food. They also manure the soil with it, yet always receive the

same quantity from the sea which surrounds them.

 

It has been observed that such nations are not so courageous as

those that eat flesh. They are pale, a thing not surprising, for

the elements of fish must rather repair the lymph than the blood.

 

Among ichthyophages, remarkable instances of longevity are

observed, either because light food preserves them from plethora,

or that the juices it contains being formed by nature only to

constitute cartilages which never bears long duration, their use

retards the solidification of the parts of the body which, after

all, is the cause of death.

 

Be this as it may, fish in the hands of a skilful cook is an

inexhaustible source of enjoyment. It is served up whole, in

pieces, truncated with water, oil, vinegar, warm, cold; and is

always well received. It is, however never better than when

dressed en matilotte.

 

This ragout, though made a necessary dish to the boatmen on our

rivers, and made in perfection only by the keepers of cobarets on

their banks, is incomparably good. Lovers of fish never see it

without expressing their gratification, either on account of its

freshness of taste, or because they can without difficulty eat an

indefinite quantity, without any fear of satiety or indigestion.

Analytical gastronomy has sought to ascertain what are the effects

of a fish diet on the animal system. Unanimous observation leads

us to think that it has great influence on the genesiac sense, and

awakens the instinct of reproduction in the two sexes. This effect

being once known, two causes were at once assigned for it:

 

1st. The different manner of preparing fish, all the seasoning for

it being irritating, such as carar, hering, thon marine, etc.

 

2d. The various juices the fish imbibes, which are highly

inflammable and oxigenise in digestion.

 

Profound analysis has discovered a yet more powerful cause: the

presence of phosphorous in all the portions, and which

decomposition soon developes.

 

These physical truths were doubtless unknown to the ecclesiastical

legislators, who imposed the lenten diet on different communities

of monks, such as Chartreux, Recollets, Trappists, and the

Carmelites reformed by Saint Theresa; no one thinks that they

wished to throw a new difficulty into the way of the observance of

the already most anti-social vow of chastity.

 

In this state of affairs, beyond doubt, glorious victories were

won, and rebellious senses were subjected; there were, however,

many lapses and defeats. They must have been well averred, for the

result was the religious orders had ultimately a reputation like

that of Hercules and the daughters of Danaus, or Marshal Saxe with

M’lle Lecouvreur.

 

They might also have been delighted by an anecdote, so old as to

date from the crusades.

 

Sultan Saladin being anxious to measure the continence of devises,

took two into his palace, and for a long time fed them on the most

succulent food.

 

Soon all traces of fasting began to disappear, and they reached a

very comfortable embonpoint. At that time they were given as

companions two odalisques of great beauty, all of whose well-directed attacks failed, and they came from the ordeal pure as the

diamond of Visapor.

 

The Sultan kept them in his palace, and to celebrate their triumph

fed them for several weeks on fish alone.

 

After a few days they were again submitted to the ordeal of the

odalisques, and………

 

In the present state of our knowledge, it is probable that if the

course of events were to establish any monastic order, the

superiors would adopt some regimen better calculated to maintain

its objects.

 

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION.

 

Fish, considered in general, is an inexhaustible source of

reflection to the philosopher.

 

The varied forms of these strange animals, the senses they are

deprived of, and the limited nature of those they have, their

various modes of existence, the influence exerted over them