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

which I followed in the

order of their perfection, and fancying that those should be

examined which were internal as well as external, I began to

follow them out.

 

I found three, and almost four, when I fell again to earth.

 

1. Compassion is a sensation we feel about the heart when we see

another suffer.

 

2. Predilection is a feeling which attracts us not only to an

object, but to all connected with it.

 

3. Sympathy is the feeling which attracts two beings together.

 

From the first aspect, one might believe that these two sentiments

are one, and the same. They cannot, however, be confounded; for

predilection is not always reciprocal, while sympathy, must be.

 

While thinking of compassion, I was led to a deduction I think

very just, and which at another time I would have overlooked. It

is the theory on which all legislation is founded.

 

DO AS YOU WILL BE DONE BY.

 

Alteri ne facias, quod tibi fieri non vis.

 

Such is an idea of the state in which I was, and to enjoy it

again, I would willingly relinquish a month of my life.

 

In bed we sleep comfortably, in a horizontal position and with the

head warm: Thoughts and ideas come quickly and abundantly;

expressions follow, and as to write one has to get up, we take off

the night cap and go to the desk.

 

Things all at once seem to change. The examination becomes cold,

the thread of our ideas is broken; we are forced to look with

trouble, for what was found so easily, and we are often forced to

postpone study to another day.

 

All this is easily explained by the effect produced on the brain

by a change of position. The influence of the physic and moral is

here experienced.

 

Following out this observation, I have perhaps gone rather far,

but I have been induced to think that the excitability of oriental

nations, was, in a manner, due to the fact, that, in obedience to

the religion of Mahomet, they used to keep the head warm, for a

reason exactly contrary to that which induced all monastic

legislators to enjoin shaven crowns.

 

MEDITATION XX.

 

INFLUENCE OF DIET ON REST, SLEEP AND DREAMS.

 

WHETHER man sleeps, eats, or dreams, he is yet subject to the laws

of nutrition and to gastronomy.

 

Theory and experience, both admit that the quantity and quality of

food have a great influence on our repose, rest, and dreams.

 

EFFECTS OF DIET ON LABOR.

 

A man who is badly fed, cannot bear for a long time, the fatigues

of prolonged labor; his strength even abandons him, and to him

rest is only loss of power.

 

If his labor be mental, his ideas are crude and undecided.

Reflection contributes nothing to them, nor does judgment analyze

them. The brain exhausts itself in vain efforts and the actor

slumbers on the battlefield.

 

I always thought that the suppers of Auteuil and those of the

hotels of Rambouillet and Soissons, formed many of the authors of

the reign of Louis XIV. Geoffrey was not far wrong when he

characterised the authors of the latter part of the eighteenth

century as eau sucree. That was their habitual beverage.

 

According to these principles, I have examined the works of

certain well known authors said to have been poor and suffering,

and I never found any energy in, them, except when they were

stimulated by badly conceived envy.

 

On the eve of his departure for Boulogne, the Emperor Napoleon

fasted for thirty hours, both with his council and with the

various depositories of his power, without any refreshment other

than two very brief meals, and a few cups of coffee.

 

Brown, mentions an admiralty clerk, who, having lost his

memorandum, without which he could not carry on his duty, passed

fifty-two consecutive hours in preparing them again. Without due

regimen, he never could have borne the fatigue and sustained

himself as follows:—At first, he drank water, then wine, and

ultimately took opium.

 

I met one day a courier, whom I had known in the army, on his way

from Spain, whither he had been sent with a government dispatch.

(Correo ganando horas.)

 

He made the trip in twelve days, having halted only four hours in

Madrid, to drink a few glasses of wine, and to take some soup.

This was all the nourishment he took during this long series of

sleepless nights and fatigues. He said that more solid sustenance

would have made it impossible for him to continue his journey.

 

DREAMS.

 

Diet has no trifling influence on sleep and dreams.

 

A hungry man cannot sleep, for the pain he suffers keeps him

awake. If weakness or exhaustion overcome him, his slumber is

light, uneasy and broken.

 

A person, however, who has eaten too much, sinks at once to sleep.

If he dreams, he remembers nothing of it, for the nervous fluid

has been intercepted in the passages. He awakes quickly, and when

awake is very sensible of the pains of digestion.

 

We may then lay down, as a general rule, that coffee rejects

sleep. Custom weakens and even causes this inconvenience entirely

to disappear. Europeans, whenever they yield to it, always feel

its power. Some food, however, gently invites sleep; such as that

which contains milk, the whole family of letuces, etc., etc.

 

CONSEQUENCE.

 

Experience relying on a multitude of observations, has informed us

that diet has an influence on dreams.

 

In general, all stimullkt food excites dreams, such as flock game,

ducks, venison and hare.

 

This quality is recognised in asparagus, celery, truffles,

perfume, confectioneries and vanilla.

 

It would be a great mistake to think that we should banish from

our tables all somniferous articles. The dreams they produce are

in general agreeable, light, and prolong our existence even when

it is suspended.

 

There are persons to whom sleep is a life apart, and whose dreams

are serial, so that they end in one night a dream begun on the

night before. While asleep they distinguish faces they remember to

have seen, but which they never met with in the real world.

 

RESULT.

 

A person who reflects on his physical life and who does so

according to the principles we develop, is the one who prepares

sagaciously for rest, sleep and dreams.

 

He distributes his labor so that he never over-tasks himself, he

lightens it and refreshes himself by brief intervals of rest,

which relieve him, without interrupting its continuity, sometimes

a duty.

 

If longer rest is required during the day, he indulges in it only

in a sitting attitude; he refuses sleep unless he be forced

irresistibly to use it, and is careful not to make it habitual.

 

When night brings about the hour of repose, he retires to an airy

room, does not wrap himself up in curtains, which make him breathe

the same air again and again, and never closes the blinds so that

when he wakes he will meet with at least one ray of light.

 

He rests in a bed with the head slightly higher than the feet. His

pillow is of hair; his night cap of cloth and his breast

unincumbered by a mass of coverings; he is careful, however, to

keep his feet warm.

 

He eats with discretion, and never refuses good and excellent

cheer. He drinks prudently, even the best wine. At dessert he

talks of gallantry more than of politics, makes more madrigals

than epigrams. He takes his coffee, if it suits his constitution,

and afterwards swallows a spoonful of liquor, though it he only to

perfume his breath. He is, in all respects, a good guest, and yet

never exceeds the limits of discretion.

 

In this state, satisfied with himself and others, he lies down and

sinks to sleep. Mysterious dreams then give an agreeable life; he

sees those he loves, indulges in his favorite occupations, and

visits places which please him.

 

Then he feels his slumber gradually pass away, and does not regret

the time he has lost, because even in his sleep, he has enjoyed

unmixed pleasure and an activity without a particle of fatigue.

 

MEDITATION XXI.

 

OBESITY.

 

Were I a physician with a diploma, I would have written a whole

book on obesity; thus I would have acquired a domicil in the

domain of science, and would have had the double satisfaction of

having, as patients, persons who were perfectly well, and of being

besieged by the fairer portion of humanity. To have exactly fat

enough, not a bit too much, or too little, is the great study of

women of every rank and grade.

 

What I have not done, some other person will do, and if he be

learned and prudent, (and at the same time a good-fellow,) I

foretell that he will have wonderful success.

 

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus hoeres!

 

In the intereim, I intend to prepare the way for him. A chapter on

obesity is a necessary concomitant of a book which relates so

exclusively to eating.

 

Obesity is that state of greasy congestion in which without the

sufferer being sick, the limbs gradually increase in volume, and

lose their form and harmony.

 

One kind of obesity is restricted to the stomach, and I have never

observed it in women. Their fibres are generally softer, and when

attacked with obesity nothing is spared. I call this variety of

obesity GASTROPHORIA. Those attacked by it, I call GASTROPHOROUS.

I belong to this category, yet, though my stomach is rather

prominent, I have a round and well turned leg. My sinews are like

those of an Arab horse.

 

I always, however, looked on my stomach as a formidable enemy: I

gradually subdued it, but after a long contest. I am indebted for

all this to a strife of thirty years.

 

I will begin my treatise by an extract from a collection of more

than five hundred dialogues, which at various times I have had

with persons menaced with obesity.

 

AN OBESE.—What delicious bread! where do you get it?

 

I.—From Limet, in the Rue Richelieu, baker to their Royal

Highness, the Due d’Orleans, and the Prince de Conde. I took it

from him because he was my neighbour, and have kept to him because

he is the best bread maker in the world.

 

OBESE.—I will remember the address. I eat a great deal of bread,

and with such as this could do without any dinner.

 

OBESE No. 2.—What are you about? You are eating your soup, but

set aside the Carolina rice it contains! I.—Ah: that it is a

regimen I subject myself to.

 

OBESE.—It is a bad regimen. I am fond of rice pates and all such

things. Nothing is more nourishing.

 

AN IMMENSE OBESE.—Do me the favor to pass me the potatoes before

you. They go so fast that I fear I shall not be in time.

 

I.—There they are, sir.

 

OBESE.—But you will take some? There are enough for two, and

after us the deluge.

 

I.—Not I. I look on the potatoe as a great preservative against

famine; nothing, however, seems to me so pre-eminently fade.

 

OBESE.—That is a gastronomical heresy. Nothing is better than the

potatoe; I eat them in every way.

 

AN OBESE LADY.—Be pleased to send me the Soissons haricots I see

at the other end of the table.

 

I.—(Having obeyed the order, hummed in a low tone, the well known

air:)

 

“Les Soissonnais sont heureux, Les haricots font chez eux.”

 

OBESE.—Do not laugh: it is a real treasure for this country.

Paris gains immensely by it. I will