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

so made, as to receive but

brief and short undulation, or that the two ears not being on the

same diapason, the difference in length and sensibility of these

constituent parts, causes them to transmit to the brain only an

obscure and undetermined sensation, like two instruments played in

neither the same key nor the same measure, and which can produce

no continuous melody.

 

The centuries last passed have also given the taste important

extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations,

of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have

given us flavors hitherto unknown.

 

Who knows if touch will not have its day, and if some fortuitous

circumstance will not open to us thence some new enjoyments? This

is especially probable as tactile sensitiveness exists every where

in the body, and consequently can every where be excited.

 

We have seen that physical love has taken possession of all the

sciences. In this respect it acts with its habitual tyranny.

 

The taste is a more prudent measure but not less active faculty.

Taste, we say, has accomplished the same thing, with a slowness

which ensures its success.

 

Elsewhere we will consider the march. We may, however, observe,

that he who has enjoyed a sumptuous banquet in a hall decked with

flowers, mirrors, paintings, and statues, embalmed in perfume,

enriched with pretty women, filled with delicious harmony, will

not require any great effort of thought to satisfy himself that

all sciences have been put in requisition to exalt and to enhance

the pleasures of taste.

 

OBJECT OF THE ACTION OF THE SENSES.

 

Let us now glance at the system of our senses, considered

together, and we will see that the Author of creation had two

objects, one of which is the consequence of the other,—the

preservation of the individual and the duration of the species.

 

Such is the destiny of man, considered as a sensitive being; all

his actions have reference to this double purpose.

 

The eye perceives external objects, reveals the wonders by which a

man is surrounded, and tells him he is a portion of the great

whole.

 

Hearing perceives sounds, not only as an agreeable sensation, but

as warnings of the movement of bodies likely to endanger us.

 

The sense of touch watches to warn us by pain of any immediate

lesion.

 

That faithful servant the hand has prepared his defence, assured

his steps, but has from instinct seized objects it thought needed

to repair losses caused by the use of life.

 

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always

have an unpleasant smell.

 

The taste decides; the teeth are put in action, the tongue unites

with the palate in tasting, and the stomach soon commences the

process of assimilation.

 

In this state a strange languor is perceived, objects seem

discolored, the body bends, the eyes close, all disappears, and

the senses are in absolute repose.

 

When he awakes man sees that nothing around him has changed, a

secret fire ferments in his bosom, a new organ is developed. He

feels that he wishes to divide his existence.

 

This active unquiet and imperious sentiment is common to both

sexes. It attracts them together and unites them, and when the

germ of a new being is fecundated, the individuals can sleep in

peace.

 

They have fulfilled the holiest of their duties by assuring the

duration of the species. [Footnote: Buffon describes, with all the

charms of the most brilliant eloquence, the first moments of Eve’s

existence. Called on to describe almost the same subject, we have

drawn but one feature. The reader will complete the picture.]

 

Such are the general and philosophical principles I wished to

place before my readers, to lead them naturally to the examination

of the organ of taste.

 

MEDITATION II.

 

TASTE.

 

DEFINITION OF TASTE.

 

Taste is the sense which communicates to us a knowledge of vapid

bodies by means of the sensations which they excite.

 

Taste, which has as its excitement appetite, hunger and thirst, is

the basis of many operations the result of which is that the

individual believes, developes, preserves and repairs the losses

occasioned by vital evaporation.

 

Organized bodies are not sustained in the same manner. The Author

of creation, equally varied in causes and effects, has assigned

them different modes of preservation.

 

Vegetables, which are the lowest in the scale of living things,

are fed by roots, which, implanted in the native soil, select by

the action of a peculiar mechanism, different subjects, which

serve to increase and to nourish them.

 

As we ascend the scale we find bodies gifted with animal life and

deprived of locomotion. They are produced in a medium which favors

their existence, and have special and peculiar organs which

extract all that is necessary to sustain the portion and duration

of life allotted them. They do not seek food, which, on the

contrary, comes to seek them.

 

Another mode has been appointed for animals endowed with

locomotion, of which man is doubtless the most perfect. A peculiar

instinct warns him of the necessity of food; he seeks and seizes

the things which he knows are necessary to satisfy his wants; he

eats, renovates himself, and thus during his life passes through

the whole career assigned to him.

 

Taste may be considered in three relations.

 

In physical man it is the apparatus by means of which he

appreciates flavors.

 

In moral man it is the sensation which the organ impressed by any

savorous centre impresses on the common centre. Considered as a

material cause, taste is the property which a body has to impress

the organ and to create a sensation.

 

Taste seems to have two chief uses:

 

1. It invites us by pleasure to repair the losses which result

from the use of life.

 

2. It assists us to select from among the substances offered by

nature, those which are alimentary.

 

In this choice taste is powerfully aided by the sense of smell, as

we will see hereafter; as a general principle, it may be laid down

that nutritious substances are repulsive neither to the taste nor

to the smell.

 

It is difficult to say in exactly what the faculty of taste

consists. It is more complicated than it appears.

 

The tongue certainly plays a prominent part in the mechanism of

degustation—for, being endued with great muscular power, it

enfolds, turns, presses and swallows food.

 

Also, by means of the more or less numerous pores which cover it,

it becomes impregnated with the sapid and soluble portions of the

bodies which it is placed in contact with. Yet all this does not

suffice, for many adjacent parts unite in completing the sensation

—viz: jaws, palate, and especially the nasal tube, to which

physiologists have perhaps not paid attention enough.

 

The jaws furnish saliva, as necessary to mastication as to the

formation of the digestible mass. They, like the palate, are

gifted with a portion of the appreciative faculties; I do not know

that, in certain cases, the nose does not participate, and if but

for the odor which is felt in the back of the mouth, the sensation

of taste would not be obtuse and imperfect.

 

Persons who have no tongue or who have lost it, yet preserve the

sensation of taste. All the books mention the first case; the

second was explained to me by an unfortunate man, whose tongue had

been cut out by the Algerines for having, with several of his

companions, formed a plot to escape from captivity.

 

I met this man at Amsterdam, where he was a kind of broker. He was

a person of education, and by writing was perfectly able to make

himself understood.

 

Observing that his whole tongue, to the very attachment, had been

cut away, I asked him if he yet preserved any sense of taste when

he ate, and if the sense of taste had survived the cruel operation

he had undergone.

 

He told me his greatest annoyance was in swallowing, (which indeed

was difficult;) that he had a full appreciation of tastes and

flavors, but that acid and bitter substances produced intense

pain.

 

He told me the abscission of the tongue was very common in the

African kingdoms, and was made use of most frequently to punish

those thought to be the leaders of any plot, and that they had

peculiar instruments to affect it with. I wished him to describe

them, but he showed such painful reluctance in this matter, that I

did not insist.

 

I reflected on what he said, and ascending to the centuries of

ignorance, when the tongues of blasphemers were cut and pierced, I

came to the conclusion that these punishments were of Moorish

origin, and were imported by the crusaders.

 

We have seen above, that the sensation of taste resided chiefly in

the pores and feelers of the tongue. Anatomy tells us that all

tongues are not exactly alike, there being three times as many

feelers in some tongues as in others. This circumstance will

explain why one of two guests, sitting at the same table, is

delighted, while the other seems to eat from constraint; the

latter has a tongue but slightly provided. These are recognized in

the empire of the taste—both deaf and dumb.

 

SENSATION OF TASTE.

 

Five or six opinions have been advanced as to the modus operandi

of the sensation of taste. I have mine, viz:

 

The sensation of taste is a chemical operation, produced by

humidity. That is to say, the savorous particles must be dissolved

in some fluid, so as to be subsequently absorbed by the nervous

tubes, feelers, or tendrils, which cover the interior of the

gastatory apparatus.

 

This system, whether true or not, is sustained by physical and

almost palpable proofs.

 

Pure water creates no sensation, because it contains no sapid

particle. Dissolve, however, a grain of salt, or infuse a few

drops of vinegar, and there will be sensation.

 

Other drinks, on the contrary, create sensation because they are

neither more nor less than liquids filled with appreciable

particles.

 

It would be in vain for the mouth to fill itself with the divided

particles of an insoluble body. The tongue would feel by touch the

sensation of their presence, but not that of taste.

 

In relation to solid and savorous bodies, it is necessary in the

first place for the teeth to divide them, that the saliva and

other tasting fluids to imbibe them, and that the tongue press

them against the palate, so as to express a juice, which, when

sufficiently saturated by the degastory tendrils, deliver to the

substance the passport it requires for admission into the stomach.

 

This system, which will yet receive other developments, replies

without effort to the principal questions which may present

themselves.

 

If we demand what is understood by sapid bodies, we reply that it

is every thing that has flavor, which is soluble, and fit to be

absorbed by the organ of taste.

 

If asked how a sapid body acts, we reply that it acts when it is

reduced to such a state of dissolution that it enters the cavities

made to receive it.

 

In a word, nothing is sapid but what is already or nearly

dissolved.

 

FLAVORS.

 

The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a

peculiar flavor, like none other.

 

Flavors are also modified by their simple, double, or multiple

aggregation. It is impossible to make any description, either of

the most pleasant or of the most unpleasant, of the raspberry or

of colocynth. All who have tried to do so have failed.

 

This result should not amaze us, for