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

>left the table, but I will bet that I eat a whole turkey.”

 

“If you eat it I will pay for it,” said Bouvier du Bouchet, a rich

farmer who was present, “and if you do not I will eat what is left

and you shall pay for it.” [Footnote: This sentence is patois, and

the translator inserts the original. “Sez vosu meze, z’u payo,

repondit Bouvier du Bouchet, gros fermier qui se trouvait present;

e sez vos caca en rotaz, i-zet vo ket paire et may ket mezerai la

restaz.”]

 

They set to work at once, and the young athlete at once cut off a

wing, he ate it at two mouthfulls and cleaned his teeth by gnawing

the bone and drank a glass of wine as an interlude.

 

He then went into the thigh which he ate and drank another glass

of wine to prepare a passage for the rest. The second went the

same way, and he had come to the last limb when the unfortunate

farmer said, “alas! I see it is all over, but Mr. Sibouet as I

have to pay, let me eat a bit.” [Footnote: This also is patois.

“Hai! ze vaie praou qu’izet fotu; m’ez, monche Chibouet, poez kaet

zu daive paiet, lesse m’en a m’en mesiet on mocho.”]

 

Prosper was as good a fellow as he was a soldier, and consented.

The farmer had the carcass at spolia opima, and paid for the fowl

with a good grace.

 

General Sibuet used always to love to tell of this feat of his

youth. He said that his admitting the farmer to eat was a pure

courtesy, and that he could easily have won the bet. His appetite

at forty permitted none to doubt the assertion.

 

Brillat-Savarin, says in a note, “I quote this fragment of the

patois of Bugey with pleasure. In it is found the English ‘th and

the Greek 0, and in the word praou and others, a dipthong existing

in no language, the sound of which no character can describe.”

(See 3d Volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Society of Antiquarians

of France.)

 

MEDITATION V.

 

FOOD IN GERMS.

 

SECTION FIRST.

 

DEFINITIONS.

 

WHAT is understood by aliments?

 

POPULAR ANSWER. All that nourishes us.

 

SCIENTIFIC ANSWER. By aliments are understood the substances

which, when submitted to the stomach, may be assimulated by

digestion, and repair the losses which the human body is subjected

to in life.

 

The distinctive quality of an aliment, therefore, is its liability

to animal assimulation.

 

ANALYSIS.

 

The animal and vegetable kingdoms are those which until now have

furnished food to the human race.

 

Since analytical chemistry has become a certain science, much

progress has been made into the double nature of the elements of

which our body is composed, and of the substances which nature

appears to have intended to repair their losses.

 

These studies had a great analogy, for man is to a great degree

composed both of the substances on which animals feed, and was

also forced to look in the vegetable kingdom for affinities

susceptible of animalization.

 

In these two walks the most praiseworthy efforts have been made

always as minute as possible, and the curious have followed either

the human body or the food which invigorates it, first to their

secondary principles, and then to their elements, beyond which we

have not been permitted to penetrate.

 

Here I intended to have given a little treatise on alimentary

chemistry, and to tell my readers, to how many thousands of

hydrogen, carbon, etc., may be reduced the dishes that sustain us.

I did not do so, however, because I remembered I would only have

to copy many excellent treatises on chemistry in the hands of

every body. I feared, too, that I would relapse into very barren

details, and limited myself to a very reasonable nomenclature,

which will only require the explanation of a small number of very

usual terms.

 

OSMAZOME.

 

The greatest service chemistry has rendered to alimentary science,

is the discovery of osmazome, or rather the determination of what

it was.

 

Osmazome is the purely sapid portion of flesh soluble in cold

water, and separated from the extractive portion which is only

soluble in boiling water.

 

Osmazome is the most meritorious ingredient of all good soups.

This portion of the animal forms the red portion of flesh, and the

solid parts of roasts. It gives game and venison its peculiar

flavor.

 

Osmazome is most abundant in grown animals which have red or black

hair; it is scarcely found at all in the lamb, sucking pig,

chicken, and the white meat of the largest fowls. For this reason

true connoisseurs always prefer the second joint; instinct with

them was the precursor of science.

 

Thus a knowledge of the existence of osmazome, caused so many

cooks to be dismissed, who insisted on always throwing away the

first bouillon made from meat. This made the reputation of the

soupe des primes, and induced the canon Chevrier to invent his

locked kettles. The Abbe Chevrier was the person who never would

eat until Friday, lobsters that had not been cooked on the

previous Sunday, and every intervening day placed on the fire with

the addition of fresh butter.

 

To make use of this subject, though yet unknown, was introduced

the maxim, that to make good bouillon the kettle should only

smile.

 

Osmazome, discovered after having been so long the delight of our

fathers, may be compared to alcohol, which made whole generations

drunk before it was simply exhibited by distillation.

 

PRINCIPLE OF ALIMENTS.

 

The fibre is what composes the tissue of the meat, and what is

apparent after the juices have been extracted. The fibres resist

boiling water, and preserve their form, though stripped of a

portion of their wrappings. To carve meat properly the fibres

should be cut at right angles, or nearly so, with the blade of the

knife. Meat thus carved looks better, tastes better, and is more

easily chewed.

 

The bones are composed principally of gelatine and the phosphate

of lime.

 

The quantity of gelatine diminishes as we grow older. At seventy

the bones are but an imperfect marble, the reason why they are so

easily broken, and why old men should carefully avoid any fall.

 

Albumen is found both in the flesh and the blood. It coagulates at

a heat above 40 Reaumur, and causes the scum on the pot-au-feu.

 

Gelatine is also found in the bones, the soft and the

cartilaginous parts. Its distinctive quality is to coagulate at

the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere; to effect this only

two and a half per cent. are needed.

 

Gelatine is the basis of all jelleys, of blanc manges, and other

similar preparations.

 

Grease is a concrete oil formed in the interstices of the cellary

tissue. It sometimes agglomerates in animals whom art or nature

has so predisposed, such as pigs, fowls, ortolans and snipe. In

some of these animals it loses its insipidity and acquires a

slight and agreeable aroma.

 

Blood is composed of an albuminous serum and of fibrine, some

gelatine and a little osmazome. It coagulates in warm water and is

most nourishing, (e. g.) the blood pudding.

 

All the principles, we have passed in review, are common to man

and to animals which feed.

 

All the principles we pass in review are common both to man and

animals which he eats. It is not then surprising that animal food

is eminently restorative and invigorating. The particles of which

it is composed having a great similitude with those of which we

are formed may easily be animalized when they are subjected to the

vital action of our digestive organs.

 

VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

 

The vegetable kingdom however presents not less varied sources of

nutrition.

 

The fecula is especially nutritious, especially as it contains

fewer foreign principles.

 

By fecula we mean farina or flower obtained from cereals, from

legumes and various kinds of roots, among which the potato holds a

prominent place.

 

The fecula is the substance of bread, pastry and purees of all

kinds. It thus enters to a great degree into the nourishment of

almost all people.

 

Such food diminishes the fibres and even the courage. [Footnote:

The H. E. I. Co. Sepoys, however, fight well. It may be doubted

though if either Ireland or Italy will be free, until the one

gives up the potato and the other macaroni. The reason why

Irishmen fight better in other countries than their own, is

possibly that abroad they are better fed than at home.] We must,

to sustain this, refer to the Indians (East) who live on rice and

serve every one who chosea to command them.

 

Almost all domestic animals eat the fecula, and are made by it

extremely strong; for it is a more substantial nourishment than

the dry and green vegetables which are their habitual food.

 

Sugar is not less important, either as a remedy or as an aliment.

 

This substance once obtained, either from the Indies or from the

colonies became indigenous at the commencement of this century. It

has been discovered in the grape, the turnip, the chestnut, and

especially in the beet. So that speaking strictly Europe need

appeal neither to India or America for it. Its discovery was a

great service rendered by science to humanity, and furnishes an

example which cannot but have the happiest results. (Vide enfro

Sugar.)

 

Sugar, either in a solid state or in the different plants in which

nature has placed it, is extremely nourishing. Animals are fond of

it, and the English give large quantities to their blood-horses,

and have observed that it sustained them in the many trials to

which they were subjected.

 

Sugar in the days of Louis XIV. was only found in apothecary

shops, and gave birth to many lucrative professions, such as

pastry-cooks, confectioners, liquourists, &c. Mild oils also come

from the vegetable kingdom. They are all esculent, but when

mingled with other substances they should be looked on only as a

seasoning. Gluten found in the greatest abundance in cheese,

contributes greatly to the fermentation of the bread with which it

is united. Chemists assign it an animal nature.

 

They make at Paris for children and for birds, and in some of the

departments for men also, patisseries in which gluten

predominates, the fecula having been removed by water.

 

Mucilage owes its nourishments to the many substances of which it

is the vehicle.

 

Gum may be considered an aliment, not a strong thing, as it

contains nearly the same elements as sugar.

 

Vegetable gelatine, extracted from many kinds of fruits,

especially from apples, goose-berries, quinces, and some others,

may also be considered a food. It is more nutritious when united

with sugar, but it is far inferior in that respect to what is

extracted from bones, horns, calves’ feet and fish. This food is

in general light, mild and healthy. The kitchen and the

pharmaceutist’s laboratory therefore dispute about it.

 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAT AND LEAN.

 

Next to the JUICE, which, as we have said, is composed of asmazome

and the extractus, there are found in fish many substances which

also exist in land animals, such as fibrine, gelatine, albumen. So

that we may really say JUICE distinguishes the flesh diet from

what the church calls maigre.

 

The latter too has another peculiarity. Fish contains a large

quantity of phosphorus and hydrogen, that is to say of the two

most combustible things in nature. Fish therefore is a most

heating diet. This might legitimate the praise once bestowed on

certain religious orders, the regime of whom was directly opposed

to the commonly esteemed most fragile.

 

INDIVIDUAL