The Physiology of Taste

"The pleasures of the table belong to all times and all ages, to every country and every day; they go hand in hand with all our other pleasures, outlast them, and remain to console us for their loss."

Not long ago, my father sent me the 1970 English translation of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "The Physiology of Taste". He had been rooting through some of the older books in his formidable library and stumbled across a Japanese edition of the same book. Aware of my cookbook project, he figured that I might be interested in reading it too.

Indeed I am. My reading progress has been slow -- at work, I read hundreds of pages of technical and business documents every week, which disinclines me to read outside the office -- but the book has delighted me from page one. [Note: a free eBook edition of the first English translation in 1854 by Fayette Robinson is available here.]

"Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are."

Brillat-Savarin's tome on gastronomy was published just two months before his death in 1826, but it has had a lasting influence to this day. It is a unique, sometimes cheeky collection of essays, anecdotes, recipes, scientific observations and history lessons that all relate to the pleasures of good food and dining. I think if Brillat-Savarin were alive today, he would have taken to blogging like fish to water.

There are random chapters about the physiology of the tongue and olfactory system (this, being written in a time when people still had their tongues cut off as punishment in certain parts of the world, presents some interesting observations about the sense of taste), the linguistic limitations of describing smells and flavors, the correct way of frying foods in oil, how to make perfect bouillon, the relatively recent introduction of turkey to the European diet (brought over from the New World to the Old), the erotic properties of truffles, experiments on making great coffee and the author's abrupt decision to abstain from the beverage after a long night of insomnia, the effects of chocolate on women, and so on.

One point comes through loud and clear through all his random musings: Brillat-Savarin loved food. He had an intimate knowledge of cooking, which was then considered a chore of the lower classes. He understood that peasant food was fresh, hearty, and deeply comforting, having spent less time traveling from kitchen to table than the meals of the upper class. He revered those who had honed their culinary craft to an art and enjoyed the company of those who were able to appreciate everything from the aromas of chocolate to the texture of a perfectly cooked quail. It was his assertion that anybody who claimed to dislike a certain food was a person who never had it prepared properly, or was not born a gourmand.

Speaking of gastronomy, Brillat-Savarin wrote: "For what could be refused to her who supports us from the cradle to the grave, who lends new delights to love, strengthens the bonds of friendship, disarms hatred, facilitates the conduct of affairs, and offers us, during our brief span of life, the only pleasure which, having no aftermath of weariness, remains to refresh us after all the rest?" That's my kind of guy.