Brillat-Savarin and The Physiology of Taste
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s Physiologie
du Gout, or The Physiology
of Taste, was published in 1825 at Paris, and has never been out of
print. Never! For good reason, as it has a combination of
perception and wit that reminds me of that displayed in Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire: “He was a perfect host, and
ate everything with a courage worthy of a more important cause” (in this
edition, p. 190). It is not so much a
cookbook, but a series of meditations on eating and drinking that satisfies
readers even 190 years after its publication.
In the opening section, the author lays out his 20 aphorisms, the most
famous of which, according to the translator, is:
It is a great resource not only
for witty comments on people and their eating or drinking habits, but a gold
mine of common sense:
“Those persons who suffer from
indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles
of eating and drinking.”
Our copy’s translation is the one
done in 1949 by M.F.K. Fisher, a noted gastronomical writer whose output would
have been stellar even without her contribution here. It is a reproduction of The Arion Press’s
1994 fine press edition of 200. I wish
we had that one!
Here is the Wikipedia article on
Brillat-Savarin, which is worth reading.
He was a lawyer and politician living in France, and published the work
that made his fame in the year before his death.
You can find Brillat-Savarin in
many editions-easily-on Advanced Book Exchange.
Prices vary, from really inexpensive to really dear. Put it next to your
favorite cookbooks.
Meanwhile, the Sept. 29 New
Yorker has a note on a possibly noteworthy survey of American cookbooks from
the 18th century to now, BooksThat Cook. Check it out on Amazon!
.
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