Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
- Tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what kind of man you are. —Brillat-Savarin
During the French Revolution, there was a bounty on his head and he sought asylum through exile in Switzerland. He later moved to Holland, and then to the newly-born United States, where he stayed for three years in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Hartford, living on the proceeds of giving French and violin lessons. For a time he was first violin in the Park Theater in New York.
He returned to France under the Directorate in 1797 and acquired the magistrate post he would then hold for the rest of his life. He remained a bachelor, but not a stranger to love, which he counted the sixth sense.
His most famous work, Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste), was published in December 1825, two months before his death. The full title is Physiologie du Goût, ou Méditations de Gastronomie Transcendante; ouvrage théorique, historique et à l'ordre du jour, dédié aux Gastronomes parisiens, par un Professeur, membre de plusieurs sociétés littéraires et savantes (The title is loosely translated as: "The physiology of taste, or, transcendental gastronomy, illustrated by anecdotes of distinguished artists and statesmen of both continents"; A strict translation yields: "The physiology of taste, or, transcendental gastronomy; a theoretical, historical and topical work, dedicated to the gastronomes of Paris by a professor, member of several literary and scholarly societies").
The body of his work, though often wordy or excessively - and sometimes dubiously - aphoristic and axiomatic, has remained extremely important and has been re-analyzed throughout the years since his death. In a series of Meditations that owe something to Montaigne's Essays, and have the discursive rhythm of an age of leisured reading and a confident pursuit of educated pleasures, which combine to put Brillat-Savarin outside the teach of the hectic and impatient modern reader, Brillat-Savarin discourses on the pleasures of the table, which he treats as a science. His French models were the stylists of the ancien régime: Voltaire, Rousseau Fenelon, Buffon, Cochin and d'Aguesseau were his favorite authors. Aside from Latin, he knew five modern languages well, and wasn't shy to parade them, when the occasion suited. As a modernist, he never hesitated to borrow a word, like the English sip when French seemed to him to fail.
The genuine philosophy of Epicurus lies at the back of every page; the simplest meal satisfied Brillat-Savarin, as long as it was executed with artistry. :
- Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking.
To a modern reader, the anecdotes give more pleasure. One enjoys Brillat-Savarin's tale of a turkey-shoot in Connecticut in 1797 (Meditation vi), more than his scientific explanation of why people who eat fish live longer:
- Among ichthyophages, remarkable instances of longevity are observed, either because light food preserves them from plethora, or that the juices it contains, being formed by nature only to constitute cartilages which never bear long duration, their use retards the solidification of the parts of the body which, after all, is the cause of death.
Brillat-Savarin cheese is named in his honor.
- The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star. —Brillat-Savarin
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