Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Quotes - Page 3

Beasts feed. Man eats. Only the man of intellect knows how to eat.

'Monsieur,' Madame d'Arestel, Superior of the convent of the Visitation at Belley, once said to me more than fifty years ago, 'whenever you want to have a really good cup of chocolate, make it the day before, in a porcelain coffeepot, and let it set. The night's rest will concentrate it and give it a velvety quality which will make it better. Our good God cannot possibly take offense at this little refinement, since he himself is everything that is most perfect.'

Gastronomers of the year 1825, who find sateity in the lap of abundance, and dream of some newly-made dishes, you will not enjoy the discoveries which science has in store for the year 1900, such as foods drawn from the mineral kingdom, liqueurs produced by the pressure of a hundred atmospheres; you will never see the importations which travelers yet unborn will bring to you from that half of the globe which has still to be discovered or explored. How I pity you!

The dyspeptic and the drunkard do not know how to eat or drink.

No man under forty can be dignified with the title of gourmet.

The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them.

For unknown foods, the nose acts always as a sentinal and cries. 'Who goes there?'

At the table of a gentleman living in the Chausee d'Antin was served up an Arles sausage of enormous size. "Will you accept a slice?" the host asked a lady who was sitting next to him; "you see it has come from the right factory."It is really very large," said the lady, casting on it a roguish glance; "What a pity it is unlike anything."

To claim that wines should not be changed is a heresy; the palate becomes saturated and after the third glass the best of wines arouses nothing but an obscure sensation.

In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy.

Gourmandism is an act of judgment, by which we prefer things which have a pleasant taste to those which lack this quality.

Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old.

A connoisseur of gastronomy was congratulated on his appointment as a director of indirect contributions at Periguex: and, above all, in the pleasure there would be in living in the midst of good cheer, in the country of truffles, partridges, truffled turkeys, and so forth. "Alas!" replied with a sigh the sad gastronomer, "can one really live at all in a country where there is no fresh sea-fish?"

If one swallows a cup of chocolate only three hours after a copious lunch, everything will be perfectly digested and there will still be room for dinner.

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion of sounding or vibrating bodies.

The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a peculiar flavor, like none other.

Salad freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating.

Alcohol carries the pleasures of the palate to their highest degree.

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline.

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.

I am essentially an amateur medecin, and this to me is almost a mania.

Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that, being offered to persons that have already dined well, it supposes neither appetite nor thirst, and has no object but distraction, no basis but delicate enjoyment.

Truffle isn't exactly aphrodisiac but under certain circumstances it tends to make women more tender and men more likable

La truffe n'est point un aphrodisiaque positif; mais elle peut, en certaines occasions, rendre les femmes plus tendres et les hommes plus aimables. The truffle is not a true aphrodisiac; but in certain circumstances it can make women more affectionate and men more attentive.

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell.