The Physiology of Taste (51 page)

Beauvilliers made and lost and remade his fortune several times, and we do not know in which of these states death surprised him; but he had such extraordinary outlets for his money that we cannot believe his beneficiaries found themselves greatly enriched by his will.

145: It appears upon scrutinizing the bill-of-fare from each of several first class restaurants, especially those of the Véry brothers and the
Fréres Provençeaux
, that a diner who has seated himself at one of such tables has at his command, as elements of his meal, at least the following things:

Moreover the blissful gastronomer can drench all this with a choice of at least thirty kinds of wine, from a good Burgundy to
a Cape wine or Tokay, and with twenty or thirty kinds of potent liqueurs, without counting coffee and such mixtures as punch, negus,
SILLABUD
,
⁹
and others.

Among the various parts which make up the dinner of a real gastronomer, the principal ones come from France, like butchers’ meat, fowl, and fruits; some are imitated from the English, like beefsteak, the
WELCHRABBET
, punch, and so on; others come from Germany, like sauerkraut, Hamburg chopped beef, Black Forest fillets; still others like olla-podrida, garbanzo beans, dried Malaga grapes, pepper-cured Xerica hams, and liqueur wines from Spain; others from Italy, like macaroni, and Parmesan cheese, and Bologna sausages and polenta and sherbets, and more liqueurs; still others like dried meats and smoked eels and caviar from Russia; and others from Holland, like salt cod, cheeses, pickled herrings, curaçao and anisette; and from Asia come Indian rice, sago, curry, soy, Schiraz wine, coffee; from Africa the Cape wines; and finally from America come things like potatoes, yams, pineapples, chocolate, vanilla, sugar, and so on: all of which is ample proof of our statement, already often made, that a meal such as can be ordered in Paris is a cosmopolitan whole in which every part of the world is represented by one or many of its products.

1.
In 1879 Charles Monselet wrote, in one more “introduction” to the Professor’s book: “… restaurants are multiplied to infinity. What has cookery gained? I ought rather to say what it has lost. Nearly all the roasts are now done in the oven. An abomination!”

It is interesting to find, in a fairly thorough glance at the prefaces which have been written to
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE
, that almost every one bewails the present sad state of restaurant gastronomy, from Monselet through Arthur Machen, who in 1925 sang sadly: “There maybe in the wilderness of London stout old taverns, chop-houses, coffee-houses, still left, where decent English food may still be obtained; but if such places exist, they must be reckoned among the many secrets of the multitudinous streets. I know them not; I cannot find them … Roasting is
almost obsolete; and at one of the most famous ‘Old English’ resorts in London, where they do roast, they hang beef, veal, and lamb on one spit, and baste all three joints in the common gravy …”

In such good critical company I can but say: If it were only the roasts! Last night in Hollywood’s best tavern, served with proper pomp, some soles
à la Meuniére
were brought to me, and they were by some miracle fine fillets of true sole, and they were hot and pretty … and they had been dipped into an egg batter and fried in something very far removed from butter.

2.
In 1853 an unremembered Paris editor of
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE
noted here: “This word,
carte à payer
, common from the very beginning of restaurants, has been replaced first of all by
carte
, and then by
addition
, which is most heard today.” A good fifty years later Newnham-Davis wrote, in a popular and intelligent little book called
THE GOURMET’S GUIDE TO EUROPE:
“The payment of the
addition
—the word is slangy, but it is used even at the Café Anglais—is a disagreeable necessity …”

3.
“The strict necessities,” gastronomically, are and always have been debatable, according to the sex and surroundings and age and social position of the human being who debates. War also has its say, and many a good man who would once settle, grudgingly, for a theoretical meal of soup, bread, wine, and cheese, is now in heaven on earth to find himself face to face with any one of those four basic comforters.

4.
This is a fairly complicated allusion, at least in translation. In the original it says
la Vénus infîme
, the basest Venus. The English version prefaced by Arthur Machen in 1925 says, in a donnish way, “the least exalted of the Venuses.” Nimmo and Bain, much more direct in a classical way, say “Venus Cloaca.” It is possible to speculate here upon the connection between excretory functions and various forms of love, but the simplest conclusion is that Brillat-Savarin referred to uneasy innards which must willy-nilly render upward or downward their sewer-destined sacrifices.

5.
Nimmo and Bain noted in 1884: “Sea-fish is not even now abundant in Paris, and cannot have been so in 1825, before railways were used!” In justice to our author, however, let us state that the
ALMANACH DES GOURMANDS
for 1825 also speaks of
the abundance of sea-fish in the French capital. Travelers for many generations, though, have talked and written of the fine fish of Paris, and probably the secret lies between the art of preparation and the fact that the city lies where it does. Newnham-Davis wrote, some fifty years ago: “… Paris—sending tentacles west to the waters where the sardines swim, and south to the home of the lamprey, and tapping a thousand streams from trout and tiny gudgeon and crayfish—can show as noble a list of fishes as any city in the world.”

6.
Charles Monselet wrote in 1879 that he had been told that Brillat-Savarin was “a frequenter of the cafe Lemblin,” and that he always came there with a dog who was a Paris legend. This is the only such detail of the Professor’s life that I can find. As for the Lemblin … ?

7.
Every city with any claim to vitality has had its good restaurateurs who capitalized more or less discreetly on the obvious connection of the pleasures of the table and of the couch. In 1947 it was rumored that most of the better class dining rooms in this category had been closed in New Orleans, but at least there, as in San Francisco, memory could feed nostalgic hunger on the recollections of Madame ***’s fourth floor, and chuckle over the hoary remark that on the first floor you lost your purse, on the second your reputation, on the third what my headmistress used to refer to as “your underpinnings,” and on the fourth …?

8.
Here Brillat-Savarin uses a phrase,
le quart d’heure de Rabelais
, which was still recognized in France a hundred or so years later, although in a somewhat pedagogic and self-conscious way. It refers to the painful few minutes in which a good meal must be paid for by the host, in any public eating place, while his guests can sit back in easy digestive freedom, and is supposed to be so named for the time when Rabelais was caught in a tavern with no money on him. He quickly rolled up three little packets of ashes and dust, and labelled each one POISON. Then he marked one, “For the King,” the second “For the King’s brother,” and the last “For the King’s son.” The landlord took one hidden peek at them, and ran for the nearest soldier. Rabelais was carted off to Paris, and there he confessed that it was the only way he could figure to escape being arrested for not paying his bill … and
to get a free ride to the Capital! Not all postprandial reckonings are as fortunate as his.

9.
A real syllabub is to my mind cold but not thick, frothy but not cloying, and is made of light cream whipped with sherry and sugar to one instant before it curdles. Then it can be a refreshing and gently stimulating half-dessert-half-drink. But there is a wonderful recipe which is both thick and cloying, in a delightfully revolting way: 2 cups sour cream, ¾ cup medium dry sherry, ½ cup fine white sugar, peel and rind of 1 lemon. They are mixed lightly together, chilled thoroughly together, the peel and rind are removed, and the rest is whipped with a whisk-type beater until it turns thick. It must be eaten with a spoon.

146:
M. DE BOROSE
was born about 1780. His father was secretary to the king. He lost his parents when very young, and found himself the possessor at an early age of a fortune of some forty thousand pounds. At that time it was a pretty sum; by now it means no more than the bare pennies to prevent one’s dying of hunger.

A paternal uncle supervised his education. He learned Latin, the while he felt astonished that when everything could be so well phrased in French he must learn to say the same things in another way. Nevertheless he progressed, and by the time he reached Homer he changed his first opinions, found a real pleasure in pondering on ideas so elegantly expressed, and made sincere efforts to comprehend to its depths the language used by this subtle poet.

He also learned music, and after trying several instruments he fixed on the piano. He restrained himself from diving into the infinite complexities of this musical tool,
*
and, adapting it to his actual capacities, was content to become adept enough to accompany the songs of others.

But, in this field, he was preferred even to the professionals, for he never tried to insinuate himself into first place; he did not thrash his arms about nor roll his eyes;
†
and he carried out
conscientiously the first duty of an accompanist, to support and make shine the person who is singing.

Thanks to his tender age he survived without accident the most terrible years of the Revolution, but finally was conscripted. He bought a man who went bravely forth to die for him, and armed with his substitute’s death certificate he found himself in a comfortable position to celebrate our triumphs or deplore our reverses.

M. de Borose was of medium height, but in perfect proportions. As for his face, it was sensual, and we can give a good idea of it by saying that if we could have put him in the same room with the actors Gavaudan of the
Variétés
and Michot of the
Français
, and the vaudeville manager Désaugiers, the four of them would have seemed to be members of the same family. All in all, it was taken for granted that he was a good-looking fellow, and now and then he undoubtedly had occasion to believe so.

It was a great problem for him to choose a profession: he tried several, but since he found something inconvenient about each of them he drifted into a busy laziness, which is to say that he was always welcome in certain literary groups, that he was on the charity board of his district, and that he was a member of various philanthropic organizations; when we add to this the care of his fortune, which he managed superlatively, it is plain that he was, like any other man, kept busy by his engagements, his correspondence, and his general office work.

When he was twenty-eight, he believed that it was time for him to marry. He had no desire to see his future wife except at table, and at his third meeting found himself sufficiently convinced that she was as pretty as she was bright and good.

The conjugal bliss of Borose was short-lived: hardly eighteen months after his marriage his wife died in childbirth, leaving him eternally regretful of this abrupt separation, and to console him a daughter whom he called Herminie, and of whom we shall speak later.

M. de Borose found pleasure enough in the various occupations he had built up for himself. Nevertheless he realized, in the long view, that even in the most exclusive gatherings there
is pretension, ambition, and sometimes a little jealousy. He credited humanity itself with all these miseries, since it is never perfect, and he was not the more repelled by it; but gradually he obeyed without even realizing it the fate which was imprinted on his features, and began to make the satisfaction of his taste his principal pleasure.

He was wont to say that gastronomy is no more than appreciative reflection, applied to the science which most improves our lot.

He said with Epicurus:
*
“Is man then meant to spurn the gifts of Nature? Has he been born but to pluck the bitterest fruits? For whom do those flowers grow, that the gods make flourish at mere mortals’ feet? … It is a way of pleasing Providence, to give ourselves up to the various delights which she suggests to us; our very needs spring from her laws, and our desires from her inspirations.”

He agreed with the fat
²
professor that good things are meant for good people; otherwise one must fall back on an absurdity and believe that God created them solely for the evildoers.

Borose’s first real job was with his cook, and consisted in outlining his functions in their fundamental truths.

He told him that a skilful cook, who could in theory be a scholar, was already one, always, in practice; that the manners of his profession placed him among the chemists and the biological philosophers; he even went so far as to say to him that a cook, who is responsible for the upkeep of the human mechanism, is more important than a pharmacist, who is needed but occasionally.

He added, quoting from a doctor as witty as he is learned,
†
“The cook must understand to the full the art of modifying foodstuffs by the action of fire, which was unknown to our ancestors. This art calls forth the most erudite studies and investigations, in the present time. It needs a great deal of experimentation upon the products of the entire world in order to use skilfully the various seasonings and to disguise the unpleasantness of certain foods, to make still others more appetizing, and always to use
the most appropriate ingredients. It is the European cook who outshines all others in the art of composing these marvelous mixtures.”