The Physiology of Taste

Brillat-Savarin set out to write about food and cookery, but his interests and enthusiasms ranged so widely over matters of the human spirit that they could hardly be contained. M.F.K. Fisher's footnotes and commentaries constitute nearly a quarter of the text. The work includes: observations on feasting and fasting and on the advantages of gourmandism, including its influence on marital happiness; analysis and definition of the senses, with a gastronomical test to measure the degree of one's gift for taste; discourses on obesity and its cure and on the calamity of thinness, particularly in women, with prescriptions for fattening them up; talk of truffles and their possible erotic effect, of coffee and its stimulative powers, of chocolate, and omelettes, and eels; Brillat-Savarin's 20 famous aphorisms, including, Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are; and anecdotes of unforgettable meals and the stratagems by which they were obtained, elaborate practical jokes, and culinary challenges met and surmounted.