He beckoned me to take my already ordered dinner at the particular corner table for which his preference is always respected by his fellow Athenians, and, after a smile of greeting, he passed over to me the book he had been reading—“The Physiology of Taste,” by Brillat-Savarin—with the quiet comment, “The standard and gauge of modern civilization.”
I had never before seen the work of that high-priest of gastronomy, but before examining it I looked my surprise at the apparent enthusiasm of the scholar whose abstemious habits were well known to his friends, and whose slender figure, thoughtful eyes, and clear-cut features made it impossible to associate him with the pleasures of the table. For reply he merely indicated several of the “Fundamental Truths of the Science,” on the open page before me:
“But for life the universe were nothing; and all that has life requires nourishment.”
“The fate of nations depends upon how they are fed.”
“The man of sense and culture alone understands eating.”
I was familiar with Dean Swift’s tracing the origin of certain essays to the consumption of particular varieties of cheese, and I had read Maturin’s own whimsical paragraphs explaining the peculiarities of certain national literatures by the characteristics of their national beverages, and paralleling the growth of humanitarianism with the increasing use of tobacco, of which he is sparing; but he seemed now to be serious, so that I merely asked what he made of such a statement as the following, which I read from his author: “The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a planet.”
Explaining that he would have the author convince me, rather than himself, he indicated yet another paragraph: “What praise can be refused the science which sustains us from the cradle to the grave, which entrances the delights of love and the pleasures of friendship, which disarms hatred, makes business easier, and affords us, during the short voyage of our lives, the only enjoyments that both relieve us from fatigue and themselves entail none!”
“Take it, and read it,” he said, as I looked up. “I know it by heart.” I gladly accepted the volume, for there was here evidently more than appeared; but I also expressed the wish that he would, himself, first tell me more about it; and this, retaking the book, his own dinner being now finished and mine but about to begin, he proceeded to do.
“I should not need to remind you,” he began, “that I am no friend to indulgence, much less to so gross a form as over-feeding, nor to speak of my known antagonism to every form of ignorance—except to explain that it is for these reasons that I have become an earnest advocate of gastronomy, which endeavors to transform eating from the ignorant indulgence it usually is to a reasonable science of nutrition and a refined art of enjoyment. Whatever popular disesteem the science and the art still suffer is due either to ignorance of its serious endeavor, or to a Puritanic attitude that is both inconsistent and irreverent. The fabric of nature is so constituted that all of our essential processes are accompanied by pleasure; a thoroughly consistent ascetic would necessarily cease to exist.
“Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, although of course not the founder of gastronomy, is its most admirable modern champion. He lived from the first half of the eighteenth century through the first quarter of the nineteenth, first as mayor of his native town of Belley in France; then, during the Revolution, an exile in Switzerland and in America; and, finally, during the last third of his life, a judge in Paris of the highest national court. The fame of his professional wisdom and justice was great, but that of his personal benevolence and geniality was far greater. The choicest flavor and charm of many years of social life he preserved in the book he apparently intended to leave, at his death, as a legacy of good cheer to his friends. The record of his love of good living was to serve him, a bachelor, as a posterity.