“This occurs in the longest chapters of the book, in the form of ‘A Philosophical History of Cookery, Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern,’ with an appendix, ‘On Parisian Dining-Houses.’ Here, indeed, is richness: the advantages and disadvantages of eating raw meat; the primitive feasting in the ‘Iliad;’ the advent of boiling in the Old Testament; how Cadmus brought the alphabet and good cooking to Greece; the elaborate and sometimes strange taste of the Romans,—as for dormice and assafoetida,—and a survey of the ancient literature of the subject, from the fragmentary poem on gastronomy by Archestratus, to the convivial poetry of Horace and Tibullus. The whole story is told, although briefly, excepting only the peculiar taste of the Greeks for mingling sea-water and turpentine with their wines.
“The mediaeval and modern development of the art is sketched, although of necessity more rapidly, from the rescue of cookery from barbarism by Charlemagne; through the introduction of spices from the East, garlic from Palestine, parsley from Italy, coffee from Turkey, and the potato from America; to the ages of pastry and of sugar, and the final culmination of the art in political gastronomy. Every line of this section contains such good things as ‘coffee should be crushed, not ground;’ and, ‘It was Talleyrand who first brought from Italy the custom of taking Parmesan cheese with soup.’ But to select would be to quote the whole.
“Restaurants—unhappily Savarin could not know the modern derivation from res and taurus—appear to have been invented in Paris in 1770. There is a fascinating picture of the best of the author’s time, with three hundred dishes and a hundred wines; a height of eloquence over the cosmopolitan sources of a good dinner; and yet higher soaring over the Parisian missionaries of the doctrine throughout the civilized world.
“Nor does inspiration wane in the chapter on ‘Gastronomic Principles Put into Practice’—‘the treasures of nature were not created to be trodden under foot ... a good dinner is but little dearer than a bad one ... a man may show himself a distinguished connoisseur without going beyond the limits of his actual needs.’
“The last chapter, ‘Gastronomic Mythology,’ is pure creation—of Gasterea, the tenth muse, her nature, habit, aspect, and worship; and then—for like Donne, ‘when he is done, he is not done, for there is more’—comes a ‘Transition:’ ‘In writing I had a double object ... to lay down the fundamental theory of gastronomy, so that she would take her place among the sciences in that rank to which she has an incontestable right. The second, to define with precision what must be understood by the love of good living, so that for all time that social quality may be kept apart from gluttony and intemperance, with which many have absurdly confounded it.’
“Finally follow the generous dozen of short ‘varieties’—anecdotes like ‘The Curé’s Omelette;’ personal experiences of ‘The Gastronome Abroad,’ some in America; original recipes and original verse; and an ‘Historical Elegy,’ in pity for the gastronomic ignorance of the past, and in prophetic vision of the full gastronomic glories of the year nineteen hundred.
“But, alas,” said Professor Maturin, slowly closing the book, “I cannot wish that he were here. The world is not yet ready for his message; he should have added another hundred years. It was fifty years before his work was well enough known outside of France to be translated; and even to-day, in spite of all its delightful qualities, not one in a hundred, even among reading men, know it. And yet, there has never been anything quite like it. Such a rare combination of race, time, and personality; of experience, cultivation, and taste, seldom occurs more than once. But no other is necessary; nothing can be better than the best, and Savarin has handled his theme with unapproachable wisdom and charm, once for all.
“The science has, of course, progressed immensely since his day. You may fill your shelves with portentous tomes on food and dietetics, and with experimental pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture. Educators have introduced instruction concerning food into the curriculum of the modern school. And I understand that there are magazines of practical cookery for such ladies as look to the affairs of their households. But as for Brillat-Savarin’s hope that the science and the art of gastronomy, as he elaborated it, would soon become a part of the faith and practice, the delight as well as the duty, of all cultivated people,—that is yet far from fulfilment.
“But, my good friend,” and here Professor Maturin rose, shaking his long forefinger, “the truth will undoubtedly prevail, ‘though long deferred, though long deferred,’ as Lanier says. Take the book, and keep it—I make a practice of distributing copies—read it; you cannot help doing so at a single sitting; talk about it; become, like me, a propagandist, and the blessing of Gasterea will go with you. Good-night.” And he was gone.
My friend Professor Maturin spoke the very truth. I finished the book before I left my seat, and then and there became a fellow equestrian to Banbury Cross. Deliberately and with prepensive aforethought, I invite the reader to do the same, and thereby to gain not only personal pleasure and profit, but, in addition, the greater satisfaction of contributing a lasting good to others.