The "Almanach" abounds in piquant aphorisms, some of which perhaps will better serve to illustrate the spirit of the work than a more lengthy abstract of many of the essays themselves:
"The kitchen is a country in which there are always discoveries to be made.
"It is the entrées that cooks usually invest with their greatest cunning, and it is principally through these that they expect to be judged.
"An overturned salt-cellar is to be feared solely when it is overturned in a good dish.
"The table is a magnet which not only draws to itself, but joins together all those who approach it.
"It is as necessary that the master of the house should understand how to carve well as it is for a young girl to dance in order to secure a husband.
"Digestion is the business of the stomach, and indigestion that of the doctors.
"The stomach of a true gourmand, like the casemates of a besieged city, should be proof against bombs.
"Thirteen at table is a number to be dreaded when there is only enough to go round for twelve.
"A good pastry-maker is as rare as a grand orator.
"It is especially at table that one should attend carefully to the matter in hand and consider what one is about.
"True gourmands have always finished their dinner before the dessert; that which is eaten after the roast is done only out of pure politeness.
"Pastry is to the cuisine what figures of rhetoric are to discourse. An oration without figures and a dinner without pastry are equally insipid.
"There is a precise moment at which every dish should be savoured, previous to which or after which it causes only an imperfect sensation.
"Wine is the milk of the old, the balm of adults, and the vehicle of the gourmand.
"Without sauces a dinner were as bare as a house that has been levied on by the officers of the sheriff.
"The etymology of the word faisander sufficiently proclaims that the pheasant should be waited for as long as a pension from the government by a man of letters who has never known how to flatter any one.
"It is notorious that a dinner, however generous, has never disturbed a person who has preceded or followed it by a walk of five or six leagues; and that indigestions are virtually unknown to great pedestrians.
"With many people a stomach that is proof against everything is the principle of happiness, and with everybody this organ exercises a greater influence than one imagines on the acts of life.
"Life is so brief that we should not glance either too far backwards or forwards in order to be happy. Let us therefore study how to fix our happiness in our glass and on our plate.
"Un Amphitryon délicat no doit pas souffrir que la galanterie dégénère chez lui en scandale; et s'il invite de jeunes et jolies femmes ce doit toujours être avec leurs maris, et jamais avec leurs amants."
Unfortunately, no menus of the Jury dégustateur have been preserved, though one is presented of the celebrated restaurant, the Rocher de Cancale—a dinner of twenty-four covers, served November 28, 1809, at a cost of one thousand francs. Considering the elaborateness of the bill of fare, the price was assuredly extremely moderate, including, as it did, four soups, four relevés, twelve entrées, four large pieces, four roasts, and eight entremets, all served in the highest style of the art.
In many of the best Parisian restaurants to-day no figures are attached to the carte, so that one may dine without disturbing his digestion by thinking of the expense. The awakening comes later, with the addition, when, if one be an epicure with a partiality for rare vintages, he will be apt to recall Béranger's "Voyage au Pays de Cocagne" and its dénouement:
" * * * * *
Mais qui vient détruire
Ce rêve enchanteur?
Amis, j'en ai honte,
C'est quelqu'un qui monte
Apporter le compte