Full Description
A book without precedent, skirting the line between recipe-book, memoir, history and philosophy, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste is edited with an introduction by Anne Drayton in Penguin Classics.
Brillat-Savarin's unique, exuberant collection of dishes, experiences, reflections, history and philosophy raised gastronomy to an art form. First published in France in 1825, this remarkable book reflected a new era in French cuisine: the advent of the restaurant, which gave the bourgeoisie the opportunity to select their dishes with precision and anticipation. Yet the author also gives his views on taste, diet and maintaining a healthy weight, on digestion, sleep, dreams and being a gourmand. Witty, shrewd and anecdotal, The Physiology of Taste not only contains some remarkable recipes, it an elegant argument for the pleasures of good food and a hearty appetite.
Anne Drayton's lively translation is accompanied by an introduction illustrating the remarkable nature of this work, by a man who was not a chef or an author but a magistrate in a French provincial town.
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1825) was born in Belley, France, an area renowned for its food and wine. After graduating in law, Brillat-Savarin became magistrate of Belley and was later elected Mayor. During the French Revolution his life was endangered and he fled to other parts of Europe and then America, earning his living as a violinist in a theatre orchestra. He returned to France in 1796 and became a judge of the Supreme Courts of Appeal. He began compiling a book of meditations on gastronomy and in 1825, a few months before his death, published this brilliant treatise on the pleasures of eating: the culmination of a life-long love affair with food.
Contents
The Physiology of Taste Introduction by Anne Drayton
Aphorisms by the Professor to serve as a prologue to his work and an eternal foundation for his Science
Dialogue between the author and his friend
Preface
Part One: Gastronomical Meditations
1. On the senses
2. On taste
3. On gastronomy
4. On appetite
5. On food in general
6. Specialities
7. The theory of frying
8. On thirst
9. On drinks
10. On the end of the world
11. On gourmandism
12. On gourmands
13. On gastronomical tests
14. On the pleasures of the table
15. On shooting-luncheons
16. On digestion
17. On rest
18. On sleep
19. On dreams
20. On the influence of diet on rest, sleep, and dreams
21. On obesity
22. Prevention and cure of obesity
23. On thinness
24. On fasting
25. On exhaustion
26. On death
27. Philosophical history of cooking
28. On restaurateurs
29. A model gourmand
30. Bouquet
Part Two
Transition
Miscellanea
Envoy to the Gastronomes of the Two Worlds
