Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Quotations

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.

Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking.

Nothing is more pleasant than to see a pretty woman, her napkin well placed under her arms, one of her hands on the table, while the other carries to her mouth, the choice piece so elegantly carved.

The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star.

Taste, which enables us to distinguish all that has a flavor from that which is insipid.

Vegetables, which are the lowest in the scale of living things, are fed by roots, which, implanted in the native soil, select by the action of a peculiar mechanism, different subjects, which serve to increase and to nourish them.

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline.

When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or translate me. Such is my fate.

The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure.

All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the passion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were, they were yet able to manufacture them.

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell.

I am essentially an amateur medecin, and this to me is almost a mania.

The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.

Sight and touch, being thus increased in capacity, might belong to some species far superior to man; or rather the human species would be far different had all the senses been thus improved.

The torrent of centuries rolling over the human race, has continually brought new perfections, the cause of which, ever active though unseen, is found in the demands made by our senses, which always in their turns demand to be occupied.

The German Doctors say that persons sensible of harmony have one sense more than others.

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion of sounding or vibrating bodies.

The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a peculiar flavor, like none other.

The senses are the organs by which man places himself in connexion with exterior objects.

The sense of smell, like a faithful counsellor, foretells its character.

I will only observe, that that ethereal sense - sight, and touch, which is at the other extremity of the scale, have from time acquired a very remarkable additional power.

'Monsieur,' Madame d'Arestel, Superior of the convent of the Visitation at Belley, once said to me more than fifty years ago, 'whenever you want to have a really good cup of chocolate, make it the day before, in a porcelain coffeepot, and let it set. The night's rest will concentrate it and give it a velvety quality which will make it better. Our good God cannot possibly take offense at this little refinement, since he himself is everything that is most perfect.'

Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that, being offered to persons that have already dined well, it supposes neither appetite nor thirst, and has no object but distraction, no basis but delicate enjoyment.

Beasts feed. Man eats. Only the man of intellect knows how to eat.

Dear gourmands! my bowels yearn towards them as a father's toward his children. They are so good natured! They have such sparkling eyes!

Frying gives cooks numerous ways of concealing what appeared the day before and in a pinch facilitates sudden demands, for it takes little more time to fry a four-pound carp than to boil an egg.

Place a substantial meal before a tired man and he will eat with effort and be little better for it at first. Give him a glass of wine or brandy, and immediately he feels better: you see him come to life again before you.

If one swallows a cup of chocolate only three hours after a copious lunch, everything will be perfectly digested and there will still be room for dinner.

The dyspeptic and the drunkard do not know how to eat or drink.

In the centre of a spacious table rose a pastry as large as a church, flanked on the north by a quarter of cold veal, on the south by an enormous ham, on the east by a monumental pile of butter, and on the west by an enormous dish of artichokes, with a hot sauce.

An intelligently planned feast is like a summing up of the whole world, where each part is represented by its envoys.

The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves.

No man under forty can be dignified with the title of gourmet.

Salad freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating.

In the hands of an able cook, fish can become an inexhaustible source of perpetual delight.

The Spanish ladies of the New World are madly addicted to chocolate, to such a point that, not content to drink it several times each day, they even have it served to them in church.

Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can be assimilated or changed into life by digestion, and can thus repair the losses which the human body suffers through the act of living.

La volaille est pour la cuisine ce qu'est la toile pour les peintres. Fowls are to the kitchen what his canvas is to the painter.

La de couverte d'un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre humain que la de couverte d'une e toile. The discoveryof a newdish doesmore for thehappiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.

For unknown foods, the nose acts always as a sentinal and cries. 'Who goes there?'

Alcohol carries the pleasures of the palate to their highest degree.

Those truffled turkeys, of which the reputation and the price are still increasing, appear like beneficient stars, and make the eyes sparkle of all sorts of gourmands of every category, whilst their faces beam with delight and they themselves dance with pleasure.

Gourmandism is an act of judgment, by which we prefer things which have a pleasant taste to those which lack this quality.

I am a strong partisan of second causes, and I believe firmly that the entire gallinaceous order has been merely created to furnish our larders and our banquets.

At the table of a gentleman living in the Chausee d'Antin was served up an Arles sausage of enormous size. "Will you accept a slice?" the host asked a lady who was sitting next to him; "you see it has come from the right factory."It is really very large," said the lady, casting on it a roguish glance; "What a pity it is unlike anything."

A connoisseur of gastronomy was congratulated on his appointment as a director of indirect contributions at Periguex: and, above all, in the pleasure there would be in living in the midst of good cheer, in the country of truffles, partridges, truffled turkeys, and so forth. "Alas!" replied with a sigh the sad gastronomer, "can one really live at all in a country where there is no fresh sea-fish?"

Gastronomers of the year 1825, who find sateity in the lap of abundance, and dream of some newly-made dishes, you will not enjoy the discoveries which science has in store for the year 1900, such as foods drawn from the mineral kingdom, liqueurs produced by the pressure of a hundred atmospheres; you will never see the importations which travelers yet unborn will bring to you from that half of the globe which has still to be discovered or explored. How I pity you!

Gluttony is mankind's exclusive prerogative.

The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them.

To know how to eat well, one must first know how to wait.

Every cure of obesity must begin with these three essential precepts:discretion in eating, moderation in sleeping, and exercise ...

When you have breakfasted well and fully, if you will drink a big cup of chocolate at the end you will have digested the whole perfectly three hours later, and you will still be able to dine. Because of my scientific enthusiasm and the sheer force of my eloquence I have persuaded a number of ladies to try this, although they were convinced it would kill them; they have always found themselves in fine shape indeed, and have not forgotten to give the Professor his rightful due.

A meal without wine is like a day without sun

At the time I write, the glory of the truffle has now reached its culmination. Who would dare to say that he has been at a dinner where there was not a pièce truffée? Who has not felt his mouth water in hearing truffles a la provencale spoken of? In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy.

In the state of society in which we now find ourselves, it is difficult to imagine a nation which lived solely on bread and vegetables.

L'alcool est le monarque des liquides, et porte au dernier degre l'exaltation palatale. Alcohol is the prince of liquids, and carries the palate to its highest pitch of exaltation.

In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy.

Meals, in the sense in which we understand this word, began with the second age of the human species.

A man who was fond of wine was offered some grapes at dessert after dinner. "Much obliged," said he, pushing the plate aside, "I am not accustomed to take my wine in pills."

Truffle isn't exactly aphrodisiac but under certain circumstances it tends to make women more tender and men more likable

Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old.

Those from whom nature has withheld taste invented trousers.

To claim that wines should not be changed is a heresy; the palate becomes saturated and after the third glass the best of wines arouses nothing but an obscure sensation.

Poultry is for the cook what canvas is for the painter.

The universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats.

Let the progress of the meal be slow, for dinner is the last business of the day; and let the guests conduct themselves like travelers due to reach their destination together.

Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.

You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?

Gourmandise is an impassioned, rational and habitual preference for all objects that flatter the sense of taste.

It is the duty of all papas and mammas to forbid their children to drink coffee, unless they wish to have little dried-up machines, stunted and old at the age of twenty... once saw a man in London, in Leicester Square, who had been crippled by immoderate indulgence in coffee; he was no longer in any pain, having grown accustomed to his condition, and had cut himself down to five or six cups a day.

The limits of pleasures are as yet neither known nor fixed, and we have no idea what degree of bodily bliss we are capable of attaining.

I appreciate the potato only as a protection against famine, except for that, I know of nothing more eminently tasteless.

The most indispensable qualification of a cook is punctuality. The same must be said of guests.

The table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour.

Dessert without cheese is like a beauty with only one eye

I am not accustomed to take my wine in pills.

The pleasure of the table belongs to all ages, to all conditions, to all countries, and to all areas; it mingles with all other pleasures, and remains at last to console us for their departure.

Once fire was discovered, the instinct for improvement made men bring food to it. First to dry it, then to put it on the coals to cook.

If any man has drunk a little too deeply from the cup of physical pleasure; if he has spent too much time at his desk that should have been spent asleep; if his fine spirits have become temporarily dulled; if he finds the air too damp, the minutes too slow, and the atmosphere too heavy to withstand; if he is obsessed by a fixed idea which bars him from any freedom of thought: if he is any of these poor creatures, we say, let him be given a good pint of amber-flavored chocolate... and marvels will be performed.

Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life.

La truffe n'est point un aphrodisiaque positif; mais elle peut, en certaines occasions, rendre les femmes plus tendres et les hommes plus aimables. The truffle is not a true aphrodisiac; but in certain circumstances it can make women more affectionate and men more attentive.

Smell and taste are in fact but a single composite sense, whose laboratory is the mouth and its chimney the nose.

Animals feed themselves; men eat; but only wise men know the art of eating

Some dishes are of such indisputable excellence that their appearance alone is capable of arousing a level-headed man's degustatory powers. All those who, when presented with such a dish, show neither the rush of desire, nor the radiance of ecstasy, may justly be deemed unworthy of the honors of the sitting, and its related delights.

Whosoever says truffle, utters a grand word, which awakens erotic and gastronomic ideas....

The fate of a nation depends on the way that they eat.

He who receives his friends and gives no personal attention to the meal which is being prepared for them, is not worthy of having friends.

Those who have been too long at their labor, who have drunk too long at the cup of voluptuousness, who feel they have become temporarily inhumane, who are tormented by their families, who find life sad and love ephemeral......they should all eat chocolate and they will be comforted.

The truffle is not a positive aphrodisiac, but it can upon occasion make women tenderer and men more apt to love.

To invite people to dine with us is to make ourselves responsible for their well-being for as long as they are under our roofs.

Seating themselves on the greensward, they eat while the corks fly and there is talk, laughter and merriment, and perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing room and the sun their lamp. Besides, they have appetite, Nature's special gift, which lends to such a meal a vivacity unknown indoors, however beautiful the surroundings.

The pleasures of the table belong to all times and ages, to every country and every day; they go hand in hand with all our other pleasures, outlast them, and remain to console us for their loss.

It has been shown as proof positive that carefully prepared chocolate is as healthful a food as it is pleasant; that it is nourishing and easily digested... that it is above all helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work.

Burgundy makes you think of silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them, and Champagne makes you do them.