The Physiology of Taste (14 page)

Second experiment:
If one eats while pinching shut his nostrils, he is astonished to find his sense of taste imperfect and faint; by this means, the nastiest dosage can be swallowed quite easily.

Third experiment:
The same effect is produced if, at the moment of swallowing, one continues to leave his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth instead of letting it return to its
natural place; in this case the circulation of air has been stopped, the sense of smell is not aroused, and the act of tasting has not taken place.

These various effects all stem from the same cause, the lack of cooperation of the sense of smell, with the result that a sapid body is appreciated only for its own juice and not for the fumes which emanate from it.

11: I feel, having thus set forth the principles of my theory, that it is certain that taste causes sensations of three different kinds:
direct, complete
, and
reflective
.

The
direct
sensation is the first one felt, produced from the immediate operations of the organs of the mouth, while the body under consideration is still on the fore part of the tongue.

The
complete
sensation is the one made up of this first perception plus the impression which arises when the food leaves its original position, passes to the back of the mouth, and attacks the whole organ with its taste and its aroma.

Finally, the
reflective
sensation is the opinion which one’s spirit forms from the impressions which have been transmitted to it by the mouth.

Let us put this theory into action, by seeing what happens to a man who is eating or drinking.

He who eats a peach, for instance, is first of all agreeably struck by the perfume which it exhales; he puts a piece of it into his mouth, and enjoys a sensation of tart freshness which invites him to continue; but it is not until the instant of swallowing, when the mouthful passes under his nasal channel, that the full aroma is revealed to him; and this completes the sensation which a peach can cause. Finally, it is not until it has been swallowed that the man, considering what he has just experienced, will say to himself, “Now there is something really delicious!”

In the same way, in drinking: while the wine is in the mouth, one is agreeably but not completely appreciative of it; it is not until the moment when he has finished swallowing it that a man can truly taste, consider, and discover the bouquet peculiar to
each variety; and there must still be a little lapse of time before a real connoisseur can say, “It is good, or passable, or bad. By Jove, here is a Chambertin! Confound it, this is only a Suresnes!”

It can thus be seen that it is in following certain well-studied principles that the true amateurs
SIP
their wine
(ils le sirotent)
, for, as they hesitate after each taste of it, they enjoy the same full pleasure that they might have had if they had drunk the whole glass in one gulp.

The same thing happens, but much more obviously, when the sense of taste must be disagreeably assaulted.

Take, for example, an invalid whose doctor prescribes an enormous glass of that old-fashioned black medicine which was drunk during the reign of Louis XIV.

His sense of smell, faithful guide, warns him of the revolting taste of the horrible fluid; his eyes pop out as if he recognizes real danger; disgust is plainly written on his face; already his stomach heaves. But he is begged to drink, and he stiffens with resolve; he gargles first with a little brandy, holds his nose, and swallows …

While the foul brew fills his mouth and coats it, the sensation is confused and tolerable; but, with the last swallow, the aftertastes develop, the nauseating odors become clear, and the patient’s every feature expresses a horror which only the fear of death itself could make him endure.

If, on the other hand, it is a matter of some such insipid drink as a glass of water, there is neither taste nor aftertaste; one feels nothing, cares nothing; one has drunk, and that is all there is to it.

12: Taste is not as richly endowed as hearing, which can listen to and compare several sounds at the same time: taste is simple in its action, which is to say that it cannot receive impressions from two flavors at once.

But taste can be double, and even multiple, in succession, so that in a single mouthful a second and sometimes a third sensation can be realized; they fade gradually, and are called aftertaste, perfume, or aroma. It is the same way as, when a basic note is sounded, an attentive ear distinguishes in it one or more series of
other consonant tones, whose number has not yet been correctly estimated.

Men who eat quickly and without thought do not perceive the taste impressions of this second level, which are the exclusive perquisite of a small number of the chosen few; and it is by means of these impressions that gastronomers can classify, in the order of their excellence, the various substances submitted to their approval.

These fleeting nuances vibrate for a long time in the organ of taste: students of them assume without even realizing it a proper stance for the pronouncement of their verdicts, always with necks stretched and noses twisted up and to the left, as it were to larboard.

13: Let us now look philosophically for a moment at the joy or sadness which can result from the sense of taste.

First of all we are confronted with the application of that truism unfortunately too well known, that man is much more sensitive to pain than to pleasure.

Obviously our reactions to extremely bitter, acid, or sour substances cause us to suffer deeply painful or grievous sensations. It is even held that hydrocyanic acid kills so quickly only because it causes such intense agony that our vital forces cannot long endure it.

On the other hand, agreeable sensations extend over only a small scale, and if there is a fairly appreciable difference between an insipid flavor and one that stimulates the taste, the space between something called good and something reputed to be excellent is not very great. This is made clearer by the following comparisons: first or positive, a dry hard piece of boiled meat; second or comparative, a slice of veal; third or superlative, a pheasant cooked to perfection.

However, taste as Nature has endowed us with it is still that one of our senses which gives us the greatest joy:

    (1) Because the pleasure of eating is the only one which, indulged in moderately, is not followed by regret;

(2) Because it is common to all periods in history, all ages of man, and all social conditions;

(3) Because it recurs of necessity at least once every day, and can be repeated without inconvenience two or three times in that space of hours;

(4) Because it can mingle with all the other pleasures, and even console us for their absence;

(5) Because its sensations are at once more lasting than others and more subject to our will;

(6) Because, finally, in eating we experience a certain special and indefinable well-being, which arises from our instinctive realization that by the very act we perform we are repairing our bodily losses and prolonging our lives.

    This will be more thoroughly developed in the chapter which we shall devote especially to
the pleasures of the table
, considered from the point to which our modern civilization has brought them.

14: We have been reared with the agreeable belief that, of all the creatures who walk, swim, climb, or fly, man is the one whose sense of taste is the most perfect.

This belief threatens to be overthrown.

Dr. Gall
²
states, backed by I do not know what investigations, that there are animals whose tasting apparatus is more developed and even more perfect than ours.

This doctrine is shocking to hear, and smacks of heresy.

Man, king of all nature by divine right, and for whose benefit the earth has been covered and peopled, must perforce be armed with an organ which can put him in contact with all that is toothsome among his subjects.

The tongue of an animal is comparable in its sensitivity to his intelligence: among fish it is but a movable bone; among birds in general it is a membranous cartilage; in the four-legged world it is often sheathed with scales or roughnesses, and moreover has no power of circular movement.

Man’s tongue, on the other hand, by the delicacy of its surfaces and of the various membranes which surround it, proves clearly enough the sublimity of the operations for which it is destined.

What is more, I have discovered at least three movements in it which are unknown to animals, and which I describe as movements of
SPICATION
,
ROTATION
, and
VERRITION
(from the Latin
verro
, I sweep). The first takes place when the tip of the tongue protrudes between the lips which squeeze it; the second, when it rolls around in the space between the cheeks and the palate; the third, when it catches, by curving itself now up and now down, the particles of food which have stuck in the semicircular moat between the lips and the gums.

Animals are limited in their tastes; some live only upon plants, and others eat nothing but meat; still others nourish themselves solely upon seeds; none of them knows combinations of flavors.

Man, on the other hand, is
omnivorous;
everything edible is prey to his vast hunger, and this brings out, as its immediate result, tasting powers proportionate to the general use which he must make of them. That is to say, man’s apparatus of the sense of taste has been brought to a state of rare perfection; and, to convince ourselves thoroughly, let us watch it work.

As soon as an edible body has been put into the mouth, it is seized upon, gases, moisture, and all, without possibility of retreat.

Lips stop whatever might try to escape; the teeth bite and break it; saliva drenches it; the tongue mashes and churns it; a breathlike sucking pushes it toward the gullet; the tongue lifts up to make it slide and slip; the sense of smell appreciates it as it passes the nasal channel, and it is pulled down into the stomach to be submitted to sundry baser transformations without, in this whole metamorphosis, a single atom or drop or particle having been missed by the powers of appreciation of the taste sense.

It is, then, because of this perfection that the real enjoyment of eating is a special prerogative of man.

This pleasure is even contagious; and we transmit it quickly enough to the animals which we have tamed and which in one way or another make up a part of our society, like elephants, dogs, cats, and even parrots.

If some animals have a larger tongue that others, a more developed roof to their mouths, an ampler throat, it is because this tongue, acting as a muscle, must move bulky food; this palate must press and this throat must swallow larger portions than average; but all analogy is opposed to the inference that their sense of taste is proportionately greater than that of other animals.

Moreover, since taste must not be weighed except by the nature of the sensation which it arouses in the center of life, an impression received by an animal cannot be compared with one felt by a man: the latter sensation, at once clearer and more precise, presupposes of necessity a superior quality in the organ which transmits it.

Finally, what is left to be desired of a faculty sensitive to such a degree of perfection that the gourmands of Rome could tell by the flavor whether fish was caught between the city bridges or lower down the river?

And do we not have, in our own days, those gastronomers who pretend to have discovered the special flavor of the leg upon which a sleeping pheasant rests his weight?
³

And are we not surrounded by gourmets who can tell the latitude under which a wine has ripened just as surely as a pupil of Biot or Arago
⁴
knows how to predict an eclipse?

What follows from there? Simply that what is Caesar’s must be rendered unto him, that man must be proclaimed
the great gourmand of Nature
, and that it must not seem too astonishing that the good doctor Gall does as Homer did, and drowses now and then:

Auch zuweiler schalffert der guter G
(all).
⁵

15: Thus far we have only considered taste in the aspects of its physical make-up, and, with the exception of some anatomical details which would be missed by few people, we have held ourselves strictly to the scientific level. But the task which we have set ourselves does not end there, for it is mainly because of its
moral history that this restorative sense retains its importance and its glory.

We have therefore followed, according to an analytical plan, the theories and facts which make up this history, in such a way that instruction can result without boredom.

It is thus that, in the following chapters, we shall show how sensations, by force of repetition and consideration, have perfected the organ of taste and enlarged the sphere of its power; how the need to eat, which was nothing but instinct at first, has become a powerful passion which has a marked influence on everything connected with society.

We shall tell too how all sciences which are concerned with physical composition have exerted themselves to classify and segregate those bodies which can be recognized by taste, and how travelers have aimed at the same goal, in enabling us to experiment with exotic substances which Nature itself seems never to have intended to come together.

We shall follow chemistry up to the very moment when it invades our kitchens, those subterranean laboratories of gastronomy, to enlighten our assistants, pose certain principles, create new methods, and unveil natural laws which, until then, have remained a mystery.

Finally we shall see how, by the combined influences of time and experience, a new science is suddenly revealed to us, which nourishes, restores, conserves, entices, consoles and, not content to cover with flowers the path of each individual’s progress, contributes powerfully to the strength and prosperity of empires themselves.