The Physiology of Taste (35 page)

76:
ONE OF THE
most delightful of all occasions when eating counts in the pattern of life is a hunting-luncheon; and of all such known interruptions, it is still the hunting-luncheon which can be prolonged with the least fear of boredom.

After several hours of exercise, the most vigorous hunter feels a need for rest; his face has been caressed by the early-morning breeze; his skill has served him well on occasion; the sun is about to stand at its peak in the sky; it is time for the sportsman to stop for a few hours, not because he is too tired but because instinct warns him that his activity is not limitless.

A bit of shade attracts him; the grass is soft beneath him, and the murmur of a nearby stream suggests that he leave cooling in it the flask meant for his refreshment.
*

Thus seated, he pulls out with tranquil pleasure the slices of golden-crusted bread, and unwraps the cold chicken which a loving hand has tucked into his knapsack, and nearby he places the chunk of Gruyère cheese or Roquefort meant for his dessert.

While he thus sets the scene, the hunter is not alone; he is accompanied by that faithful animal which Heaven itself has created for him; his crouching dog watches him with devotion; a shared occupation has broken down the barriers between them: they are two good friends, and the servant is at once happy and proud to be his master’s dining companion.
¹

They feel an appetite unknown equally to the worldly, who never give hunger a chance to make itself felt, and to the pious who do not take enough exercise to arouse it.

The meal, then, is enjoyed to the full; each one has had his share; everything has come about with order and peace. Why not snatch a few moments of sleep? Noontime is meant to be an hour of repose for all the creatures of the world.

These pleasures are immeasurably heightened if several friends share them; for, in this case, a more copious feast is brought along in one of the old military cook-wagons now put to a gentler use. Everyone chatters eagerly about this chap’s skill and that one’s bad luck, and about the high hopes for the afternoon.

And what if watchful servants arrive, laden with those jars consecrated to Bacchus, where artificial cold chills at one time Madeira, strawberry juice, and pineapple? These are delectable liqueurs, heavenly concoctions, which make a ravishing coolness run through the veins, and lend to every sense a well-being unknown to the profane.
*.
But this is not the whole story of such a progression of enchantments.

77: There are certain days when our wives, our sisters, and our pretty cousins and their equally pretty friends, are invited to share our amusements.

At the appointed hour, light carriages with prancing horses are seen approaching, laden with lovely women decked with feathers, and with flowers. The toilette of these ladies has something about it both military and coquettish; and the keen eye of
the Professor manages, now and then, to catch sights for which chance alone has not been responsible.

Soon the sides of the carriages open out, and there lie all the treasures of Périgord, the marvels of Strasbourg, the dainties of Archard, and everything that can well be carried away from the most knowing culinary laboratories.

And potent champagne, which acts best when served by beauty, has not been left behind; everyone sits down on the green grass and eats, and the corks fly; we chat, we laugh, we joke in complete liberty, for the world is our dining room and the sun itself is our light. And what is more, appetite, that heaven-sent emanation, gives to this feast a liveliness unknown to tight-shut rooms, no matter how beautifully adorned they may be.

However, since everything must end, the oldest person gives the signal, and we arise. The men arm themselves with their guns, and the women with their hats. Everyone says good-bye, the carriages come up, and the beauties fly off, no more to show themselves before nightfall.

This, at least, is what I have watched in high society, where the Pactolus rolls over its golden sands;
²
but all these attributes are not indispensable.

I have hunted in the central parts of France and in its remotest country districts; I have watched charming women arrive to join us for our luncheons, young people glowing with freshness, some of them in coaches and others in simple wagons, or mounted on the modest ass which brings fortune and glory to the people of Montmorency; I have watched them be the first to laugh at the awkwardness of their conveyances; I have watched them spread out upon the grass the plates of turkey in transparent jelly, the homemade pate, the salad waiting to be tossed in its bowl; I have watched them dance light footedly around the campfire built for such a picnic; I have taken part in the games and gay nonsense which are part of this gypsy feasting, and I am thoroughly convinced that there is no less charm about it for its lack of luxury, no less gaiety and pleasure.

And then, why not? Why not, as the hunting-luncheon breaks up, exchange a kiss or two with the best of the hunters, because today is his day of glory; with the duffer, because he may feel
unhappy over his bad luck; with all the others, in case they be jealous? After all, it is a leave-taking, custom authorizes it, and we are permitted and even urged to profit by it!

But comrades! I warn you that sensible sportsmen will take firm aim, shoot straight, and fill the gamebags well before the arrival of the ladies: experience has shown that once they have come and gone the hunting is rarely successful.

Conjectures to explain this effect have been made to the point of exhaustion. Some men attribute it to the work of digestion, which always makes the body a little lazy; others, to the fact that their attention has been distracted and cannot be properly focused again; still others, to the intimate little conversations which may have given them a desire to return as soon as possible to the ladies.

As for ourself,

“
Whose glance can read into the heart’s own depths
…” we believe that it is impossible, hunters being of inflammable material and the ladies still on the safe side of forty, to avoid setting off by their very proximity some sort of vital spark which is offensive to the chaste goddess of the hunt Diana, a flash of sexual desire which makes her, for the rest of the day, curtly withdraw her favors from the culprits.

We say
for the rest of the day
, since the story of Endymion has disclosed to us that this goddess is far from being so severe after the sun has set. (See the painting by Girodet.
³
)

Hunting-luncheons are virgin material, which we have done no more than lightly touch upon; they could be the object of a treatise as amusing as it would be instructive. We herewith bequeath it to whatever intelligent reader wishes to busy himself with it.

1.
The Professor is said, by at least one of the men who wrote introductions to him (Charles Monselet), to have had a little dog as his constant companion in Paris. But this somewhat sentimental picture of the hunter and his friend is the only mention Brillat-Savarin makes of the possible good feeling between
two-and four-legged creatures, except for the amiable way he starts his story of traveler’s luck: “One time, mounted on my good mare
la Joie
…”

2.
It was in the Pactolus River, in Lydia, that the accursed king Midas bathed to wash away his golden touch, and from the moment of his purification, Greek myths said, the sands of the river changed to solid gold.

3.
Girodet-Trioson (1767–1824) was a noted pupil of David who won the Prix de Rome and spent the rest of his life painting large sentimental pictures of classical subjects. The one the Professor refers to is probably
THE SLEEP OF ENDYMION
, in the Louvre: a far from subtle reminder that inexorable Diana let herself have at least one lover.

78:
A
MAN DOES
not live on what he eats, an old proverb says,
but on what he digests
. It follows then that it is necessary to digest in order to live; and this necessity is the basis for a law which rules both rich and poor, both king and lowly shepherd.

But how few men know what happens when they do digest! Most of them are like Monsieur Jourdain, who spoke prose without realizing it; and for such as these I shall outline here an easily read story of the process, persuaded as I am that M. Jourdain felt much happier when the philosopher had made it quite clear to him that it was indeed prose he spoke.
¹

In order to understand the whole act of digestion, it must be connected with its causes and with what follows it.

79: Appetite, hunger, and thirst warn us that our bodies need restorative help; and pain, that universal monitor, does not wait long to torment us, if we do not obey or are unable to.

From this come eating and drinking, which form the act of ingestion, beginning at the moment food reaches the mouth and finishing when it enters the esophagus.
*

In this journey, which is only a few inches long, a great deal takes place.

Teeth break up the solid foods, and the glands of all kinds which line the inside of the mouth moisten them. The tongue mashes and blends them; then it pushes them against the palate
to press out their juice and savor it; as this takes place it brings everything together into the middle of the mouth, after which, bracing itself against the lower jaw, it curves upwards in its central part so that an inclined plane is formed toward the base, which slides the food particles to the back of the mouth. There they are received by the pharynx, which, contracting in its own turn, propels them into the esophagus, whose peristaltic action takes them as far as the stomach.

One mouthful thus cared for, another follows it; liquids which are drunk in the pauses between them follow the same path, and this process of deglutition continues until the same instinct which first invoked ingestion warns us that it is time to stop. It is rare, however, that the first signal is heeded: one of the privileges of the human race is to be able to drink without thirst and, at least in the present state of progress, our cooks know very well how to make us eat without hunger.

By a remarkable feat, every crumb of food which we swallow must escape two dangers before it reaches the stomach:

The first is that it might be caught up into the nasal passages, if the soft palate and the construction of the pharynx did not prevent it;

The second risk would be to fall into the windpipe, over the top of which all our nourishment must pass, and this could be even more serious, since the instant a foreign body falls into this pipe, a convulsive cough begins, and cannot end until the object is expelled.

But, thanks to an admirable mechanism, the glottis contracts during the act of swallowing; it is protected by the epiglottis as well, which hoods it, and we have a certain instinct which prevents us from breathing while we swallow, so that in the main it can be said that, in spite of our strange construction, our nourishment arrives safely enough in the stomach, where we lose any command over it and where digestion itself takes the helm.

80: Digestion is a completely mechanical function, and its apparatus can be considered as a mill furnished with sifters
destined to extract whatever foods will serve to strengthen our bodies and to reject what is left when it has been drained of its nutritive parts.

There has for a long time been argument over the manner in which digestion takes place: whether it be by the action of heat, of ripening, of fermentation, of gastric or chemical or vital dissolution, etc.

It has a little of each of these things in it; and the only trouble with the whole thing has been that a single one was blamed in each case for the result of many necessarily united causes.

Foods, in effect, arrive in the stomach impregnated with all the fluids which the mouth and esophagus furnish them, and then are penetrated by the ample gastric juice which is always present there; they are submitted for several hours to a heat of about one hundred degrees Fahrenheit; they are sifted and mixed by the organic action of the stomach, which has been excited by their presence; one acts upon another, thanks to this juxtaposition; and it is impossible to avoid fermentation, since almost everything that is edible ferments.

As a result of all these processes, the chyle
²
or fluid form of digested food develops; the first supply of any aliment in the stomach is perforce the first to be seized upon; it passes through the pyloris and descends into the intestines: another bit follows it, and so on, until there is nothing left in the stomach, which has emptied itself, it can be said, by mouthfuls and in the same way it was filled.