(1755-1826)
Brillat-Savarin was a French magistrate and legislator, whose reputation
as man of letters rests mainly upon a single volume, his inimitable
'Physiologie du Goût'. Although writing in the present century, he was
essentially a Frenchman of the old régime, having been born in 1755 at
Belley, almost on the border-line of Savoy, where he afterwards gained
distinction as an advocate. In later life he regretted his native
province chiefly for its figpeckers, superior in his opinion to ortolans
or robins, and for the cuisine of the innkeeper Genin, where "the
old-timers of Belley used to gather to eat chestnuts and drink the new
white wine known as _vin bourru_"
[Illustration: Brillat-Savarin]
After holding various minor offices in his department, Savarin became
mayor of Belley in 1793; but the Reign of Terror soon forced him to flee
to Switzerland and join the colony of French refugees at Lausanne.
Souvenirs of this period are frequent in his 'Physiologie du Goût', all
eminently gastronomic, as befits his subject-matter, but full of
interest, as showing his unfailing cheerfulness amidst the vicissitudes
and privations of exile. He fled first to Dôle, to "obtain from the
Representative Prôt a safe-conduct, which was to save me from going to
prison and thence probably to the scaffold," and which he ultimately
owed to Madame Prôt, with whom he spent the evening playing duets, and
who declared, "Citizen, any one who cultivates the fine arts as you do
cannot betray his country!" It was not the safe-conduct, however, but an
unexpected dinner which he enjoyed on his route, that made this a
red-letter day to Savarin:--"What a good dinner!--I will not give the
details, but an honorable mention is due to a _fricassée_ of chicken, of
the first order, such as cannot be found except in the provinces, and so
richly dowered with truffles that there were enough to put new life into
old Tithonus himself."
The whole episode is told in Savarin's happiest vein, and well-nigh
justifies his somewhat complacent conclusion that "any one who, with a
revolutionary committee at his heels, could so conduct himself,
assuredly has the head and the heart of a Frenchman!"
Natural scenery did not appeal to Savarin; to him Switzerland meant the
restaurant of the Lion d'Argent, at Lausanne, where "for only 15 _batz_
we passed in review three complete courses;" the _table d'hôte_ of the
Rue de Rosny; and the little village of Moudon, where the cheese
_fondue_ was so good. Circumstances, however, soon necessitated his
departure for the United States, which he always gratefully remembered
as having afforded him "an asylum, employment, and tranquillity." For
three years he supported himself in New York, giving French lessons and
at night playing in a theatre orchestra. "I was so comfortable there,"
he writes, "that in the moment of emotion which preceded departure, all
that I asked of Heaven (a prayer which it has granted) was never to know
greater sorrow in the Old World than I had known in the New." Returning
to France in 1796, Savarin settled in Paris, and after holding several
offices under the Directory, became a Judge in the Cour de Cassation,
the French court of last resort, where he remained until his death
in 1826.
Although an able and conscientious magistrate, Savarin was better
adapted to play the kindly friend and cordial host than the stern and
impartial judge. He was a convivial soul, a lover of good cheer and
free-handed hospitality; and to-day, while almost forgotten as a jurist,
his name has become immortalized as the representative of gastronomic
excellence. His 'Physiologic du Goût'--"that _olla podrida_ which defies
analysis," as Balzac calls it--belongs, like Walton's 'Compleat Angler',
or White's 'Selborne', among those unique gems of literature, too rare
in any age, which owe their subtle and imperishable charm primarily to
the author's own delightful personality. Savarin spent many years of
loving care in polishing his manuscript, often carrying it to court with
him, where it was one day mislaid, but--luckily for future generations
of epicures--was afterward recovered. The book is a charming badinage, a
bizarre ragoût of gastronomic precepts and spicy anecdote, doubly
piquant for its prevailing tone of mock seriousness and intentional
grandiloquence.
In emulation of the poet Lamartine, Savarin divided his subject into
'Meditations', of which the seventh is consecrated to the 'Theory of
Frying', and the twenty-first to 'Corpulence'. In the familiar aphorism,
"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are", he strikes his
key-note; man's true superiority lies in his palate! "The pleasure of
eating we have in common with the animals; the pleasure of the table is
peculiar to the human species." Gastronomy he proclaims the chief of all
sciences: "It rules life in its entirety; for the tears of the new-born
infant summon the breast of its nurse, and the dying man still receives
with some pleasure the final potion, which, alas, he is not destined to
digest." Occasionally he affects an epic strain, invoking Gasteria,
"the tenth muse, who presides over the pleasures of taste." "It is the
fairest of the Muses who inspires me: I will be clearer than an oracle,
and my precepts will traverse the centuries." Beneath his pen, soup,
"the first consolation of the needy stomach," assumes fresh dignity; and
even the humble fowl becomes to the cook "what the canvas is to the
painter, or the cap of Fortunatus to the charlatan." But like the worthy
epicure that he was, Savarin reserved his highest flights of eloquence
for such rare and toothsome viands as the _Poularde fine de Bresse_, the
pheasant, "an enigma of which the key-word is known only to the adepts,"
a _sauté_ of truffles, "the diamonds of the kitchen," or, best of all,
truffled turkeys, "whose reputation and price are ever on the increase!
Benign stars, whose apparition renders the gourmands of every category
sparkling, radiant, and quivering!" But the true charm of the book lies
in Savarin's endless fund of piquant anecdotes, reminiscences of bygone
feasts, over which the reader's mouth waters. Who can read without a
covetous pang his account of 'The Day at Home with the Bernadins,' or of
his entertainment of the Dubois brothers, of the _Rue du Bac_, "a bonbon
which I have put into the reader's mouth to recompense him for his
kindness in having read me with pleasure"?
'Physiologic du Goût' was not published until 1825, and then
anonymously, presumably because he thought its tone inconsistent with
his dignity as magistrate. It would almost seem that he had a
presentiment of impending death, for in the midst of his brightest
'Variétés' he has incongruously inserted a dolorous little poem, the
burden of each verse being "Je vais mourir." The 'Physiologic du Goût'
is now accessible to English readers in the versions of R.E. Anderson
(London, 1877), and in a later one published in New York; but there is a
subtle flavor to the original which defies translation.