Definition: Brillat-Savarin

He was born at a time when the Rhône River separated France from Savoy, into a bourgeois family that had served France in the judiciary from father to son. He studied law, chemistry and medicine in Dijon and then settled in his hometown to practise law. Belley owes its fame to its illustrious son, and tourists flock there in the summer from Aix and Chambéry. Brillat-Savarin has a statue and a street named after him, and his family's manor house is on display.

As mayor of Belley, he was sent as a representative of the Third Estate for the bailiwick of Bugey to the Estates General, participated in the Constituent Assembly and then in the National Assembly in 1789, at the beginning of the Revolution, and made a name for himself largely thanks to a public speech in defence of the death penalty. When the National Assembly was dissolved, he returned to Belley to resume his duties as mayor. But as a Girondin, he had to flee from the dominant Montagnards.

He went to Switzerland and stayed at the Hôtel du Lion d'Argent in Lausanne —in his Physiologie, which covers everything from philosophy to recipes and memories—we find a description of a pleasant meal at this establishment. From there, he left for the Netherlands, then the newly created United States, where he stayed for three years, earning a living by giving French lessons and playing the violin. At one point, he was first violin at the Park Theatre in New York. He also stayed in Philadelphia and Hartford.

In 1797, he returned to France to join the Army of the Rhine as Augereau's secretary. Suddenly, he was appointed advisor to the Court of Cassation. It was within this learned and peaceful assembly, now ignorant of political turmoil, indifferent to the rumours of Paris and the sounds of battle shaking the whole of Europe, dreaming, meditating and writing, that Brillat-Savarin became the legislator and poet of gastronomy. He adopted his second family name after the death of an aunt named Savarin, who bequeathed him her entire fortune on the condition that he adopt her name.

He remained single, but was no stranger to love, which he considered to be the sixth sense: "genetic, or physical love, [is the sense] that draws the sexes to each other, and whose purpose is the reproduction of the species."

Shortly after the publication of The Physiology of Taste, the famous gastronome caught a cold in the cellars of Saint-Denis during an expiatory ceremony in honour of Louis XVI, which he was attending in his capacity as advisor to the Court of Cassation, and died of pneumonia. He is buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

He published several works on law and political economy. But his most famous publication is The Physiology of Taste, published anonymously in December 1825, two months before his death. The full title is Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy; a theoretical, historical and topical work, dedicated to Parisian gourmets by a professor and member of several literary and scholarly societies.

Brillat-Savarin's definition of gastronomy in chapters 18-19:

18 - "Gastronomy is the reasoned knowledge of everything related to man, insofar as he feeds himself. Its goal is to ensure the preservation of mankind through the best possible food. It achieves this by guiding, through certain principles, all those who seek, supply or prepare things that can be converted into food. Thus, it is gastronomy, in fact, that motivates farmers, winegrowers, fishermen, hunters and the numerous family of cooks, whatever title or qualification they use to disguise their job of preparing food.

Gastronomy is linked to

to natural history, through its classification of food substances;

to physics, through the examination of their composition and qualities;

to chemistry, through the various analyses and decompositions to which it subjects them;

cooking, through the art of preparing dishes and making them palatable;

to commerce, through the search for ways to purchase what it consumes at the best possible price and to sell what it offers for sale at the most advantageous price;

finally, to political economy, through the resources it provides for taxation and the means of exchange it establishes between nations.

Gastronomy governs our entire lives, for the cries of a newborn call for the breast of its nurse, and the dying still receive with some pleasure the last drink which, alas, they can no longer digest.

It also concerns all classes of society; for while it directs the banquets of assembled kings, it also calculates the number of minutes of boiling necessary for an egg to be cooked to perfection. The material subject of gastronomy is everything that can be eaten; its direct goal is the preservation of individuals, and its means of execution are the culture that produces, the trade that exchanges, the industry that prepares, and the experience that invents the means to arrange everything for the best use. Various objects dealt with by gastronomy.

19 - Gastronomy considers taste in its pleasures as well as in its pains; it has discovered the gradual excitations to which it is susceptible; it has regularised its action and set the limits that a self-respecting man must never exceed. It also considers the effect of food on man's morale, on his imagination, his mind, his judgement, his courage and his perceptions, whether he is awake or asleep, whether he is acting or resting. It is gastronomy that determines the point of edibility of each food substance, for not all are presentable in the same circumstances. Some must be eaten before they have reached full development, such as capers, asparagus, suckling pigs, squab, and other animals that are eaten at a young age; others, when they have reached their full perfection, such as melons, most fruits, mutton, beef, and all adult animals; others when they begin to decay, such as medlars, woodcock, and especially pheasant; and finally, others after the processes of art have removed their harmful qualities, such as potatoes, manioc, and others.It is again gastronomy that classifies these substances according to their various qualities, indicates those that can be combined, and, measuring their various degrees of palatability, distinguishes those that should form the basis of our meals from those that are only accessories and from those that, although no longer necessary, are nevertheless a pleasant distraction and become the obligatory accompaniment to convivial conversation. It takes no less interest in the beverages intended for us, according to the season, place and climate. It teaches us how to prepare them, preserve them and, above all, present them in such a calculated order that the resulting enjoyment continues to increase until the moment when pleasure ends and abuse begins. It is gastronomy that inspects people and things, transporting from one country to another everything that deserves to be known, and making a skilfully arranged feast like a compendium of the world, where each part is represented by its representatives."

"Aphorisms of the Professor" by Brillat-Savarin

1. The universe is nothing but life, and everything that lives feeds.

2. Animals feed; humans eat; only humans of spirit know how to eat.

3. The destiny of nations depends on the way they feed themselves.

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

5. The Creator, by obliging man to eat in order to live, invites him to do so through appetite, and

rewards them with pleasure.

6. Gluttony is an act of our judgement, by which we give preference to things that are pleasant to the taste over those that do not have this quality.

7. The pleasure of the table is for all ages, all conditions, all countries and all days; it can be associated with all other pleasures, and remains the last to console us for their loss.

8. The table is the only place where one is never bored during the first hour.

9. The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.

10. Those who get indigestion or get drunk do not know how to drink or eat.

11. The order of food is from the most substantial to the lightest.

12. The order of drinks is from the most temperate to the most smoky and fragrant.

13. To claim that one should not change wines is heresy; the tongue becomes saturated, and after the third glass, even the best wine arouses only a dull sensation.

14. A dessert without cheese is like a beauty with one eye missing.

15. One becomes a cook, but one is born a roaster.

16. The most essential quality of a cook is precision: it must also be that of the guest.

17. Waiting too long for a late guest is disrespectful to all those who are present.

18. Anyone who receives friends and takes no personal care in the meal prepared for them is not worthy of having friends.

19. The hostess must always ensure that the coffee is excellent, and the host that the liqueurs are of the highest quality.

20. To invite someone is to take responsibility for their happiness for as long as they are under our roof.