Savarin Quotes & Sayings

Brillat-Savarin claimed to have seen the vicar of Bregnier eat the following within forty-five minutes: a bowl of soup, two dishes of boiled beef, a leg of mutton, a handsome capon, a generous salad, a ninety-degree wedge from a good-sized white cheese, a bottle of wine, and a carafe of water. If Brillat-Savarin was not exaggerating, the amount of food eaten by the vicar in less than an hour would have provided enough calories for a day or more. It is hard to imagine a wild chimpanzee achieving such a feat. — Richard W. Wrangham

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Dessert without cheese is like a beauty with only one eye — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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

The truffle is not a positive aphrodisiac, but it can upon occasion make women tenderer and men more apt to love. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

There are neither raptures, nor ecstasies, nor transports of bliss in the pleasures of the table; but they make up in duration what they lose in intensity, and are distinguished above all by the merit of inclining us towards all the other pleasures of life, or at least of consoling us for the loss of them. — Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Every cure of obesity must begin with these three essential precepts:discretion in eating, moderation in sleeping, and exercise ... — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Gluttony is mankind's exclusive prerogative. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Alcohol carries the pleasures of the palate to their highest degree. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The fate of a nation depends on the way that they eat. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I appreciate the potato only as a protection against famine, except for that, I know of nothing more eminently tasteless. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Animals fill themselves; man eats. The man of mind alone knows how to eat. — Brillat-Savarin

Truffle isn't exactly aphrodisiac but under certain circumstances it tends to make women more tender and men more likable — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Meals, in the sense in which we understand this word, began with the second age of the human species. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The way in which meals are enjoyed is very important to the happiness of life.6 — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The German Doctors say that persons sensible of harmony have one sense more than others. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

A meal without wine is like a day without sun — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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?" — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

'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.' — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The host took care to produce one or another of these whenever the current subjects seemed about used up, so that the conversation gathered new life and at the same time steered clear of political arguments, which are hindersome to both ingestion and digestion. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
— Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I am essentially an amateur medecin, and this to me is almost a mania. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Whosoever says truffle, utters a grand word, which awakens erotic and gastronomic ideas ... — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Alcohol is the monarch of liquids. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The dyspeptic and the drunkard do not know how to eat or drink. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

In the hands of an able cook, fish can become an inexhaustible source of perpetual delight. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Burgundy makes you think of silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them, and Champagne makes you do them. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Poultry is for the cook what canvas is for the painter. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The sense of smell, like a faithful counsellor, foretells its character. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Brillat-Savarin, said: 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are.' He had it wrong. It's not just what we eat that shows who we are, it's what we buy but don't eat that says more about the people we think we are. Or want to be. Look at the ingredients in your cupboards. All those hopes and dreams. — Kate Lord Brown

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Salad freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Smell and taste are in fact but a single composite sense, whose laboratory is the mouth and its chimney the nose. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a peculiar flavor, like none other. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Taste, which enables us to distinguish all that has a flavor from that which is insipid. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Gourmandism is an act of judgment, by which we prefer things which have a pleasant taste to those which lack this quality. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Fowls are to the kitchen what his canvas is to the painter. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The senses are the organs by which man places himself in connexion with exterior objects. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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! — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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." — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Animals feed themselves; men eat; but only wise men know the art of eating — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Those from whom nature has withheld taste invented trousers. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

1: There are at least six of them: Sight, which embraces space itself, and tells us by means of light of the existence of the objects which surround us, and of their colors. Hearing, which absorbs through the air the vibrations caused by agreeably resonant or merely noisy bodies. Smell, by means of which we savor all odorous things. Taste, by which we appreciate whatever is palatable or only edible. Touch, by which we are made aware of the surfaces and the textures of objects. Finally physical desire, which draws the two sexes together so that they may procreate. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

To know how to eat well, one must first know how to wait. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Ever since that day in Chicago, whenever I see such scenes, I think of a quote by Billat-Savarin, the eighteenth-century 'modern' gastronome, well known for his writings and meditations on the physiology of taste and for his famous dictum 'We are what we eat.' But he also wrote even more revealingly: 'The destiny of a nation depends on how it feeds itself. — Mireille Guiliano

No man under forty can be dignified with the title of gourmet. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

An intelligently planned feast is like a summing up of the whole world, where each part is represented by its envoys. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Beasts feed. Man eats. Only the man of intellect knows how to eat. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

For unknown foods, the nose acts always as a sentinal and cries. 'Who goes there?' — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion of sounding or vibrating bodies. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The most indispensable qualification of a cook is punctuality. The same must be said of guests. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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

The universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin