Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Quotes

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.

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.

The dyspeptic and the drunkard do not know how to eat or drink.

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion of sounding or vibrating bodies.

To know how to eat well, one must first know how to wait.

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

The limits of pleasure are as yet neither known nor fixed, and that we have no idea what degree of bodily bliss we are capable of attaining.

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.

Burgundy makes you think of silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them, and Champagne makes you do them.

Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old.

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.

Salad freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating.

The universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats.

Those from whom nature has withheld taste invented trousers.

Poultry is for the cook what canvas is for a painter, or the cap of Fortunatus for a conjurer.

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.

Dessert without cheese is like a beauty with only one eye

The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves.

An intelligently planned feast is like a summing up of the whole world, where each part is represented by its envoys.

Alcohol carries the pleasures of the palate to their highest degree.

Whosoever says truffle, utters a grand word, which awakens erotic and gastronomic ideas.

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.

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.

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.

For unknown foods, the nose acts always as a sentinal and cries. 'Who goes there?'

The fate of a nation depends on the way that they eat.

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell.

Truffle isn't exactly aphrodisiac but under certain circumstances it tends to make women more tender and men more likable

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline.

Meals, in the sense in which we understand this word, began with the second age of the human species.

The German Doctors say that persons sensible of harmony have one sense more than others.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Gluttony is mankind's exclusive prerogative.

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.

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.

The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them.

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.

I am essentially an amateur medecin, and this to me is almost a mania.

'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.'

The table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour.