'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.'

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

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.

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.

The most indispensable qualification of a cook is punctuality. The same must be said of guests.

Gourmandism is an act of judgment, by which we prefer things which have a pleasant taste to those which lack this quality.

Smell and taste are in fact but a single composite sense, whose laboratory is the mouth and its chimney the nose.