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.

The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure.

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

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

Animals feed themselves; men eat; but only wise men know the art of eating

'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.'

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.