The Physiology of Taste Part 19

What influence it has on obedience to the laws, submission to authority, and respect to persons and property.

What one should do to escape from danger.

What influence it has on love, friendship, parental affection, self-love and devotion.

What is its influence on the religious sentiments, faith, resignation and hope.

History can furnish us a few facts on its moral influence, for the end of the world has more than once been predicted and determined.

I am very sorry that I cannot tell my readers how I settled all this, but I will not rob them of the pleasure of thinking of the matter themselves. This may somewhat shorten some of their sleepless hours, and ensure them a few siestas during the day.

Great danger dissolves all bonds. When the yellow fever was in Philadelphia, in 1792, husbands closed the doors on their wives, children deserted their fathers, and many similar phenomena occurred.

Quod a n.o.bis Deus avertat!

MEDITATION XI.

ON GOURMANDISE.

I HAVE looked through various dictionaries for the word gourmandise and have found no translation that suited me. It is described as a sort of confusion of gluttony and voracity. Whence I have concluded that lexicographers, though very pleasant people in other respects, are not the sort of men to swallow a partridge wing gracefully with one hand, with a gla.s.s of Laffitte or clos de Vougeot in the other.

They were completely oblivious of social gourmandise, which unites Athenian elegance, Roman luxury and French delicacy; which arranges wisely, flavors energetically, and judges profoundly.

This is a precious quality which might be a virtue and which is certainly the source of many pure enjoyments.

DEFINITIONS.

Let us understand each other.

Gourmandise is a pa.s.sionate preference, well determined and satisfied, for objects which flatter our taste.

Gourmandise is hostile to all excesses: any man who becomes drunk or suffers from indigestion is likely to be expunged from the lists.

Gourmandise also comprehends, friandise (pa.s.sion for light delicacies) for pastry, comfitures, etc. This is a modification introduced for the special benefit of women, and men like the other s.e.x.

Look at gourmandise under any aspect you please, and it deserves praise.

Physically, it is a demonstration of the healthy state of the organs of nutrition.

Morally, it is implicit resignation to the orders of G.o.d, who made us eat to live, invites us to do so by appet.i.te, sustains us by flavor, and rewards us by pleasure.

ADVANTAGES OF GOURMANDISE.

Considered from the points of view of political economy, gourmandise is the common bond which unites the people in reciprocal exchanges of the articles needed for daily consumption.

This is the cause of voyages from one pole to the other, for brandy, spices, sugars, seasonings and provisions of every kind, even eggs and melons.

This it is which gives a proportional price to things, either mediocres, good or excellent, whether the articles derive them out of, or from nature.

This it is that sustains the emulation of the crowd of fishermen, huntsmen, gardeners and others, who every day fill the wealthiest kitchens with the result of their labours.

This it is which supports the mult.i.tude of cooks, pastry-cooks, confectioners, etc., who employ workmen of every kind, and who perpetually put in circulation, an amount of money which the shrewdest calculator cannot imagine.

Let us observe that the trades and occupations dependent on gourmandise have this great advantage, that on one hand it is sustained by great misfortunes and on the other by accidents which happen from day to day.

In the state of society we now have reached, it is difficult to conceive of a people subsisting merely on bread and vegetables.

Such a nation if it existed would certainly be subjected by carnivorous enemies, as the Hindoos were, to all who ever chose to attack them. If not it would be converted by the cooks of its neighbors as the Beotiens were, after the battle of Leuctres.

SEQUEL.

Gourmandise offers great resources to fiscality, for it increases customs, imports, etc. All we consume pays tribute in one degree or another, and there is no source of public revenue to which gourmands do not contribute.

Let us speak for a moment of that crowd of preparers who every year leave France, to instruct foreign nations in gourmandise. The majority succeed and obedient to the unfasting instinct of a Frenchman's fever, return to their country with the fruits of their economy. This return is greater than one would think.

Were nations grateful, to what rather than to gourmandise should France erect a monument.

POWER OF GOURMANDISE.

In 1815, the treaty of the month of November, imposed on France the necessity of paying the allies in three years, 750,000,000 francs.

Added to this was the necessity of meeting the demands of individuals of various nations, for whom the allied sovereigns had stipulated, to the amount of more than 300,000,000.

To this must be added requisitions of all kinds by the generals of the enemies who loaded whole wagons, which they sent towards the frontier, and which the treasury ultimately had to pay for. The total was more than 1,500,000,000 francs.

One might, one almost should have feared, that such large payments, collected from day to day, would have produced want in the treasury, a deprecation of all fict.i.tious values, and consequently all the evils which befall a country that has no money, while it owes much.

"Alas," said the rich, as they saw the wagon going to the Rue Vivienne for its load; "all our money is emigrating, next year we will bow down to a crown: we are utterly ruined; all our undertakings will fail, and we will not be able to borrow. There will be nothing but ruin and civil death."

The result contradicted all these fears; the payments, to the amazement of financiers, were made without trouble, public credit increased, and all hurried after loans. During the period of this superpurgation, the course of exchange, an infallible measure of the circulating of money, was in our favor. This was an arithmetical proof that more money came into France than left it.

What power came to our aid? What divinity operated this miracle?

Gourmandise.

When the Britons, Germans, Teutons, Cimmerians, and Scythes, made an irruption into France, they came with extreme voracity and with stomachs of uncommon capacity.

They were not long contented with the cheer furnished them by a forced hospitality, but aspired to more delicate enjoyments. The Queen City, ere long, became one immense refectory. The new comers ate in shops, cafes, restaurants, and even in the streets.

They gorged themselves with meat, fish, game, truffles, pastry and fruit.

They drank with an avidity quite equal to their appet.i.te, and always called for the most costly wine, expecting in those unknown enjoyments, pleasures they did not meet with.

Superficial observers could not account for this eating, without hunger, which seemed limitless. All true Frenchmen, however, rubbed their hands, and said, "they are under the charm; they have spent this evening more money than they took from the treasury in the morning."

This epoch was favorable to all those who contributed to the gratification of the taste. Very made his fortune, Achard laid the foundation of his, and Madame Sullot, the shop of whom, in the Palais Royal, was not twenty feet square, sold twelve thousand pet.i.ts pates a day.

The effect yet lasts, for strangers crowd to Paris from all parts of Europe, to rest from the fatigues of war. Our public monuments, it may be, are not so attractive as the pleasures of gourmandise, everywhere elaborated in Paris, a city essentially gourmand.

A LADY GOURMAND.