Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Biography

Formation

It is born, at one time when the the Rhone then separates the France from the Savoy, in a middle-class family, which, as wire father, was used France in the magistrature. He studies the Droit, the Chimie and the Médecine with Dijon and settles then in its birthplace to practice the right.

Political role in France

Mayor of Belley, it is sent like appointed of the Tiers state for the Bailliage of the Bugey to the General states, takes part in the Constituante, then with the National Assembly in 1789. At the beginning of the Revolution, it is made known mainly thanks to a public speech on the defense of the Capital punishment. To the dissolution of the National Assembly, it returns in Belley to take again its function of mayor. But, Of Gironde, it must flee in front of the Montagnards dominating.

Belley owes a fame with his/her famous son, and the tourists go there readily, during the summer, since Aix and Chambéry. Brillat-Savarin has its statue, its street there; to the Gentilhommière his family is shown.

Exile

It passes to Switzerland, remains with the hotel of the Money Lion of Lausanne - in his Physiologie , where there is of all, of philosophy, the receipts and the memories, one finds the table of a pleasant meal in this place. From there, it leaves for the Netherlands, then the the United States lately created, during three years; it earns its living there by giving French lessons, and while playing of the violin: it is at one time first violin with the Park Theater of New York. It also remains with Philadelphia and Hartford.

Magistrature in France

In 1797, it is of return in France to the Armée with the Rhine, secretary of Augereau. And, abruptly, it is named to advise with the Court of appeal.

It is within this assembly learned and peaceful that ignoramus from now on the political storms, indifferent to the rumors of Paris and the noises of the battle which shake all Europe, dreaming, meditating, writing, Brillat-Savarin will become the legislator and the poet of greediness.

It adopts its second family name after the death of named aunt Savarin who bequeaths all her fortune in the condition to him that it adopts its name. There remains unmarried, without being foreign with the love, which he regards as the sixth direction: “the genesic , or physical love , the direction which involves the sexes one towards the other, and the goal is the reproduction of the species. ”

Shortly after the publication of the Physiology of the taste , celebrates it gastronome, having taken cold in the caveaux ones of Saint-Denis, with the expiatory ceremony in the honor of Louis XVI to which it assisted in the capacity as advising at the Court of appeal, is carried by a pneumonia.

It rests with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise to Paris.

Works

It publishes several work of right and political economy. But its most famous publication is the Physiologie of the taste , published without name of author in December 1825, two months before its death. The complete title is Physiologie of the Taste, or Meditations of Transcendent Gastronomy; theoretical, historical work and with the day order, dedicated to the Parisian Gastronomes, by a Professor, member of several literary and erudite companies .

Success

Success exceeded any waiting. Hardly the book it had appeared that one placed it beside the Maximes of Rochefoucauld and of the Caractères of the Heather: “Divine Book, wrote Hoffmann, which carried to art to eat the torch of the genius. ” And Balzac itself to ratify this judgment. As for the public, it was not mistaken there; it kept all its favor with this writer whose expression has such an amount of savor and spontaneousness. The aphorisms, like the maxims, like the proverbs, apply to realities which are as old as humanity; they do not invent anything, but condense in a final formula a thousand-year-old wisdom; this is why Brillat-Savarin took its place among the great classics.

Its writings, although often verbeux and excessive, mixing with impertinence humor, insolence and derision, remained extremely important and did not cease being analyzed since its death. In a series of meditations which owe something with the tests of Montaigne, Brillat-Savarin discourses of the pleasures of the table, which it treats like a science. Its French models are the designers of the old mode: Voltaire, Rousseau, Fénelon, Buffon, Cochin and of Aguesseau is preferred authors. In addition to the Latin , it knows five living languages, which it is inclined to employ when the occasion allows it. As modernistic, he never hesitates to borrow a word, like the sip English (“to drink with small mouthful”), when French is not enough for him.

Posterity

The literary critic Roland Barthes still pays homage to him: “The book of Brillat-Savarin is from beginning to end the book of “properly human”, because it is the desire (in what he speaks himself) which distinguishes the man. ”

The cheese brillat-savarin is named in its honor.

Epicureanism

The true philosophy of Épicure is found behind all the pages; simplest of the mets Brillat-Savarin satisfies, as long as it is made with art:

“Those which were indigèrent or which are enivrent can neither drink nor to eat. ”

Quotations and aphorisms

; Philiosophie of the gastronomy

the Universe is not only by the life, and all that saw is nourished.
the creator, by obliging the man to eat to live, invites there by the appetite, and rewards some by the pleasure.
the discovery of mets new fact more for happiness of mankind that the discovery of a star.
the destiny of the nations depends on the way in which they are nourished.
the animals repaissent themselves; the man eats; the man of spirit alone can eat.
greediness is the exclusive prerogative of the man.
Say to me what you eat, I will say to you who you are.
Those which were indigèrent or which are enivrent can neither drink nor to eat.

; Greediness

Without the participation of the sense of smell, it does not have complete tasting there.
greediness is an act of judgment, by which we grant the preference to the things which are pleasant with the taste on those which do not have this quality.

; The pleasures of the table

the pleasure of the table is of all the ages, of all the conditions, all the countries and the every day; there can join all the other pleasures, and remains the last to comfort us of their loss.
the table is the only place where one is never bored during the first hour.
Put a man tired in front of a heavy meal, it will eat with effort and will feel perhaps better. Give him glass of wine or from alcohol, it immediately will return in its best state: you see it living again under your eyes.

; The cook

One becomes cook, but one is born grill-room owner.
a restorer is that whose trade consists in offering to the public an always ready feast.
the most essential quality of the cook is exactitude; it must be also that of invited.

; Art to receive

Convier somebody, it is to take care of its happiness all the time that it is under our roof.
That which receives his/her friends and does not give any personal care to the meal which is prepared to them is not worthy to have friends.
the housewife must always make sure that the coffee is excellent; and the Master, that the liquors are of first choice.

; The meal

the order of edible is more substantial with lightest.
the order of drinks more moderate to smokiest and is scented.
Prétendre that one should not change wines is a heresy; the language is saturated; and, after third glass, the best wine wakes up nothing any more but one blunt feeling.
a dessert without cheese is beautiful with which it misses an eye.
Happy chocolate, which after having run the world, through the smile of the women, finds death in a tasty kiss and flux of their mouth.

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