The Physiology of Taste Part 35

"Are you there, nephew?" said she in an almost inaudible voice.

"Yes, aunt! I think you would be better if you would take a little old wine." "Give it to me, liquids always run down." I hastened to lift her up and gave her half a gla.s.s of my best and oldest wine.

She revived for a moment and said, "I thank you. If you live as long as I have lived, you will find that death like sleep is a necessity."

These were her last words, and in half an hour she had sank to sleep forever.

Richerand has described with so much truth the gradations of the human body, and the last moments of the individual that my readers will be obliged to me for this pa.s.sage.

"Thus the intellectual faculties are decomposed and pa.s.s away.

Reason the attribute of which man pretends to be the exclusive possessor, first deserts him. He then loses the power of combining his judgment, and soon after that of comparing, a.s.sembling, combining, and joining together many ideas. They say then that the invalid loses his mind, that he is delirious. All this usually rests on ideas familiar to the individual. The dominant pa.s.sion is easily recognized. The miser talks most wildly about his treasures, and another person is besieged by religious terrors.

"After reasoning and judgment, the faculty of a.s.sociation becomes lost. This takes place in the cases known as defaillances, to which I have myself been liable. I was once talking with a friend and met with an insurmountable difficulty in combining two ideas from which I wished to make up an opinion. The syncopy was not, however, complete, for memory and sensation remained. I heard the persons around me say distinctly he is fainting, and sought to arouse me from this condition, which was not without pleasure.

"Memory then becomes extinct. The patient, who in his delirium, recognized his friends, now fails even to know those with whom he had been on terms of the greatest intimacy. He then loses sensation, but the senses go out in a successive and determinate order. Taste and smell give no evidence of their existence, the eyes become covered with a mistful veil and the ear ceases to execute its functions. For that reason, the ancients to be sure of the reality of death, used to utter loud cries in the ears of the dying. He neither tastes, sees, nor hears. He yet retains the sense of touch, moves in his bed, changes the position of the arms and body every moment, and has motions a.n.a.logous to those of the foetus in the womb. Death affects him with no terror, for he has no ideas, and he ends as he begun life, unconsciously.

"(Richerand's Elements on Physiology, vol. ii. p. 600.)

MEDITATION XXVII.

PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE KITCHEN.

COOKERY is the most ancient of arts, for Adam must have been born hungry, and the cries of the infant are only soothed by the mother's breast.

Of all the arts it is the one which has rendered the greatest service in civil life. The necessities of the kitchen taught us the use of fire, by which man has subdued nature.

Looking carefully at things, three kinds of cuisine may be discovered.

The first has preserved its primitive name.

The second a.n.a.lyzes and looks after elements: it is called chemistry.

The third, is the cookery of separation and is called pharmacy.

Though different objects, they are all united by the fact that they use fire, furnaces, etc., at the same time.

Thus a morsel of beef, which the cook converts into potage or bouilli, the chemist uses to ascertain into how many substances it may be resolved.

ORDER OF ALIMENTATION.

Man is an omnivorous animal: he has incisors to divide fruits, molar teeth to crush grain, and canine teeth for flesh. Let it he remarked however, that as man approaches the savage state, the canine teeth are more easily distinguishable.

The probability was, that the human race for a long time, lived on fruit, for it is the most ancient food of the human race, and his means of attack until he had acquired the use of arms are very limited. The instinct of perfection attached to his nature, however, soon became developed, and the sentiment attached to his instinct was soon exhibited, and he made weapons for himself. To this he was impelled by a carniverous instinct, and he began to make prey of the animals that surrounded him.

This instinct of destruction yet exists: children always kill the animals that surround them, and if they were hungry would devour them.

It is not strange that man seeks to feed on flesh: He has too small a stomach, and fruit has not nourishment enough to renovate him. He could subsist on vegetables, but their preparation requires an art, only reached after the lapse of many centuries.

Man's first weapons were the branches of trees, and subsequently bows and arrows.

It is worthy of remark, that wherever we find man, in all climates and lat.i.tudes, he has been found with and arrows. None can see how this idea presented itself to individuals so differently placed: it must be hidden by the veil of centuries.

Raw flesh has but one inconvenience. Its viscousness attaches itself to the teeth. It is not, however, disagreeable. When seasoned with salt it is easily digested, and must be digestible.

A Croat captain, whom I invited to dinner in 1815, was amazed at my preparations. He said to me, "When in campaign, and we become hungry, we knock over the first animal we find, cut off a steak, powder it with salt, which we always have in the sabretasche, put it under the saddle, gallop over it for half a mile, and then dine like princes."

When the huntsmen of Dauphiny go out in Septemher to shoot, they take both pepper and salt with them. If they kill a very fat bird they pluck, season it, carry it some time in their caps and eat it. They say it is the best way to serve it up.

If our ancestors ate raw food we have not entirely gotten rid of the habit. The most delicate palates like Aries' sausages, etc., which have never been cooked, but which are not, on that account, the less appetising.

DISCOVERY OF FIRE.

Subsequently to the Croat mode, fire was discovered. This was an accident, for fire is not spontaneous. Many savage nations have been found utterly ignorant of it.

BAKING.

Fire having been discovered it was made use of to perfect food; at first it was made use of to dry it, and then to cook it.

Meat thus treated was found better than when raw. It had more firmness, was eaten with less difficulty, and the osmazome as it was condensed by carbonization gave it a pleasing perfume.

They began, however, to find out that flesh cooked on the coals became somewhat befouled, for certain portions of coal will adhere to it. This was remedied by pa.s.sing spits through it, and placing it above burning coals at a suitable height.

Thus grillades were invented, and they have a flavor as rich as it is simple. All grilled meat is highly flavored, for it must be partially distilled.

Things in Homer's time had not advanced much further, and all will be pleased here to read the account of Achilles' reception of the three leading Greeks, one of whom was royal.

I dedicate this story to the ladies, for Achilles was the handsomest of all the Greeks, and his pride did not prevent his weeping when Briseis was taken from him, viz:

[verse in Greek]

The following is a translation by Pope:

"Patroclus, crown a larger bowl, Mix purer wine, and open every soul. Of all the warriors yonder host can send, Thy friend most honours these, and these thy friend."

He said: Patroclus o'er the blazing fire Heaps in a brazen vase three chines entire: The brazen vase Automedon sustains, 'Which flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains: Achilles at the genial feast presides, The parts transfixes, and with skill divides.

Meanwhile Patroclus sweats the fire to raise; The tent is brightened with the rising blaze:

Then, when the languid flames at length subside, He strews a bed of glowing embers wide, Above the coals the smoking fragments turns And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns; With bread the glittering canisters they load. Which round the board Menoetius'

son bestow'd: Himself, opposed to Ulysses, full in sight, Each portion parts, and orders every rite. The first fat offerings, to the immortals due, Amid the greedy Patroclus threw; Then each, indulging in the social feast, His thirst and hunger soberly repress'd. That done, to Phoenix Ajax gave the sign; Not unperceived; Ulysses crown'd with wine The foaming bowl, and instant thus began, His speech addressing to the G.o.dlike man: "Health to Achilles!"

Thus then a king, a son of a king, and three Grecian leaders dined very comfortably on bread, wine, and broiled meat.

We cannot but think that Achilles and Patroclus themselves prepared the entertainment, if only to do honor to the distinguished guests they received. Ordinarily the kitchen business was abandoned to slaves and women, as Homer tells us in Odyssey when he refers to the entertainment of the heralds.

The entrails of animals stuffed with blood were at that time looked on as very great delicacies.

At that time and long before, beyond doubt, poetry and music, were mingled with meals. Famous minstrels sang the wonders of nature, the loves of the G.o.ds, and warlike deeds of man. Theirs was a kind of priesthood and it is probable that the divine Homer himself was sprung from one of those men favored by heaven. He would not have been so eminent had not his poetical studies begun in his childhood.

Madame Dacier observes that Homer does not speak of boiled meat anywhere in his poems. The Jews had made much greater progress in consequence of their captivity in Egypt. They had kettles. Esau's mess of potage must have been made thus. For this he sold his birthright.

It is difficult to say how men learned the use of metals. Tubal Cain, it is said, was the inventor.