The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1907-06-13
Gastronomy is Neglected, According
to the Famous Brillat-Savarn.
WHAT SHOULD BE KNOWN.


French Writer of Long Ago Lays
Down the Rules to be Observed
by the Epicure.
Ny friend Prof. Bedeler Maturin eX-
ercises the right of a bachelor and a
man of so to considerable number
of eccentricities. All of these are
harmless, since he is by nature a gen-
tleman, and, his habit being that OF a
scholar, some of them are. of more
than Ordinary interest, says a writer
in the New York Post. | very well
remember my first learning OF that one
I am about describe. My family hay-
ing left town for the summer, I found
him dining at the Athenaeum, as /
knew him frequently to do for the
sake of detachment from the bachelor
menage be maintained-as much for
his books as for him-self-in house
near the river not far from the uni
versity.
He beckoned me to take my already
ordered dinner at the particular cor
ner table for which his preference
was always respected by his fellow
Athenians, and after smile of greet
ing he passed over to me the book he
had been reading, '"The Physiology OF
Taste" by Brillat-Savarin, with the
quiet comment, "The Standard gauge
of modern civilization"
Fundamental Truths.
had never before seen the work of
that high priest of gastrOnOmy, but
before examining it | looked my sur
prise at the apparent enthusiasm OF
the scholar whose abstemious habits
were we'll known TO his friends and
whose slender figure, thoughtful eyes
and clear-cut features made it impOs-
sible to associate him with the pleas
ures of the table For reply he
merely indicated several OF the Fun
damental Truths of the Science" on
the open page before me:
But for life the universe were
nothing, and all that has life requires
nourishment.'
"The fate Of nations depends upon
how they are fed"
"The man of sense and culture
alone understands eating"
I was familiar with Dean Swift's
tracing the origin OF certain essays to
the consumption of particular varie-
ties of cheese, and had read Matur-
ms own whimsical paragraphs ex-
planning the peculiarities of certain
national literatures by the Characters
tioc af fhnirs nofinno1 hovnro0nc opd
paralleling the growth of humanitari-
anism with the increasing use of to-
baccO, which he almost never touched,
but he seemed now to be serious, SO
that | merely asked what he made of
such a statement as the following
which I read from his author: "The
discovery of a new dish does more for
the happiness of the human race than
the discovery of planet"
In Praise of Gastronomy.
Explaining that he would have the
author convince me rather than him
self, he indicated yet another para
graph: what praise can be refused
the science which sustains us from
the cradle to the grave, which entran-
ces the delights of love and the
pleasures of friendship, which disarms
hatred, makes business easier and at
fords us, during the short voyage oil
our lives, the only enjoyments that
| both relieve us from fatigue and them
selves entail monet"
Take it and read it," he said, as
looked up, Il know it by heart"
gladly accepted the volume, for there
was here evidently more than ap
peared; but also expressed the wish
that he would himself first tell me
more about it, and this, retaking the
book, his own dinner being now
finished and mine but about to begin
he proceeded to do
Il should not need to remind you,
he began, chat I am no friend of in
ldulgence, much less so gross a form
as overlooking, nor to speak of my
known antagOnlsm to every form o.
| ignorance-exceptt to explain that it is
for these reasons that | have become
an earnest advocate of gastronomy
which endeavOrs to transform eating
from the ignorant indulgence it usu
ally is to a reasonable science of nutri
ton and refined art of enjoyment
Whatever popular disesteem the
science and the art still suffers is due
either to ignorance of it's serious en-
deavor or to a Puritanic attitude thai
is both inconsistent and irreverent
The fabric OF nature is so constituted
that all OF our essential processes arr
accompanied by pleasure; thorough
ly consistent ascetic would necessaril.
cease to exist"
Fame Of Brillat-Savarin.
Brillat-Savarin-his first name wa
Anthelme although, of course, no
founder of the movement, is its mos
admirable modern champion. III
lived from the first half of tn,
eighteenth century through the frs
quarter of the nineteenth, first a
mayor of his native town in France
then, during the revolution, an exil
in Switzerland and in America: and
finally, during the last third of hi