Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin – författare

A book without precedent, skirting the line between recipe-book, memoir, history and philosophy, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste is edited with an introduction by Anne Drayton in Penguin Classics.Brillat-Savarin's unique, exuberant collection of dishes, experiences, reflections, history and philosophy raised gastronomy to an art form. First published in France in 1825, this remarkable book reflected a new era in French cuisine: the advent of the restaurant, which gave the bourgeoisie the opportunity to select their dishes with precision and anticipation. Yet the author also gives his views on taste, diet and maintaining a healthy weight, on digestion, sleep, dreams and being a gourmand. Witty, shrewd and anecdotal, The Physiology of Taste not only contains some remarkable recipes, it an elegant argument for the pleasures of good food and a hearty appetite.Anne Drayton's lively translation is accompanied by an introduction illustrating the remarkable nature of this work, by a man who was not a chef or an author but a magistrate in a French provincial town.Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1825) was born in Belley, France, an area renowned for its food and wine. After graduating in law, Brillat-Savarin became magistrate of Belley and was later elected Mayor. During the French Revolution his life was endangered and he fled to other parts of Europe and then America, earning his living as a violinist in a theatre orchestra. He returned to France in 1796 and became a judge of the Supreme Courts of Appeal. He began compiling a book of meditations on gastronomy and in 1825, a few months before his death, published this brilliant treatise on the pleasures of eating: the culmination of a life-long love affair with food.

"An animal swallows its food; a man eats it, but only a man of intelligence knows...how to dine.""The man who gives a dinner for a group of his friends and takes no trouble over what they are to eat is not fit to have any friends.""The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a new star."The above are a few of the "transcendental" meditations upon cooking as an art and eating as a pleasure which glow throughout the length of Physiologie du Goût. Brillat-Savarin was alive to the necessity of charming and even amusing his readers, and he is not averse from a certain exaggeration, which, however, we shall greatly misjudge if we think it completely satirical or frivolous. He regards food quite seriously as the most important thing in existence.The reader watches for his anecdotes as for purple patches, for he was a perfect narrator and tells his stories with incredible gusto. The book is full of information on curious points which lie outside the range of ordinary knowledge. The reader will browse for hours in the pasture of this delightful book. It is the one masterpiece on the subject. Health, happiness, hospitality, culture, converse, love, and the whole art of keeping fit and living well are bound up with it.

Dieser Buchtitel ist Teil des Digitalisierungsprojekts Springer Book Archives mit Publikationen, die seit den Anfängen des Verlags von 1842 erschienen sind. Der Verlag stellt mit diesem Archiv Quellen für die historische wie auch die disziplingeschichtliche Forschung zur Verfügung, die jeweils im historischen Kontext betrachtet werden müssen. Dieser Titel erschien in der Zeit vor 1945 und wird daher in seiner zeittypischen politisch-ideologischen Ausrichtung vom Verlag nicht beworben.