You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the concept of human greed and the consequences of choices.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's quote uses the metaphor of the first parents in the human race who ruined their place in paradise for a simple apple to illustrate the idea that even greater temptations could lead to even worse outcomes. By juxtaposing the temptation of an apple with the thought of a 'truffled turkey', Savarin prompts us to consider the foolishness of our desires and the substantial consequences that can arise from them, serving as a commentary on human nature and the pitfalls of indulgence.
In practice
In a discussion about the pitfalls of human greed, this quote illustrates our poor choices.
It has been shown as proof positive that carefully prepared chocolate is as healthful a food as it is pleasant; that it is nourishing and easily digested... that it is above all helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work.
The limits of pleasure are as yet neither known nor fixed, and that we have no idea what degree of bodily bliss we are capable of attaining.
Place a substantial meal before a tired man and he will eat with effort and be little better for it at first. Give him a glass of wine or brandy, and immediately he feels better: you see him come to life again before you.
Gourmandism is an act of judgment, by which we prefer things which have a pleasant taste to those which lack this quality.
In the hands of an able cook, fish can become an inexhaustible source of perpetual delight.
Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life.
There is no such thing as an impartial jury because there are no impartial people. There are people that argue on the web for hours about who their favorite character on 'Friends' is.
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
I hope I never get so old I get religious.
Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.
I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.
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