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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the difference between physical nourishment and the immediate uplifting effect of spirits on a weary person.
Brillat-Savarin emphasizes the distinction between mere sustenance and the restorative qualities of indulgence, such as wine or brandy, suggesting that while food provides necessary energy, it is often the comfort and pleasure from drink that can truly revive someone's spirit. This observation reflects on human experience and the ways in which different forms of nourishment can impact one's condition, not only physically but also emotionally and psychologically.
In practice
During a dinner party, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of atmosphere in dining experiences.
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.
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.
You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?
Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life.
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
Death will be too late to bring us aid.
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; Filths savour but themselves.
If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.
I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view.
Deep down we've never been who we think we once were, and we only remember what never happened.
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