The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.
Interpretation
This quote celebrates the diverse flavors and culinary advancements introduced over centuries.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin emphasizes how the passage of time has enriched human taste through discoveries of various ingredients and beverages. The quote highlights the importance of these innovations in creating new flavors that enhance our culinary experiences, suggesting that food is not only a basic necessity but also a source of pleasure and cultural expression.
In practice
This quote can be used in a culinary presentation to highlight the evolution of flavors.
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.
You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?
Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving and identity.
The greatest lesson came with the realization that good food cannot be reduced to single ingredients. It requires a web of relationships to support it.
My work has gotten more political over time, but once you start exploring food, you find you're up against economics and politics and psychology and anthropology, all of these different things you have to deal with.
There is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
Tokyo would probably be the foreign city if I had to eat one city's food for the rest of my life, every day. It would have to be Tokyo, and I think the majority of chefs you ask that question would answer the same way.
The biggest empty space, the biggest gap in what should be a premier and always vibrant food scene in America is that we don't have hawker centers like they do in Singapore, basically food courts where mom and pop specialists can set up shop in fairly hygienic little stalls all up to health code making one dish they've been doing forever and ever.
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