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.
Do we really think that the United States will have the protection of innocent Afghans in mind if it rains terror down on the Afghan infrastructure? We are supposedly fighting them because they immorally killed innocent civilians. That made them evil. If we do the same, are we any less immoral?
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
Life is filled with abstractions, and the only way to make heads or tails of it is going through intuition.
The Old Religion, as we call it, is closer in spirit to Native American traditions or to shamanism of the Arctic. It is not based on dogma or a set of beliefs, nor on scriptures or a sacred book revealed by a great man. Witchcraft takes it's teachings from nature, and reads inspiration in the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, the flight of birds, the slow growth of trees, and the cycles of the seasons.
There's a safety in thinking in a diner. You can have your coffee or your milkshake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner.
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