The Physiology of Taste; Or, Transcendental GastronomyBrillat-Savarin
Philosophy
The Physiology of Taste; Or, Transcendental Gastronomy
Brillat-Savarin
Gastronomy
A person, however, who has eaten too much, sinks at once to sleep.
If he dreams, he remembers nothing of it, for the nervous fluid
has been intercepted in the passages. He awakes quickly, and when
awake is very sensible of the pains of digestion.
We may then lay down, as a general rule, that coffee rejects
sleep. Custom weakens and even causes this inconvenience entirely
to disappear. Europeans, whenever they yield to it, always feel
its power. Some food, however, gently invites sleep; such as that
which contains milk, the whole family of letuces, etc., etc.
CONSEQUENCE.
Experience relying on a multitude of observations, has informed us
that diet has an influence on dreams.
In general, all stimullkt food excites dreams, such as flock game,
ducks, venison and hare.
This quality is recognised in asparagus, celery, truffles,
perfume, confectioneries and vanilla.
It would be a great mistake to think that we should banish from
our tables all somniferous articles. The dreams they produce are
in general agreeable, light, and prolong our existence even when
it is suspended.
There are persons to whom sleep is a life apart, and whose dreams
are serial, so that they end in one night a dream begun on the
night before. While asleep they distinguish faces they remember to
have seen, but which they never met with in the real world.
RESULT.
A person who reflects on his physical life and who does so
according to the principles we develop, is the one who prepares
sagaciously for rest, sleep and dreams.
He distributes his labor so that he never over-tasks himself, he
lightens it and refreshes himself by brief intervals of rest,
which relieve him, without interrupting its continuity, sometimes
a duty.
If longer rest is required during the day, he indulges in it only
in a sitting attitude; he refuses sleep unless he be forced
irresistibly to use it, and is careful not to make it habitual.
When night brings about the hour of repose, he retires to an airy
room, does not wrap himself up in curtains, which make him breathe
the same air again and again, and never closes the blinds so that
when he wakes he will meet with at least one ray of light.
He rests in a bed with the head slightly higher than the feet. His
pillow is of hair; his night cap of cloth and his breast
unincumbered by a mass of coverings; he is careful, however, to
keep his feet warm.
He eats with discretion, and never refuses good and excellent
cheer. He drinks prudently, even the best wine. At dessert he
talks of gallantry more than of politics, makes more madrigals
than epigrams. He takes his coffee, if it suits his constitution,
and afterwards swallows a spoonful of liquor, though it he only to
perfume his breath. He is, in all respects, a good guest, and yet
never exceeds the limits of discretion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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