INFLUENCE OF DIGESTION (BRILLAT-SAVARIN)

 Among the young, digestion is often accompanied by a slight shivering, and among the old, by a strong desire for sleep.

  In the former case, Nature is withdrawing the heat from the surface to make use of it in her laboratory ; in the latter, the same motive power, weakened by age, is unable to cope with the labour of digestion and the stimulation of the senses at one and the same time.

  In the initial stages of digestion, it is dangerous to engage in mental activity, and more dangerous still to indulge the cravings of the flesh.  Hundreds of men are carried away every year down the stream which flows to the graveyards of the capital, because after dining well, and sometimes by reason of dining too well, they have not been able to shut their eyes and stop up their ears.

John Cale: Guts (Spanish TV Link)

Text:  Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Philosopher in the Kitchen, tr. Anne Drayton, New York, Penguin, 1970. 

THE PHILOSOPHER IN THE KITCHEN (1825)

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Venus At The Mirror, 1613-14, private collection. 


115.  Fattening Régime

Every thin woman wishes to put on flesh; this is an ambition that has been confided to us a thousand times.  It is therefore as a final tribute to the all-powerful sex that we shall not look for means of replacing by real shapes those artificial charms, in silk or cotton, which may be seen lavishly displayed in the fashion shops, to the great scandal of the prudish, who pass by horrified and avert their gaze from these chimeras with as much and more care than if the reality was visible to their eyes.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Diana and Callisto, 1639, Prado Museum, Madrid.

Text:  Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Philosopher in the Kitchen, tr. Anne Drayton, New York, Penguin, 1970.

Paul Anka: Diana (Link) 

Television: Venus (Link)