Brillat-Savarin

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star. —Anthelme Brillat-Savarin... 

The preoccupation of the French with food was never better exemplified than in the life and writings of the gourmet Brillat-Savarin. Indeed, his philosophic observation antedated by many years the concept of the central modulation of gastric secretion. 

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) (bottom) and the frontispiece of his monumental contribution to the art of gastronomy. Savarin spent 2 years in America (as a refugee from the French revolution), initially in New York, where he taught language and played violin in an orchestra at the John Street theatre. Because New York failed to satisfy his intellectual and culinary tastes, he subsequently moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he spent 2 years becoming familiar with American culture (sic) and food before returning to France. He believed that the chemical nature of food profoundly influenced human physiology and emotional behavior. 

Brillat-Savarin JA. The physiology of taste (meditation on transcendental gastronomy). San Francisco, CA Northpoint Press, 1986. 

A Frenchman called Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. 

To understand that, you have to start with truffles. They are fungi that grow underground. There are white truffles and black truffles, as Brillat-Savarin said (first talking about the Italian white truffles) ... 

Brillat-Savarin,J. The Physiology of Taste, English translation http // ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/... 

Savarin and his book - http //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.jpg... 

---