My translation (which actually is "the translation owned by the late founder of the restaurant at which I work, now owned by her offspring, who have themselves little gout and no idea what treasures remain in the bookshelves of her apartment, which is now used for seating large parties, of which I am always the server, since the apartment is reached up a long flight of high, narrow stairs, and, thanks to my daily regimen of grands plies and Hindoo squats (and Hindoo pushups and back bridge, &tc.) I can go up and down them with ease, even with a football tray full of freaking heavy Nambe plates, and also I am very good at what I do, as has been written previously") is by MFK Fisher (bet you forgot there was a clause coming here!), who does a marvelous job capturing the essence of the book. It's no substitute for the original, but since I don't have that, it does very nicely.
He's right about so many things, from the necessity to change wines throughout a meal, to the versatility of vin de methode champagnoise, which, should I ever be executed, will begin and end my last meal. He's also right that such a wine causes gregariousness at first, but that continued drinking leads to solemnity, which makes it an even better choice for such a sad event as described above.
He loves truffles more than anyone I've ever heard of, except perhaps the pigs who search for them, though Professeur Brillat-Savarin deserves a better comparison. He has great affection for the gourmand--so long as they do not eat too fast! He would have approved of my great-grandfather, whom I'm told ended meals with the pronouncement, "Thank God for capacity!"
The attention he pays to each stage of the meal is something we seem to have forgotten; it's the necessity for uninterrupted digestion in the aftermath of a good meal that leads us to prohibit politics and religion at table. He divides the experience of a meal into several sections, but the most interesting to me were those that precede and close it: digestion, as above, and appetite. The experience of appetite, the slight tightening of the stomach, is itself a pleasure, he writes. And, thinking back, he's right. The book is full of moments like that, where a previously unexamined sensation is recognized as he describes it, and aha! one says, that is what it is like.
His Gallic nature is quite well suited to his subject, although this reader smiled a bit to see that he placed "sexual attraction" among the six senses. The book is flirtatious in any case, making sly references to a "private diary" which appears not to have existed except as a figment to make certain ladies of his acquaintance nervous. The ladies need not have worried; the professor would ever have been a perfect gentleman. Indeed, he would have made an excellent dinner companion, able to discourse on any subject with ease, pleasant, a lover of food and wine. Alas, his book will have to take his place, which it does with charm and a touch of wistfulness-for the meals, and conversations, that might have been.
But what is osmazome?
Also, the spell-checker does not recognize "truffles"? Who writes these programs? Monkeys? Not that I use a spell-checker....
