How I pity you!

Roman financiers, who made the whole known universe pay tribute, never did your far-famed banquet-halls witness the appearance of those succulent jellies, the delight of the indolent, nor those varied ices whose cold would brave the torrid zone.

How I pity you!

Invincible paladins, celebrated by flattering minstrels, when you had cleft in twain the giants, set free the ladies, and exterminated armies, never, alas! never did a dark-eyed captive offer you the sparkling champagne, the malmsey of Madeira, the liqueurs, creation of this great century:  you were reduced to ale or to some cheap herb-flavored wine.

How I pity you!

Crosiered and mitred abbots, dispensers of the favors of heaven; and you, terrible Templars, who donned your armor for the extermination of the Saracens,—­you knew not the sweetness of chocolate which restores, nor the Arabian bean which promotes thought.

How I pity you!

Superb chatelaines, who during the loneliness of the Crusades raised into highest favor your chaplains and your pages, you never could share with them the charms of the biscuit and the delights of the macaroon.

How I pity you!

And lastly you, gastronomers of 1825, who already find satiety in the lap of abundance, and dream of new preparations, you will not enjoy those discoveries which the sciences have in store for the year 1900, such as esculent minerals and liqueurs resulting from a pressure of a hundred atmospheres; you will not behold the importations which travelers yet unborn shall cause to arrive from that half of the globe which still remains to be discovered or explored.

How I pity you!

ON THE LOVE OF GOOD LIVING

I have consulted the dictionaries under the word gourmandise, and am by no means satisfied with what I find.  The love of good living seems to be constantly confounded with gluttony and voracity; whence I infer that our lexicographers, however otherwise estimable, are not to be classed with those good fellows amongst learned men who can put away gracefully a wing of partridge, and then, by raising the little finger, wash it down with a glass of Lafitte or Clos-Vougeot.

They have utterly forgot that social love of good eating which combines in one, Athenian elegance, Roman luxury, and Parisian refinement.  It implies discretion to arrange, skill to prepare; it appreciates energetically, and judges profoundly.  It is a precious quality, almost deserving to rank as a virtue, and is very certainly the source of much unqualified enjoyment.

Gourmandise, or the love of good living, is an impassioned, rational, and habitual preference for whatever flatters the sense of taste.  It is opposed to excess; therefore every man who eats to indigestion, or makes himself drunk, runs the risk of being erased from the list of its votaries. Gourmandise also comprises a love for dainties or tit-bits; which is merely an analogous preference, limited to light, delicate, or small dishes, to pastry, and so forth.  It is a modification allowed in favor of the women, or men of feminine tastes.