Week 1: Amuse Bouche
1 Gastronomy. Brillat-Savarin, Jean -Anthelme. “Aphorisms” (The Physiology of Taste).
Skim the text and find a section that amuses you - write a status updatesized musing on why it amused you to share with everyone.
I type this one handed for the other hand holds a little sausage of a 9 week old who has fallen asleep after nursing. She arrived 8 weeks early so I indulge her, letting her nurse herself to sleep and nurse for comfort in the hope of fattening her up. It's working: born weighing 2.1kg (4lb 10oz), she now weighs 3.8 kg (8lbs 6oz) but more importantly, just this past week, her thighs have become plump and juicy and therefore deeply reassuring.
So, with the mindset of a nursing (about every hour and a half) mother, I skimmed the reading. I first was struck by the following aphorism in the section, aphorisms of the professor: "The universe would be nothing were it not for life and all that lives must be fed." Later, he elaborates:
"Of all the senses though with which we have been endowed by nature, the taste is the one, which all things considered, procures us the most enjoyments. 1. Because the pleasure of eating is the only one, when moderately enjoyed, not followed, by fatigue. 2. It belongs to all aeras, ages and ranks. 3. Because it necessarily returns once a day, and may without inconvenience be twice or thrice repeated in the same day. 4. It mingles with all other pleasures, and even consoles us for their absence. 5. Because the impressions it receives are durable and dependant on, our will. 6. Because when we eat we receive a certain indefinable and peculiar impression of happiness originating in instinctive conscience. When we eat too, we repair our losses and prolong our lives."
I am struck by the truth of this as I observe my daughter and her happiness at being near her food source (me) and my own happiness at seeing her plump thighs.
And one more observation, why do we (maybe it is only me?) use so much food based language and evaluation when discussing babies? Examples off the top of my head:
- "i could just eat her up"
- or specifying which part to eat: feet or hands
- plump, juicy thighs
