" Boswell affirms that he never knew a man who dispatched a dinner
better than the great moralist. But what avails it to defend cooks and
gourmands? It is an axiom in political economy, according to Malthus,
that _he who makes two blades of grass grow, where before there was but
one, ought to be considered as the benefactor of his country, and of
mankind_. Is not this a service which the epicure and the cook every day
do their country? Addison thought differently from Johnson on this
subject: "Every time," says he, "that I see a splendid dinner, I fancy
fever, gout, and dropsy, are lying in ambush for me, with the whole race
of maladies which attack mankind: in my opinion an epicure is a fool."
What does this blustering of Addison prove? Boswell also asserts, that
Addison often complained of indigestion. And in the present times, the
first chemist of the day, Sir Humphry Davy, passes for a finished
gourmand.
Roasting, boiling, frying, broiling, do not alone constitute the arc of
cooking, otherwise the savage of the Oronoco might be _maitre d'hotel_
with Prince Esterhazy.
The science of gastronomy made great progress under Louis XV., a
brilliant epoch for the literature of gastronomy: together with the
fashions, customs, freedom of opinion, and taste for equipages and
horses brought from Great Britain--some new dishes taken from the
culinary code of this country, such as puddings and beef-steaks, were
also introduced into France.
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