It is Day 4 of our foray into the words of the
author of Dining and its Amenities, by a
Lover of Good Cheer (New York, 1907) on the role of the senses in the
pleasure of eating. Today it is the turn of the most obviously relevant sense –
that of taste. Again, his science is out of date, but his thoughts are still
worth a little of our reading time.
***
The gustative sense, than which there is no more precious gift
of the Creator to the creature, is cultivable to a high state only by man, even
from the humblest beginnings. It is likely that the first taster, perceiving
what is now called sapidity in an odorous object, after bruising it in his
mouth, swallowed it because good, and finding a second object malodorous and
unsavory rejected it because bad or because it failed to cause the pleasing
buccal sensation producedby the first. It may be said, therefore, that gustation or taste
is the perception as well as the distinction of certain properties of ingested
aliments. Perhaps a glance at the derivation of gustation and taste may help to
a clear conception of the value of these terms; the one from gustare and the other intensively from tangere and formerly used synonymously
with totest, to try, to feel, as appears when Hotspur says: “ . . Come,
let me taste my horse who is tobear me like a thunderbolt,” and when Toby Belch says to
Cesario: “Taste your legs, Sir; put
them to motion.”
The French use altogether
goût while we have the two
words gust and taste to convey the same idea or even different shades of
meaning, and base thereupon our stock of qualifyers, etc.; thus from gust come
gustation, gustative, gustatory, gustable, gustful, gustless, ingustible,
disgustible, disgust, disgustful, disgusting, and from taste, tasting, tasty,
tasteful, tasteless. Other expressions relating also to quality, such as
sapidity, saporific, sapid, insipid; savor, savory, unsavory; flavor, flavoring,
flavorless, etc., are in great request in gastronomy.
Strictly, to taste is to test, try, feel with the tongue any
alimentary or other substance put into the mouth with a view of ascertaining
whether sapid or insapid, good, bad, or indifferent; the perception of these
characters being seated in the gustative center of the brain whence is
reflected the general sensation of pleasure or displeasure.
Taste, like many other words pertaining to alimentation, is much
used figuratively, as in the expressions good or bad taste, or simply its want,
in written or in spoken language, and in dress, deportment, art, etc.; the old
adage, "De gustibus non est
disputandum'' being applied to both the original term and its figurative
usage. For instance, an aliment which is agreeable to one individual may be
repugnant to another. A particular work of art may give great pleasure to
an uninformed gazer and fail to satisfy the aesthesis of vision
of a good judge of such productions. Some forms or combinations of colors which
are pleasing to the eyes of the multitude are often offensive to the few whose
visual sense is highly cultivated. Certain
odors are pleasing to some persons and displeasing to others, as
in the case of meeting of an Athenian with a Spartan woman whose hair exhaled
the penetrating stench of a rancid unguent shocking to the olfactive
sensibility of the delicately perfumed Athenian woman whose refined essences
were equally repellant to the Spartan woman, so they simultaneously turned away
in disgust.
In gastronomy, taste requires long cultivation, and seldom
reaches its maturity before the age of forty, despite refined home
surroundings. Except, of course in the case of the fair sex, where is to be
found the perfection of daintiness and veritable gourmetism which is of the
rarest occurrence in adolescent males. The hunger of youth is imperative and
its cry is mainly for quantity. It is well known that many aliments disliked at
twenty are relished at forty, and vice versa. The excellence of certain wines,
such as those of Burgundy and of Madeira, is scarcely appreciated by the young
who crave the sweet and sparkling. The gratification of the sense of tastegives the highest attainable pleasure only to the experienced
gourmet who is wont to eat and drink, always in moderation, but with the
greatest attention and reflexion; and remembers the Master's aphorism to the
effect that ''Those who feed to surfeit and tipple to saturation know not how
to eat or drink."
The seat of the end-organs of gustation is chiefly at the base
and sides of the tongue which are the regions of the calciform papillae and of
their adjuncts the fungiform; the filiform papillae, disseminated upon nearly
the whole lingual surface, being purely tactile. However, the concurrence of
the tactile and olfactive senses is essential to perfect gustation and to thefull enjoyment of delicious aliments.
Some experimenters have reached the conclusion that there are
but two veritable savors; the sweet and the bitter, while others recognise
three additional savors, the saline, the alkaline, and the acid; but all reject
the idea of acrid savors which really result from the mechanical action of
acrid substances upon the tactile papillae of the tongue and indeed upon the
whole buccal membrane. They all very properly discard the so-called aromatic
savor which belongs exclusively to olfaction.
Tasty aliments are often designated palatable, although the
palate is passive as regards gustation;
its office being purely mechanical. It serves as a firmly fixed
surface against which the tongue bruises the food to express and diffuse sapid
particles for quick action by the saliva without which there would be no
gustation. The other parts of the buccal cavity are said to possess no more
than tactile properties.
The only truly gustible aliments are those containing sweet,
bitter, saline, alkaline, or acid principles. Hence the free use of condiments
of such nature in good cookery, and of pungent condiments in moderation to
stimulate all the papillae of the tongue. Fats are gustible from their mildly
saline principle but generally need an addition of salt or sugar. Bread without
salt would be tasteless. Sweet and acid fruits are always enjoyable when
sufficiently ripe. Nuts of divers kinds are liked on account of their bitter or
acid principle, and their taste is often improved by a sprinkle of salt or
sugar. Distilled water is insipid but rendered sapid by the addition of atrace of salt or sugar. Wines are gustible by reason of the
sugar therein contained; it is their aroma that gives the greater pleasure
through olfaction. Very dry wines, with but a trace of sugar, act mechanically
upon the lingual papillae, and their ethers are enjoyed through the sense of
smell. Rum is gustible owing to its sweetness. The love of cocktails and other equallyinjurious mixed drinks is because of their bitter, sweet, and
acid ingredients. Beer would be insipid but for its contained lupuline or other
bitter substance.
Taste, then, with its closely associated olfactive and tactile
senses, may be regarded, gastronomically, as the special and general sensation
of pleasure or displeasure evoked by the perception and specialisation of the
temperature, succulence, sapidity, and perfume of aliments; and figuratively,
as a judgment of the beautiful, the sublime, and the picturesque.'
***
In
view of the author’s strong opinion on the ‘injurious nature’ of cocktails and
other mixed drinks,’ I feel obliged to spring to their defense. I give you
therefore, a few words on ‘Punch’, because the mixing of good punch requires us
to consider and balance several of the various taste elements which we can
distinguish – sweet, sour, and bitter. The words are from Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (1869) by William Terrington.
PUNCH
Whene'er a bowl of punch we make,
Four striking opposites we take-
The strong, the small, the sharp, the
sweet,
Together mixed, most kindly meet.
And when they happily unite,
The bowl is “ ragrant with
delight."
THIS delicious beverage, which, if compounded in a proper
manner, is not so intoxicating as it has the character of being, is a
composition of sugar, lemon, water, or milk, and spirit, with the addition of
some aromatic or cordial; wine being sometimes substituted for the spirit.
There is no precise rule for making punch, no two persons agreeing in the exact
proportions of the ingredients. The great secret is that the mixture should be
so happily compounded that nothing predominates. …
A decoction of tea, especially a mixture of green and Pekoe, is
preferred to water for the liquor of punch. …
Punch is much improved by adding a very small quantity (which
the size of the bowl will regulate) of flowers of benzoin ; it imparts the
flavour of arrack to the punch.
A piece of butter, about the size of a filbert nut, is used by
many people to soften punch; this size will be sufiicient for a quart.
Guava or apple jelly makes punch truly delicious.
The following formula will give a good idea of the general
method of preparing punch on a rather large scale :
Begin by paring the rinds of 30 lemons very thin ; pound them in
a mortar with sufficient sugar to form a dry stiff paste ; strain the juice;
collect the pips, which put in a saucepan, and pour on them a pint of boiling
water; keep hot, so as to draw out the thick mucilaginous flavour; mix together
and strain clear, adding a little boiling water to the remains in the strainer
; when ready, taste the sherbet; add more acid, or sugar, if required, and the
liquor (tea or water); to every quart of sherbet add % pint of rum, and 1 pint
of brandy. This punch, if not made too weak with liquor, will keep some time.
It can ‘also have whatever addition the taste or fancy of the manipulator may
choose to prescribe for the sake of variety.
Tolpsey’s Account of
a West India Planter’s Punch.
“He made his appearance with a respectably sized bowl, an
enormous jug of boiling water, and a large paper bag filled with sugar. Our
punch-maker then commenced operations, and having extracted from his secret
store a bottle of his matchless rum, his limes, and a small pot of guava jelly,
he brewed about a pint of green tea (2 oz.), and, the infusion finished,
two-thirds of the sugar was dissolved in it. After the tea leaves had been
thrown aside, the remainder of the sugar was rubbed on the lime ; Mr. Hamilton
observing that the essential oil, which conveyed the exquisite flavour, was
much more strongly diffused throughout the compound than when the skin was
peeled; then the delicious acid of the fruit was added to the already
impregnated sugar, and as soon as the several lumps had imbibed the proportions
required, the guava jelly (and without this confection no punch can be
pronounced perfect) was dissolved in a pint or so of ' boiling water. This
done, the tea, the sweets, and the acids were commingled, and the foundation or
sherbert tasted by the experienced palate of the grand compounder; six glasses
of Cognac, two of Madeira, and the bottle of rum were added, and over all about
a quart more of boiling water, and, as a finishing touch, the slightest
possible sprinkling of nutmeg.
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