Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (14 page)

It is not for money, nor the pursuit of honor in an art that the unjust world wishes to appear to revile, but in the conviction that I am doing something useful for the public, that I now reprint, with corrections and a supplement of 100 new recipes, this gastronomical treatise of mine, having also been encouraged by the reception given the first edition of 1,000 copies, which has now sold out.

I beg the kind Ladies and good Housewives, for whom this work of great effort and expense is intended, to study it with love, for they will derive great advantage from it. May they continue to bestow their much-desired favor on me, and I shall be a happy man.

The emperor Tiberius used to say that man, after the age of thirty-five, should no longer have any need of doctors. While this aphorism, in a broad sense, may be true, it is no less true that if called in time, a doctor can nip an illness in the bud and even save you from a premature death. Moreover, even if a doctor does not cure you, he often provides relief, and always gives comfort.

The emperor Tiberius’s maxim is true inasmuch as man, by the time he has reached the halfway point in his life, ought to have gained enough experience about himself to know what things are harmful and beneficial to him. By means of a good diet, he should be able to govern himself in such a way as to keep his health in perfect balance. This is not difficult to do so long as his condition is not threatened by innate defects or internal injuries. Moreover, having reached that age, any man should also have acquired the conviction that the best care is prophylactic, or preventive, that one should expect very little from medicines, and that the cleverest physician is the one who prescribes few and simple things.

Nervous and oversensitive persons, especially if idle and apprehensive, imagine themselves as having a thousand ills that in fact exist only in their imaginations. One such person, speaking of himself, said to his doctor one day: “I don’t know how a man with so many ailments can survive.” Not only did he survive, with a few small inconveniences shared by many; he actually lived to a ripe old age.

These unhappy hypochondriacs—for that is exactly what they are—deserve all our sympathy, for they are unable to free themselves from the fetters of an exaggerated, constant fear, and there is no way to convince them otherwise, since they feel suspicious of the zeal of those who seek to comfort them. You often see them with a sullen look in their eyes, clasping their wrists and sighing audibly as they gaze with horror into the mirror to look at their tongues; at night they will leap from their beds, frightened by the throbbing of their startled hearts. Food, for them, is an ordeal, and not only because of the quality of the ingredients; fearing they have eaten too much, they will worry about some impending disaster, or else, wishing to correct this with excessive abstinence, they will lose sleep at night or have unpleasant dreams. Always thinking of themselves, they live in fear of catching a cold or cough, and go outside so wrapped up they look like pig-livers in cheesecloth. With each new hint of cold, they add layer upon layer, to the point of discrediting the very layers, I say, of an onion. For such persons as these, no form of medicine is valid. A conscientious doctor would say to them: have fun, amuse yourselves, take frequent walks in the open air, as much as your strength will allow, travel, and in good company, if you can afford it, and you will feel better.

It goes without saying that I am speaking here of the privileged classes, since those not favored by fortune are forced, in spite of themselves, to make a virtue of necessity and to seek consolation in the belief that an active, frugal life leads to a sound body and lasting health.

Passing now from these preliminaries to some general considerations of good health, let me recall for you a few precepts that have long enjoyed the endorsement of science, but which are never repeated enough. First of all, as concerns wardrobe, I turn my attentions to those of you Ladies who may be mothers, and I say to you: Start by dressing your children lightly, from infancy, for with this method, when they are grown up they will be less sensitive to sudden changes in atmospheric temperature and less subject to colds and bronchitis. And
if in winter you do not let the stove raise the heat in your apartment above 12 or 14 degrees Centigrade (about 60 degrees Fahrenheit), you will probably be safe from pneumonia, which has become so prevalent these days.

With the arrival of the first cool days, do not weigh yourself down all at once with too many clothes. One outer garment should suffice, one that can be easily taken off or put back on with the frequent alternations of the season, until the cold has definitively settled in. Later, when spring is approaching, remember the following proverb, which I find to be unquestionably true:

In April stay appareled,
In May go just halfway,
In June discard your pantaloon,
But give it not away,
For it may serve another day
.

Try to live in healthy houses, full of light and well ventilated: illness flees where the sun shines in. Pity those ladies who receive guests in semi-darkness, and in whose homes you stumble into the furniture and know not where to put your hat. Because of this custom of living in dimly lit rooms, of not moving their feet or getting out into the open air, and because their sex tends by nature to drink little wine and rarely eats meat, preferring vegetables and sweets, such ladies are seldom seen with red cheeks, the sign of prosperous health, or with fine complexions all blood and milk. Their flesh is not firm but flaccid, their faces like vetches that one grows in the dark to adorn tombs on Holy Thursday. Is it any wonder, then, that among women one finds so many hysterics, neurotics and anemics?

Get in the habit of eating everything, if you don’t wish to become a burden to your family. Those who refuse many things offend the others and the head of the family, who are forced to conform to their
caprices to avoid making twice the number of dishes. Do not become a slave to your stomach: this whimsical entrail, so easily annoyed, apparently takes special delight in tormenting those who eat more than they need, a common vice of those not constrained by necessity to eat frugally. If you were to pay heed to it—now with its nausea, now with its upchucks of flavors of foods already eaten, now with its unpleasant acidities—it would reduce you to the diet of a convalescent. Thus, if you are innocent of all excess or overindulgence, then wage war on it. Fight it head-to-head and conquer it. Yet if your nature should decidedly rebel against a given food, then and only then should you concede defeat and desist.

Anyone who does not engage in physical activity must live more moderately than others. In this regard, Agnolo Pandolfini, in his
Treatise on the Care of the Family
, says: “I find that sobriety, not eating and not drinking when you do not feel hungry or thirsty, are integral parts of a healthy diet. And however raw or hard to digest a thing might be, I find that, old as I am, from one sunrise to the next, I shall have digested it. My children, take to heart this simple, general, and perfect rule. Take care to learn what things are harmful to you, and stay away from them; and find and keep doing the things that are beneficial and good for you.”

Upon awaking in the morning, find out what best agrees with your stomach. If it does not feel entirely empty, limit yourself to a cup of black coffee; and if you precede this with half a glass of water mixed with coffee, it will better help to rid you of any residues of an incomplete digestion. If, then, you find yourself in perfect form and (taking care not to be deceived, for there is also such a thing as false hunger) you immediately feel the need for food—a definite sign of good health and presage of a long life—this is a most suitable moment, depending on your taste, to complement your black coffee with a piece of buttered toast, or to take some milk in your coffee, or to have a cup of hot chocolate. After some four hours, the time needed to digest even a
scant and liquid breakfast, one moves on, in accordance with the modern custom, to a solid repast at around 11 or 12 o’clock. This meal, being the first of the day, is always the most appetizing, and therefore it is better not to slake your hunger entirely, if you wish to enjoy your dinner later on. And unless you lead an active life and engage in physical labor, it is not a good idea to drink wine with your morning meals, since red wine is not easily digested, and white, being alcoholic, clouds the mind when one needs to concentrate.

It is better, in the morning, to take one’s meals with pure water and, at the end, to drink a small glass or two of bottled wine. Another custom is to have tea, plain or with milk, which I find a very fine complement; it does not weigh on the stomach and, as a warm tonic for the nerves, it aids digestion.

At dinner, which is the principal meal of the day and, I would say, a kind of family celebration, one can truly indulge oneself, though more in winter than in summer, for in the heat one needs light and easily digestible foods. A broad, diverse range of foods from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, with meat predominating, best contribute to good digestion, especially if washed down with aged, dry wine. Take care, however, not to overeat, and beware of those foods that tend to stimulate evacuation. And do not wash out your stomach with excessive drinking. In this regard, some health experts advise drinking only water even during dinner, and saving the wine for the end. You may try this if you have the nerve for it; to me it seems a bit too much to ask.

Here is a good rule to follow: at dinner you should stop eating at the first bite that seems to turn your stomach, and move on immediately to the dessert. Another good practice for avoiding indigestion while partaking of copious meals is to eat lightly the day after you have eaten heavy foods.

Ice cream at the end of dinner does no harm; indeed, it does good, since it draws back to the stomach the warmth necessary for good digestion. Unless your thirst demands it, always abstain from drinking
between meals, so as not to interfere with digestion, since this labor of nature’s highest chemistry must not be disturbed.

Between lunch and dinner, you should allow an interval of seven hours, for that is how much time is needed for full digestion. In fact, for those with slower systems, even that is not enough. Thus, if one has lunch at eleven, it is best to wait until seven for dinner. In truth, however, one should only go back to eating when the stomach demands relief, and this need will make itself all the more pressing if you stimulate it with a walk outdoors or with some moderate, pleasurable exercise.

“Exercise,” writes the aforementioned Agnolo Pandolfini, “preserves life, kindles the body’s natural warmth and vigor, skims off excess and harmful materials and humors, fortifies every faculty of the body and the nerves. It is necessary for the young, useful for the old. He who does not exercise, does not wish to live in health and happiness. We read that Socrates used to dance at home and jump for exercise. The simple, restful and happy life has always been the best medicine for health.”

Temperance and physical exercise are thus the two factors on which good health depends. Be advised, however, that “when overdone, virtue is as vice become”—since the constant discharges of the organism need to be replenished. You should beware of falling from one excess, overabundant eating, into the contrary one: scant and insufficient nourishment, which weakens the body.

During adolescence, during growth, that is, man needs a great deal of nourishment. In adulthood, on the other hand, and especially in old age, moderation in eating is a virtue indispensable to prolonging one’s life.

To those who have preserved our fathers’ blessed custom of eating dinner at midday or at one o’clock, I should like to recall the ancient maxim:
Post prandium stabis et post cenam ambulabis
(After dinner you stand, after supper you walk). And I should like to remind
everyone that digestion first takes place in the mouth; therefore I could never recommend too strongly that you preserve your teeth, for suitably chopping and grinding your food. For with the help of saliva, well-chewed food is much more easily digested than foods chopped and pounded in the kitchen, which require little mastication and sit heavy on the stomach, as though the organ took offense at having had part of its task taken away. Indeed, many foods considered difficult to digest can actually be better digested and enjoyed by vigorous chewing.

If, with these rules as your guide, you are able to regulate your stomach well, you shall make it strong, if it was weak; and if it was strong by nature, you shall keep it so without recourse to medicines. Stay away from laxatives, which are disastrous if used frequently; they should be taken very rarely, and only when absolutely necessary. Oftentimes animals, with their natural instincts, and perhaps even with their powers of reasoning, teach us how to behave: whenever my very dear friend Sibillone
⁴
used to suffer from indigestion, he would go a day or two without eating and work it off on the rooftops. We should therefore deplore those pitiful mothers who, in an excess of maternal sentiment, keep a forever watchful eye over the health of their little ones, and the instant they see them a bit listless or not evacuating with regularity—obsessed as they are with the silly notion of worms, which most often are only in their imagination—immediately resort to medications, to enemas, instead of letting nature take her course, since at that florid, exuberant stage of life, nature, when left to herself, can work miracles.

The use of liquors, if one is not careful, can quickly turn to abuse. All health experts disapprove of them, for the irreparable damage they wreak in the human organism. The only exception might be made for a light punch of cognac (even with a hint of rum) on cold winter evenings. This helps you to digest at night, and you wake up the following morning with a freer stomach and a fresher mouth.

Those who give themselves over to wine also do a very, very bad thing. Little by little, they begin to feel nauseated by food and nourish themselves on wine alone. After which they deteriorate before the eyes of the world, becoming ridiculous, dangerous, and beastly. There was once a merchant who, upon arriving in a city, used to stop at a street corner and observe the people passing by; when at last he saw one with a red nose, he would ask him where he could buy some good wine. Even if we overlook the mark of intemperance that this vice stamps on the human face, and certain scenes that inspire only hilarity—such as the story of the cook who, as his masters were waiting at the dinner table, held the frying pan over the sink, furiously blowing below it—still there is no doubt that whenever you see such heavy drinkers, who with their glassy eyes and their slurred r’s often say and do embarrassing things, you feel your heart sink in the fear that it might come to blows, and then someone might even draw a knife, as often happens. And if one persists in this brutish vice, whose demands grow greater with each day, one becomes an incorrigible drunkard, all of whom come to wretched ends.