Happy Birthday, Monsieur Balzac! How About a Nice Cup of Coffee?

Today is the birthday of Honore de Balzac, who, as previously noted, liked to fuel his impressive writing binges with interminable cups of coffee. In honor of the occasion, I reproduce here his remarks on the subject. Thanks to Jerome for bringing this treatise to my attention, and to Google-translate for the hilarity of the translation. The management of Whipping Cats would like to make it perfectly clear that these are the opinions of Monsieur Balzac alone, and are not necessarily shared by me. For instance, I have never knowingly confused a Turkish person and a toad. And, no matter how many trips to Starbucks I might make, I am unlikely ever to write an opera in 20 days.

COFFEE

On this matter, Brillat-Savarin is far from complete. I can add something to what he said about the coffee, which I use to be able to see the effects on a large scale. The coffee is roasting inside. Many people give the power to coffee to give the spirit, but everyone was able to verify that the boring bore much more after taking. Finally, while grocers are open until midnight in Paris, some authors do not become more spiritual.

As aptly observed Brillat-Savarin, the coffee starts to move the blood, brought forth the spirits engines; excitement precipitated digestion, sleep, hunt, and can talk for a little longer the exercise of cerebral faculties.

I would amend this section of Brillat-Savarin by personal experiences and observations of a few minds.

Coffee affects the diaphragm and the plexus of the stomach, where it earns the brain by irradiation and invaluable that defies analysis, however, one can assume that the nervous fluid is electrically conductive that emerges it is this substance activates or home. His power is neither absolute nor constant. Rossini has proven himself on the effects I had already seen me.

- Coffee, me he said, is a matter of fifteen or twenty days, the time fortunately to an opera.

The fact is true. But the time during which you can enjoy the benefits of coffee can expand. This science is necessary too many people that we did not describe how to obtain the precious fruit.

All of you, distinguished human candles, which you consume through your head, come and listen to the Gospel of waking and intellectual work.

1 ° The coffee crushed the Turkish more flavor than ground coffee in a mill.

In many mechanical things relating to the use of pleasures, Orientals far outweigh the Europeans: their genius, observer like the toads, which are still whole years in their holes taking their golden eyes open on nature as two suns, they revealed the fact that science has shown us by the analysis. The principle is deleterious coffee tannin, malignant substance that chemists have not yet studied enough. When the membranes of the stomach are tanned or when the action of tannin in particular the coffee was too dazed by frequent use, they refuse to violent contractions that workers are looking for. From there, serious disturbances if the fan goes on. There is a man in London as the overuse of coffee twisted like those old gouty knotted. I knew a writer who was in Paris five years to recover from the state had put her love for coffee. Finally, recently, an artist, Chenavard, burned to death. He entered a cafe as a worker enters the tavern, at any time. Lovers proceed as in all the passions they go from one level to another, and, as in Nicolet, harder and harder to abuse. Breaking into coffee, you spray into molecules of bizarre shapes that retain and release tannin only the aroma. That is why the Italians, Venetians, Greeks and Turks can drink incessantly without danger, the French coffee cafiot deal, word of contempt. Voltaire took to the cafe there.

Keep in mind this. The cafe has two components: one, the extractive matter, that hot water dissolves or cold, and dissolves quickly, which is the driver of the aroma, the other is tannin, more resistant to the water, and forsake the areolar tissue slowly and sentence. Hence this axiom:

V

LEAVE THE BOILING WATER, ESPECIALLY LONG IN CONTACT WITH THE CAFE IS A HERESY: THE PREPARATION OF WATER WITH MARC IS SUBMITTED HIS STOMACH AND ITS BODIES IN TANNING.

2 Assuming the processed coffee by coffee in the immortal de Belloy Belloy and not from (the one with the meditations that we owe this method is the cousin of the cardinal, and, like him, the family very long and illustrious the Marquis de Belloy), coffee has more virtue in the cold infusion by the infusion of boiling water which is a second way of his effects.

By grinding coffee, you release both the aroma and tannin, you flatter taste and you stimulate the plexus, which react on the thousand capsules of the brain.

So, here are two degrees: the crushed coffee to Turkish coffee grounds.

3 ° the amount of coffee placed in the top container, the more or less water, depends on the strength of coffee, which constitutes the third way to deal with the coffee.

Thus, during a longer or shorter, one or two weeks at most, you can get excited with one, then two cups of coffee crushed an abundance graduated brewed with boiling water.

For one week, the cold infusion, the grind, the crushing of the powder and the decrease of the water, you still get the same amount of brain power.

When you have reached the most pressing and as little water as possible, you double the dose by taking two cups, then some strong temperaments come to three cups. You can still go and a few more days.

Finally, I discovered a horrible and cruel way, I would advise to men of excessive force, with black hair and hard-skinned mixed with ocher and vermilion, hand, square-leg shaped Baluster such as the Place Louis XV. It is the use of coffee grounds, crushed, cold and anhydrous (chemical word which means little or no water) on an empty stomach. This coffee falls into your stomach, which, as you know by Brillat-Savarin, is a velvet bag inside and lined with suckers and papillae, there is nothing, he tackles this delicate and voluptuous lining It becomes a kind of food that wants its juices and it's wrong, he seeks to be a witch calls his god, he manhandles the pretty walls like a trooper who bullies young horses plexus ignite, they soared and sparks are going to their brain. Therefore, all agitated: ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army field of battle and the battle takes place. The memories come at no charge, with colors flying, the light cavalry of comparisons grows a magnificent gallop; artillery of logic rushes with his train and its cartridges, and the wit come as sharpshooters, the figures rise and the paper is covered with ink, because the day begins and ends with torrents of black water, as the battle by his black powder. I recommend this drink and taken to one of my friends who really wanted to do a job promised for the morrow: he believed poisoned, he returned to bed, he stayed in bed like a bride. He was tall, blond, thin hair and a stomach of papier mache, thin. There was a lack of observation on my part.

When you arrived at the cafe on an empty stomach with superlative emulsions, and you've exhausted you notify if you continue, you will fall into horrible sweats, nervous weakness, drowsiness. I do not know what would happen: the nature wise advised me to abstain, since I'm not sentenced to immediate death. One should then put the formula, the regime of chicken and white meat, and finally relax the harp, and return to life flâneuse, traveler, and fungal silly bourgeois removed.

The state where you put the coffee on an empty stomach in conditions masterful, produces a sort of nervous vivacity that resembles that of anger: the verb stands, gestures express impatience sickly, we want everything to go, trot ideas, it is hound, angry about nothing, you come to this variable nature of the poet as charged by grocers, is ready to hire the lucidity that one enjoys. A man of intelligence must be very careful not to show themselves or allow themselves to approach. I discovered this singular state by some chance that made me lose the excitement out of work I buy. Friends, whom I found myself in the countryside, saw me and disputailleur surly, bad faith in the discussions. The next day, I recognized my error, and we were looking for the cause. My friends were scientists of the first order, we were soon found: coffee wanted its prey.

Not only are these comments are true and do not undergo further changes as those resulting from different idiosyncrasies, but they are consistent with the experiences of many practitioners, among whom is the illustrious Rossini, one of the men who most studied laws of taste, a hero worthy of Brillat-Savarin.

OBSERVATION .- In some weak natures, the coffee produced in the brain congestion safe, instead of feeling turned on, these people experience drowsiness, and say that coffee makes sleep. These people may have legs of venison, ostrich stomachs, but they are poorly equipped for the work of thought. Two young travelers, M. Combes and Tamisier have found the Abyssinians usually helpless: the travelers do not hesitate to watch the abuse of coffee, that the Abyssinians are grown in the last degree, as the cause of this disgrace. If this book goes to England, the British government is asked to resolve this serious issue on the first person he has on hand, provided it is neither a woman nor an old man.

Tea also contains tannin, but hers has virtues narcotic it is not directed to the brain and acts only on the plexus and the intestines to absorb more and faster especially narcotics. How to prepare it is absolute. I do not know how much the amount of water that rush of tea drinkers in their stomach should be counted in the effect. If the English experience is true, it would give the English moral, lay pale complexion, the hypocrisy and slander English, what is certain is that it does not spoil the woman in less moral than physical . Where women drink tea, love is flawed in principle and are pale, sickly, talkative, boring preachers. For some strong organizations, strong tea and taken in large doses provides an irritation that makes the treasures of melancholy, he causes dreams, but less potent than those of opium, as it happens in a fantasy atmosphere gray and hazy. The ideas are fresh as much as the women are blondes. Your state is not the deep sleep that distinguishes fine organizations tired, but drowsiness unspeakable reminiscent musings in the morning. Too much coffee, like tea, produces a severe drought in the skin becomes hot. The coffee is often sweaty and gives a violent thirst. Among those arriving to abuse, saliva is thick and almost eliminated.