"This coffee falls into your stomach, which, as you know from Brillat-Savarin, is a sack whose velvety interior is lined with tapestries of suckers and papillae. The coffee finds nothing else in the sack, and so it attacks these delicate and voluptuous linings; it acts like a food and demands digestive juices; it wrings and twists the stomach for these juices, appealing as a pythoness appeals to her god; it brutalizes these beautiful stomach linings as a wagon master abuses ponies; the plexus becomes inflamed; sparks shoot all the way up to the brain."<p>That is some damn fine writing there.
Balzac's galley proofs seem like a testament to a life of dedicated heavy coffee drinking:<p><a href="http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=365" rel="nofollow">http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=365</a>
I recommend starting at the top and working your way down piece by piece, over coffee of course. Lots and lots of coffee. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31565/31565-h/31565-h.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31565/31565-h/31565-h.htm</a><p>And if you like the translations, I should add that most were completed by four women. In particular, Ellen Marriage who published under the name James Waring.<p><a href="http://balzacbooks.wordpress.com/translations/" rel="nofollow">http://balzacbooks.wordpress.com/translations/</a>
I think Balzac was on to something. :-) I like how he quotes Brillat-Savarin. Others are here. [0] My favorite is the one that kicks off Iron Chef, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are."<p><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jean_anthelme_brillatsav.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jean_anthelme_br...</a>
In French: <a href="http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_modernes" rel="nofollow">http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mode...</a>
It was curious to see the reference to cold-brew coffee. I didn't even know it was a thing until a couple of days ago when I saw this article in a freebie newspaper:<p>How to Make cold brew coffee at home
<a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/how-to-make-coldbrew-coffee-at-home-9545505.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/how-to-make...</a>
Ah! I think this was recently reprinted in the "Intoxication" issue of Lapham's. Very interesting essay in a very interesting magazine. That one also turned me on to the "Coffee Cantata" of Bach:<p><a href="http://coldewey.cc/post/49474192760/bach-ei-wie-schmeckt-der-coffee-susse-bwv-211" rel="nofollow">http://coldewey.cc/post/49474192760/bach-ei-wie-schmeckt-der...</a>
For French speakers out there, here's the original version: <a href="http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_modernes" rel="nofollow">http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mode...</a>
Do check out the "CAFFEINATED" documentary as well while you're at it:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OecTZBjFvw#t=259" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OecTZBjFvw#t=259</a>