“I Was Made to Eat”: Food and Brillat-Savarin’s Genesiac Sense in A Farewell to Arms

This essay uses a seminal treatise, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste (1825), as a touchstone for reading the gastronomical subtext in A Farewell to Arms. Applying some of Brillat-Savarin’s principles to the novel, it posits that Frederic’s relationship with the priest is inextricably connected to Frederic’s manner of consumption, which shifts after his epiphany: “I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink and sleep with Catherine.” Eating subsequently grants more than sustenance; it offers teleology.