De triplici observatione disciplinae in cibo, et primo quid comedendum
The Threefold Rule of Eating
The chapter opens by framing monastic food discipline around three questions: what, how much, and how one eats.
There is also a threefold discipline to observe in the way you eat: what you take, how much you take, and how you take it.
What Not to Seek at Table
The novice is warned against costly rarities and elaborate dishes, which betray luxury, curiosity, and superstition.
The discipline about what you take means this: do not seek out what is too costly and delicate, do not demand what is too rare and unusual, and do not crave what is too lavishly and elaborately prepared. In the first, luxury is exposed; in the second, curiosity; in the third, superstition is revealed.
The Weakness of Dainty Appetites
Some monks feign illness to avoid plain food, inventing bodily complaints as excuses for their delicate palates.
There are some whose throats are sick with an absurd enough weakness — they cannot swallow anything unless it is rich and delicate. And if plain or frugal food is ever set before them, they immediately put forward indigestion of the stomach, dryness of the chest, goosebumps on the head — or whatever other such complaints there may be — as frivolous excuses.
The Pride That Rejects the Ordinary
Others scorn delicacies only to despise common food with equal petulance, revealing a different but related vice.
Others, with great steadfastness, spurn delicacies and the luxury of food, but then with no less — or no more tolerable — petulance they utterly despise the use of ordinary provisions.
The Curiosity That Scatters the Household
Some monks demand rare foods that send servants scouring the countryside, driven by insolent self-importance and a desire to appear unique.
They seek out certain new and unusual kinds of food, so that often, for the sake of one man's belly, a crowd of servants runs about through every village around, and scarcely at last — whether by uprooting unknown plants from far-off deserted mountains, or by dragging a few small fish from the deepest pools with painstaking searching, or by gathering out-of-season wild berries from parched brambles — can the petulance of a single appetite be restrained. And honestly, it is not entirely clear to me what drives this vice in them — unless perhaps it is because, through a certain insolence of mind, they take pleasure in having many people occupied in their service, or because, through the swelling of self-exaltation, they want to appear as different from everyone else in their food as they really are — and justly so.1
Superstitious Elaboration in Cooking
Some apply excessive, almost superstitious effort to preparing food with endless variations, like innkeepers chasing novel tastes.
Others put a superstitiously excessive effort into preparing food, devising endless kinds of decoctions, fried dishes, and seasonings — now soft, now hard, now cold, now hot, now boiled, now roasted, now with pepper, now with garlic, now with cumin, now seasoned with salt — craving these things the way pregnant women crave. These people deserve not only rebuke but also ridicule, stretching out their palate at every hour like innkeepers, chasing after some new taste.
The Remedy of Strict Discipline
The chapter concludes by calling for the strictness of discipline to restrain gluttony within fixed boundaries.
To heal these vices, strict discipline is necessary — a discipline that keeps the wanton impulses of gluttony within fixed bounds, so that it does not spill over into immoderate delicacies, novelties, or the superstitious preparations of food that ought to be shunned.
Read the original Latin
Sequitur etiam triplex observatio disciplinae in cibo, observatio in eo quid sumat, observatio in eo quantum sumat, observatio in eo quomodo sumat. Observatio in eo quid sumat, id est ut neque nimis pretiosa et delicata expetat, nec nimis rara et insolita requirat, nec nimis laute et accurate praeparata concupiscat. In primo enim luxus arguitur, in secundo curiositas, in tertio superstitio notatur. Sunt namque quidam quorum fauces satis ridicula infirmitate aegrotant, quae nisi pinguia et delicata deglutire non possunt. Et si quando eis parci aut frugales cibi oblati fuerint, statim aut indigestionem stomachi aut pectoris siccitatem, aut obripilationem capitis, aut si qua sunt talia, ad frivolas excusationes praetendunt. Alii delicias et luxum ciborum magna constantia aspernantur, sed ab eis iterum non minori aut tolerabiliori petulantia communium cibariorum usus omnino despicitur. Nova quaedam et insolita ciborum genera exquirunt, ita ut saepe propter unius ventrem hominis per omnes circum pagos turba famulorum discurrat, et vix tandem vel ignotas de desertis procul montibus radices evellendo vel pauculos de imis gurgitibus profunda scrutatione pisciculos trahendo, sive intempestiva de arentibus rubetis arbuta colligendo, unius appetitus petulantiam compescere queat. Et sane mihi non satis patere potest, quod vitium istos exagitet, nisi forte quia per quamdam animi insolentiam multos in suo obsequio occupari gaudent, sive quia per tumorem elationis caeteris omnibus quantum cibo dissimiles sunt, tantum merito dissimiles videri volunt.
Alii superstitiosum nimis in praeparandis cibis studium adhibent, infinita decoctionum et frixurarum et condimentorum genera excogitantes, modo mollia, modo dura, modo frigida, modo calida, modo elixa, modo assa, modo pipere, modo allio, modo cumino, modo sale condita, secundum consuetudinem praegnantium mulierum desiderantes. Hi profecto non solum arguendi sed etiam deridendi sunt, qui quasi caupones ad omnem clepsydram eliciendi gustus gratia palatum extendunt. Igitur contra haec vitia sananda necessarius est rigor disciplinae, qui istas gulae petulantias intra certum limitem cohibeat, quatenus se neque ad immoderatas delicias, neque ad novitates, neque ad superstitiosas praeparationes ciborum appetendas diffundat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The closing phrase 'tantum merito dissimiles videri volunt' carries an ironic edge: they wish to appear as different as they truly are — and that difference is a fault, not a virtue.
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