Honoré de Balzac at the table

In Balzac's time, the meal was arranged in several "services" placed together on the table: soup and relevés, then entrées, the roast, entremets, and finally dessert. Among wealthy gourmands, dishes multiplied; for the debt-ridden writer, pantagruelian feasts alternated with hermit-like fasts. Balzac, however, added a service that appears on no menu: that of the night, where coffee replaces all others.

Balzac blended his own coffee from three origins (Bourbon, Martinique, Moka), wanted it thick as ink, and drank dozens of cups to sustain his writing nights. It is the signature ingredient of his entire life: he devoted whole pages of the *Traité des excitants modernes* to it.