Jean-Jacques Rousseau at the table

Rousseau did not separate the meal into starter-main-dessert: he advocated a simple, almost peasant table, organized around a base of dairy products and bread, supplemented with garden vegetables, orchard fruits, and an herbal infusion. Little meat was eaten, but plenty of milk, cream, and fruit, in the order of appetite rather than ceremony. For him, this frugality was as much a moral stance as a diet: eating naturally was living virtuously.

Milk, cream and butter from the Savoyard and Genevan pastures are the true signature of Rousseau's table. He preferred them to everything else, mocking the sauces of the rich; these fresh, barely processed products embody his ideal of healthy food close to nature.