No one was irritable; we have never known anyone to remain unhappy while digesting a good meal. We enjoy lingering in a becalmed state, a kind of midpoint between the reverie of a thinker and the contentment of a cud-chewing animal, a state that should be termed the physical melancholy of gastronomy.
Honoré de Balzac, The Human Comedy: Selected Stories
food, gastronomy, melancholy, red-inn, satiation