DiotimosReading Desk

Food

Black broth

brouet noir

The austere Spartan dish invoked as the appropriate recipe for Gamelin’s republican scorn of table pleasures.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Meaning

Phrase.

The austere Spartan dish invoked as the appropriate recipe for Gamelin’s republican scorn of table pleasures. Brotteaux’s offer is a learned gastronomic joke: instead of opposing antiquity directly, he supplies the self-styled Spartan with its unappetising food. The source gives no recipe here, only the assertion that he offers the true formula.

Places to read

  1. Chapter X, paragraph 58Frenchla vraie formule du brouet noir: The true recipe for black broth. Brotteaux answers Gamelin’s claim that republicans despise table pleasures.