Appetites for thought : philosophers and food / Michel Onfray ; translated by Donald Barry and Stephen Muecke.

"[O]ffers up a delectable intellectual challenge: can we better understand the concepts of philosophers if we look at their culinary choices? Guiding us around the philosopher's banquet table with erudition, wit, and irreverence, Michel Onfray offers surprising insights on foods ranging from fillet of cod to barley soup, from sausage to wine and coffee. Tracing the edible obsessions of philosophers from Diogenes to Sartre, Onfray considers how their ideas relate to their diets. Would Diogenes have been an opponent of civilization without his taste for raw octopus? Would Rousseau have been such a proponent of frugality if his daily menu had included something more than dairy products? Nietzsche was grumpy about bad cooks and the retardation of human evolution, and Sartre was repelled by shellfish because they are 'food buried in an object, and you have to pry them out'"--Back cover.