(1802–1870)
French novelist, playwright, and gourmand
Alexandre Dumas
People who habitually drink water become just as good gourmets about water as wine drinkers about wine. For fifty or sixty years of my life, I have drunk only water, and no lover of wine has ever felt the same delight in some Grand-Laffite or Chambertin as I have in a glass of cool spring water whose purity has not been tainted by any earthy salts.
Dumas on Food (London: Folio Society, 1979), 299.