Thus,  since  the  sense  of  taste  is  a  doorkeeper,  from  the  point  of  view  of administering the body, the stomach is a master and a ruler. If the gifts arriving at the palace or city and those given to the palace’s ruler are worth one hundred liras, only five liras’ worth is appropriate for the doorkeeper in the form of a tip, lest he becomes conceited and is corrupted,  then forgetting his duty he lets revolutionaries into the palace who will give him a bigger tip.

In  consequence  of  this  mystery  we  shall  now  imagine  two  mouthfuls.  One consists of nutritious food like cheese and egg and costs forty para,1  and the other is of the choicest pastries and costs ten kurush. Before entering the mouth, there is no

difference in these two mouthfuls with respect to the body, they are equal. And after passing  down the throat, they are still equal in nourishing the body. Indeed, forty paras’ worth of cheese is sometimes more nutritious. Only, in regard to pampering the sense of taste in the mouth, there is a half-minute difference. You can see from this what a meaningless and harmful waste it is to increase the cost from forty para to ten kurush for the sake of half a minute.

Now, although the gift arriving for the palace’s ruler is worth one lira, to give the

doorkeeper a tip nine times bigger than his due will corrupt him. He will declare: “I am the  ruler,” and will allow to enter whoever gives him the biggest tip and most pleasure; he will  cause a revolution and conflagration to break out. Then he will compel them to cry out: “Oh! Call the doctor and get him to put out this fire in my stomach and bring down my temperature!”

Thus, frugality and contentment are in conformity with divine wisdom; they treat the sense  of taste as a doorkeeper and give it its remuneration accordingly. As for wastefulness, since it is to act contrarily to wisdom, it swiftly receives its punishment, upsets  the  stomach,  and   causes  real  appetite  to  be  lost.  Producing  from  the unnecessary variety of foods a false and artificial appetite, it causes indigestion and illness.

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1   There were forty para to a kurush, and a hundred kurush to a lira. (Tr.)