“When Balzac was working, he would get up in the middle of the night and write for 18 hours at a stretch, subsisting on water, fruit and, most famously, strong black coffee. Aided by coffee, he said, “great ideas swing into action like battalions in the Great Army on a battlefield.” He drank it…”by the potful, by the bucketful, despite the terrible cramps wringing his insides, the nervous eye twitches, and the burning in his stomach.”

Once his book proofs had been approved for press, Balzac would head out to a restaurant to celebrate. In one sitting, he was said to have put away a hundred oysters, four bottles of white wine, a dozen salt-meadow lamb cutlets, duckling with turnips, a brace of roast partridge, a Normandy sole, dessert and Comice pears. Afterward, he would send the bill to his publishers.”

Moira Hodgson, on “Balzac’s Omelette”

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