Delicious

When we say ‘delicious’ which is almost always used in describing the foods exclusively. It didn’t escape my notice that when the literary figures use it, it describes almost anything and everything except the foods. I will use many examples to make my point.

In his The Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau did use 'delicious' on food, but it is “food for my thoughts”: Rousseau is brutally honest in saying not only what he did, but also what was in his mind.

Rousseau first met Mme de Warens, a Swiss aristocrat (Rousseau is also from Geneva) at age of 16; she（12 years his senior, dismissed her husband 2 years earlier) took him in under her wings, sort of giving his first education (Rousseau said he was her “pupil”). She eventually initiated an intimate relationship, sharing a bed for many years. Rousseau called her “my Mama”, she him “my little one”.

Rousseau wrote the following paragraph when he was returning to see Mme de Warens, thinking about how kind she treated him and loved him, this “food of my thoughts” evoked a “delicious” imagining.

“I looked on myself as the creature, the pupil, the friend and almost the lover of Mme de Warens. The nice things she had said to me, the slight caresses she had bestowed on me, the tender interest she had seemed to take in me, and her friendly glances, which seemed loving glances to me because they inspired me with love – all this was food for my thoughts as I walked on, and gave me delicious imaginings.”

Rousseau used “delicious” in describing his day-dreams.

I enjoyed none of those delicious day-dreams that had accompanied me on my last trip. . . . My heart throbbed with joy as I drew near to my dear Mamma.

Rousseau also used “delicious” in describing a sight of a place.

I thought for some time of the Borromean Islands, the delicious sight of which had enraptured me; but I found too much ornament and artifice about them for my inhabitants.

George Eliot loved to use “delicious”, and was almost never about foods. Being a doctor I naturaly study the character of Dr Tertius Lydgate in Middlemarch with meticulous attention. The following is how Dr Lydgate and Rosamond first met. I couldn’t have any better word than “delicious” in describing Rosamond’s sensation at that moment.

Rosamond was proud when he entered the room and when he approached her with a distinguished smile, she had a delicious sense that she was the object of enviable homage.

Eliot likes using “delicious” in describing the state of mind. There are many protagonists in Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke is a major and fascinating one. The following is talking about the relationship between Dorothea and Will Ladislaw, eventually her second husband after the first one died.

In the month, since their parting Dorothea had felt a delicious though sad repose in their relation to each other, as one which was inwardly whole and without blemish.

Eliot used “delicious” described “evenings” in the garden because of the location, the atmosphere and even the odors/scents.

and the evenings were delicious in that quite spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were sending forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden.

I really enjoy reading “Daughter of Empire” by Pamela Hicks, and always want to read one more time. She is the daughter of Mountbatten, the first cousin of Prince Philip (husband of current Queen Elizabeth II), she was the bridesmaid when the Queen got married in 1947. But then again one may not like it that much unless one is an Anglophile.

My mother made “The Man I Love” an overnight hit in England after Gershwin told her how upset he was that it had flopped in the United States. She danced the Charleston with Fred Astaire, and the rumors that Queen Mary didn’t approve of this kind of behavior made the dancing all the more delicious.

Something prohibiting is made more delicious, the same is also true for a stolen kiss. Mark Twain also did the same thing, using “delicious” in describing all sorts of things Tom Sawyer shouldn‘t have done.

He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very thought of it burnt him like fire.

The smell of Madam Chiang Kai-Shek’s perfume is “delicious”, the delicious scent, so to speak”; the following is from The Last Empress by Hannah Pakula.

Christopher Isherwood, traveling in China with W. H. Auden, met Madame Chiang in the late 1930s. He caught her aura exactly: “She could be terrible, she could be gracious, she could be businesslike, she could be ruthless. . . . Strangely enough, I have never heard anybody comment on her perfume. It is the most delicious either of us has ever smelt.”

The writing of Edwardb Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is classic, the following is an example. One can imagine the “most delicious amusements” are pursuits of sensual pleasure, sumptuous meals, and extravagant indulgences.

A capricious prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and whilst Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers applauded a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his predecessors. To confound the order of seasons and climates, to sport with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements.

The people quitted their favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace in the suburbs, one of the emperor's retirements, and demanded, with angry clamors, the head of the public enemy.

So enrich or spice your writing using “delicious” like a pro (professional writer).