Of a few years later we have these illuminating glimpses from Gabriel Pierné:
[Debussy] was a gourmet, but not a gourmand. He loved good things to eat and the quantity mattered little. I remember very well how he used to delight in a cup of chocolate which my mother invited him to take at the Café Prévost, and how, at Bourbonneux’s [a famous pâtisserie], he used to choose some delicate little pastry from a case specially reserved for the produits de luxe, while his friends were more likely to be content with something more substantial. This poor boy, who had come from a most ordinary class of society, had in everything the taste of an aristocrat. He was particularly attracted to minute objects and delicate and sensitive things. My father had a beautifully bound set of Le Monde illustré. When Achille came to the house we used to look at the pictures with delight. He preferred those which took up little space and were surrounded by a huge margin.
Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy, London, 1936, p. 6