Feast

What occurs when we gather to dine? More than just eating, says Roy Strong, whose remarkable A History of Grand Eatingreviews sumptuous dining from ancient Greece to the present. What is discovered, again and again, is that "the meal, and everything connected with it has been, and still is, a vehicle for determining status and hierarchy--and also aspiration--no matter what pattern of society prevails." To illustrate, Strong takes readers on a journey that encompasses the banquets of ancient Rome, which, preceding their decadent excesses (Caligula liked dinner with decapitations), were models of civilized entertainment; to the Christian and Renaissance eras, a transformation of dining from symbolic ecclesiastical ritual to splendorous high-court ceremony; to a newly hierarchical world which, in counter-distinction to French Revolution commonalties, yielded the 19th and early 20th-century's defining status event, the dinner party; and finally to our own dispiriting time, in which the erosion of traditional forms has left us with TV-snacking, grazing, and the restaurant as surrogate rank-delineator, once society's task. Strong is a master distiller who keeps a sharp academic lookout while proving a companionable, entertaining guide. It's hard to imagine anyone who could more pithily explore, for example, the evolution and meaning of manners (from courtly ritual to aspiring-class impediment); the invention of the dining room (which required a permanent dining table, long in coming); sugar's pivotal role (as a baroque sculptural medium!); and the history of cookbooks (keen mirrors of class). For anyone interested in what it has meant to use a fork (first a status marker then, supplanting the knife, the only approved implement for carrying food to mouth) among much else, this is a perfect read. --Arthur Boehm

What occurs when we gather to dine? More than just eating, says Roy Strong, whose remarkable Feast: A History of Grand Eatingreviews sumptuous dining from ancient Greece to the present. What is discovered, again and again, is that "the meal, and everything connected with it has been, and still is, a vehicle for determining status and hierarchy--and also aspiration--no matter what pattern of society prevails." To illustrate, Strong takes readers on a journey that encompasses the banquets of ancient Rome, which, preceding their decadent excesses (Caligula liked dinner with decapitations), were models of civilized entertainment; to the Christian and Renaissance eras, a transformation of dining from symbolic ecclesiastical ritual to splendorous high-court ceremony; to a newly hierarchical world which, in counter-distinction to French Revolution commonalties, yielded the 19th and early 20th-century's defining status event, the dinner party; and finally to our own dispiriting time, in which the erosion of traditional forms has left us with TV-snacking, grazing, and the restaurant as surrogate rank-delineator, once society's task.

Strong is a master distiller who keeps a sharp academic lookout while proving a companionable, entertaining guide. It's hard to imagine anyone who could more pithily explore, for example, the evolution and meaning of manners (from courtly ritual to aspiring-class impediment); the invention of the dining room (which required a permanent dining table, long in coming); sugar's pivotal role (as a baroque sculptural medium!); and the history of cookbooks (keen mirrors of class). For anyone interested in what it has meant to use a fork (first a status marker then, supplanting the knife, the only approved implement for carrying food to mouth) among much else, this is a perfect read. --Arthur Boehm