Charlemagne's Tablecloth : A Piquant History of Feasting

by Nichola Fletcher

• ISBN13: 9780312340681
• ISBN10: 0312340680
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

Feasts, banquets, and grand dinners have always played a vital role in our lives. They oil the wheels of diplomacy, smooth the paths of the ambitious, and spread joy at family celebrations. They lift the spirits, involve all our senses and, at times, transport us to other fantastical worlds. Some feasts have give rise to hilarious misunderstandings, at others competitive elements take over. Some are purely for pleasure, some connect uncomfortably with death, but all are interesting. Nichola Fletcher has written a captivating history of feasts throughout the ages that includes the dramatic failures along with the dazzling successes. From a humble meal of potatoes provided by an angel, to the extravagance of the high medieval and Renaissance tables groaning with red deer and wild boar, to the exquisite refinement of the Japanese tea ceremony,Charlemagne's Tableclothcovers them all. In her gustatory exploration of history's great feasting tables, Fletcher also answers more than a few riddles such as "Why did Charlemagne use an asbestos tablecloth at his feasts?" and "Where did the current craze for the elegant Japanese Kaiseki meal begin? Fletcher answers these questions and many more while inviting readers to a feasting table that extends all the way from Charlemagne's castle to her own millennium feast in Scotland. This is an eclectic collection of feasts from the flamboyant to the eccentric, the delicious to the disgusting, and sometimes just the touchingly ordinary. For anyone who has ever sat down at a banquet table and wondered, "Why?" Nichola Fletcher provides the delicious answer in a book that is a feast all its own.

Author Biography

Nichola Fletcher lives in Scotland and France and is multiskilled. She originally trained as an artist goldsmith, a skill she still practices. But she has also spent thirty years perfecting her knowledge of venison, having pioneered Europe’s first deer farm with her husband. She was nominated for a Slow Food Award for this work. As a food writer she has written four books on the culture, history, and cooking of game meats; lectures and demonstrates worldwide; and writes for the Financial Times. Her unusual combination of talents provides the perfect grounding for her remarkable study of the art of feasting for which she was awarded a Gourmet Voice Media Award. She has two daughters.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
1. What is a feast?	1	(8)
2. Paradise: the origin of feasts	9	(7)
3. The golden age: medieval feasting	16	(21)
4. Competitive feasts: disconcerting elements	37	(7)
5. Amuse-geule: King Midas' last feast	44	(3)
6. Ingredients of the feast: fish	47	(9)
7. Chinese banquets: an ancient food culture	56	(8)
8. Ingredients of the feast: meat	64	(11)
9. Feasting in adversity: enhancing the ordinary	75	(8)
10. Soteltie: The banquet from hell	83	(7)
11. Feasting and fasting: Mardi Gras	90	(13)
12. The Feast of St Hubert: hunting, and a nine-course venison feast	103	(12)
13. Ephemera at the feast: perfume and flowers	115	(5)
14. The Feast of St Antony: pigs - the peasants' feast	120	(9)
15. Entremets: A beastly feast	129	(4)
16. The Renaissance: evolution of European banquets	133	(13)
17. Thanksgivings: celebrating relief	146	(6)
18. A Victorian banquet: dinner for the Acclimatisation Society of Great Britain	152	(8)
19. Cha-Kaiseki: a vegan feast at the Japanese tea ceremony	160	(10)
20. Intercourse: A feast in the bath: how not to behave	170	(2)
21. Rites of passage: universal symbols	172	(12)
22. A pollen feast for Ruskin: banqueting in the high forests	184	(5)
23. Burns supper: feasts of fraternity, and men behaving badly	189	(7)
24. Eating people: cannibal feasts	196	(6)
25. Amuse-bouche: A feast on horseback	202	(3)
26. Midwinter feasts: light in the darkness	205	(5)
27. Feasts for the dead: conquering fear	210	(6)
28. Swansong at Hogmanay: a feast for the millennium	216	(9)
29. Charlemagne's tablecloth: a postscript	225	(4)
Bibliography and sources	229	(20)
Index	249