- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; illustrated edition edition (3 Oct 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224061380
- ISBN-13: 978-0224061384
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 188,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Toenails cut while dining, meals served to wax effigies of the dead, napkins concealing singing birds - these are just a few of the more exotic aspects of everyman at the table. From the stupendous banquets of the Ancient Babylonians, Feast covers five millennia of formal eating. Sharing a meal, in particular a grand one, has always been a complex social mechanism for uniting and dividing people. Such an event could signal peace, a marriage, a victory, a coronation or a funeral, to name but a few. The feast was a vehicle for display and ostentation, for flattering and influencing people as well as providing a theatre in which to exercise the art of conversation and the display of manners. Feast offers a fascinating and, at times, a highly unusual mirror of society as it evolves. It gathers together for the first time all the threads which contributed to the phenomenon of the celebratory meal: the people, the clothes, the food, the setting, the action and its surrounding circumstances, for in the consumption of food can be found the origins of every kind of theatre. Taking the reader from the elegancies of the Roman villa to the austerities of the monastic refectory, from the splendours of the Renaissance banquet to the demands of the Victorian dinner patty, Feast sets out to answer the basic questions of our eating habits, and the answers are never less than surprising.
From the Publisher
A unique and fascinating history of grand eating by one of the UK’s best-known writers.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A good and reasonably detailed history of grand dining. Roy Strong's book is a well written and pleasantly illustrated account of how rich people have eaten from Ancient Greek and Roman times up until the late nineteenth century. Each chapter starts with a decsription of a typical banquet for the period covered, usually quoting from contemporary sources and a historical analysis flows therefrom.
The book is conveniently sub-divided within chapters. It is difficult to think of any book that has been devoted solely to this subject for which a comparison can be made; this in itself makes it a welcome filler to a gap in social history. The only flaw is that the style is occasionally pompous - but forgivably so.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Excellent service - although not new, a first-class copy was delivered which made a most acceptable present for Christmas.
Watch out for the difference between the hard bacl and paperback versions. The paperback apparently has more illustrations but I wanted a hardback as a present! Perverse publishing decision in my view!
Watch out for the difference between the hard bacl and paperback versions. The paperback apparently has more illustrations but I wanted a hardback as a present! Perverse publishing decision in my view!
Format:Paperback
A fascinating book that gives insight into the social and political aspect of Food and Feasts. Each chapter is well researched .It is a great guide as to what goes onto to the table is not always as simple as it seems.Food mirrors political and social events in a way I never appreciated until I read this book. I place it on my shelf (with the books of Kate Colquhoun and Dorothy Hartley)as a book to re-read .
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