Feast: A History of Grand Eating [Hardcover]

Roy Strong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2003

Sharing a grand meal has always been a complex social event. Feasts have been used to celebrate significant occasions, to parade rank and hierarchy, and to flatter and influence people. There has always been a theatrical element to the feast as well-from the nude dancers who entertained dinner guests in ancient Greece to the restrained rigors of the Victorian dinner party.
Sir Roy Strong examines this cultural phenomenon with knowledge, wit, and style-beginning with the ninth century B.C., when a Babylonian emperor discreetly invited seventy thousand guests for a ten-day celebration, and ending early in the twentieth century, by which time feasts had become somewhat more modest. Always attuned to how these celebrations mirror the societies that hold them and to the way they reflect shifts in power and class, this beautifully illustrated book offers a lively and illuminating history of grand eating.
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

Review

U. K. PRAISE FOR FEAST
"One of Britain's Living National Treasures . . . Strong is an acute observer of social nuance, and never less than a congenial companion through these millennia of convivial excess. Only the puritan-or the seriously dyspeptic-could fail to enjoy this book." -The Independent

"Strong has dug up these gems from what must have been a blizzard of documents and books, but his clear, scholarly eye has focused on the telling detail rather than showy frippery." -The Daily Telegraph

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (November 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151007586
• ISBN-13: 978-0151007585
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of fun - even on an empty stomach! March 15, 2004

By Susan Smith

Format:Hardcover

The next time you invite people for dinner, stop and think about what you do to get ready. Inviting the right people, planning an exciting menu, decorating the table, arranging the seating plan, the order of the courses : all of these are vestigal remnants of formal dining practices over the centuries.

This is a fun book to read. It's a non-scholarly round-up of many, many academic articles that have appeared on the subject of dining along with a summary of some of most significant historical works on food, dining, entertainment and medicine.

If you are interested in food, the evolution of table manners and the developmental history of your family breakfast room, then this is a jolly good read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and only wished I could jump in a time machine and appear at one of the amazing Italian Renaissance jamborees! Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An inviting history of grand eating December 8, 2003

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Hardcover

Roy Strong's Feast is inviting history of grand eating examines the social history and cultural phenomenon of entertaining and feasts; from its early heyday in the 9th century when a Babylonian emperor invited 70,000 guests for dinner, to modern times. Engaging historic black and white photos pepper a culinary history which provides plenty of insights on the background and evolution of the idea of the feast and the culinary celebration of food.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Food for thought April 7, 2007

By Venugapal Vasudevan

Format:Hardcover

An intriguing book on a universal subject. Feasts are ultimately a spectacle where food is used to project personal influence, make deals and curry favors. As Strong shows, these motivations haven't changed thru seismic changes in the art of the meal (introduction of fork and spoon, tables, sugar, spice ..). The prehistoric culinary history spanning the Greek and Romans is fascinating, as is the rediscovery of these "excesses" under the watchful eyes of the church. The post-renaissance portrayal becomes less intrigue and more detail, although there are some nice segments about the effect of sugar, the rise and fall of spice and the emergence of etiquette. The latter half of the book could be more entertaining, but all in all worth a read.