Joys and History of Eating

    

“The great Alexandre Dumas, in his Grand Dictionaire de Cuisine, insisted that salad is not a natural food for man.” Had he never tried a Shrimp Louie?!?”

In a chapter titled “After The Fork,” for example, the book discloses that three things revolutionized eating habits during the 17th century: the fork, the plate and the potato. It was in 1100 that a lady from Constantinople caused a furor in Venice by picking up her food with a two-pronged device instead of her fingers, as was customary. But not until 1500 did the fork come into general use in Italy and Spain; and in England and the rest of Europe not until 100 years after that.

The first plate was used in England in 1641; before that, food was piled into a scooped-out loaf of bread called a “trencher”; and that, too was eaten. And the potato, brought to Spain from America in the late 1500’s, was at first a rather suspect novelty, then a luxury in France, and later an absolute necessity for survival throughout Europe.

All this and much more come to life in these pages: observations on the first use of the table napkin, the niceties (and vulgarities) of serving food and consuming it; and such piquant facts that the great Alexandre Dumas, in his Grand Dictionaire de Cuisine, insisted that salad is not a natural food for man.

Which brings me to the book's visual delights: its dozens of drawings, sketches, illustrations and reproductions in superb color of renowned paintings of all ages and cultures related to various aspects of cookery, table settings, meat carving, meals of the humble and the mighty. There is not a page of these graphics combined with the text that will not hold your attention and charm you.

And as a grand finale, there is a section of 68 pages of recipes. But what recipes! Roman, Greek and old European; as well as Asian, Middle East and Early American, with full instructions on how to duplicate the original ingredients into modern counterparts. Here are opportunities for you to try to create a dish of the time of Caesar or Socrates; Ptolemy, or a Samurai war-lord or the Pennsylvania Dutch.

This is a splendid book. Whether or not you cook, surely you eat, and “The Joy of Eating” will give you joy. – From a 1997 book review by Jane Barry Williams

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia