Paramètres
- 349pages
- 13 heures de lecture
En savoir plus sur le livre
What occurs when we gather to dine? More than just eating, says Roy Strong, whose remarkable <i>Feast: A History of Grand Eating</i>reviews 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.<p> 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. <i>--Arthur Boehm</i><i></i></p>
Achat du livre
Feast, Roy C. Strong
- Langue
- Année de publication
- 2002
- product-detail.submit-box.info.binding
- (rigide),
- État du livre
- Bon
- Prix
- 7,49 €
Modes de paiement
Personne n'a encore évalué .
- Titre
- Feast
- Sous-titre
- A History of Grand Eating
- Langue
- Anglais
- Auteurs
- Roy C. Strong
- Éditeur
- Jonathan Cape
- Publié
- 2002
- Format
- rigide
- Pages
- 349
- ISBN10
- 0224061380
- ISBN13
- 9780224061384
- Séries
- Mots clés
- Nonfiction, Sciences sociales, Thème historique, Livres de cuisine, Arts culinaires & Gastronomie, Nourriture, Sociologie, Alimentation et boissons, Histoire sociale
- Description
- What occurs when we gather to dine? More than just eating, says Roy Strong, whose remarkable <i>Feast: A History of Grand Eating</i>reviews 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.<p> 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. <i>--Arthur Boehm</i><i></i></p>