From Apicius to the Ivy: Roy Strong, the possessor of 800 cookbooks, has written a fascinating and scholarly study of social eating from Greece to the 21st century, a single-volume synthesis of the most significant work published in various countries and various languages over the last two decades, polished with style, bibliographical knowledge and an ability to spin a subject.
His first book of this genre, which I remember reviewing for The Spectator, was Art and Power, a study of Renaissance festivals. This should perhaps be subtitled ‘Power Dining’ since its main theme is eating, food and etiquette as a demonstration of political and social power, the principal objective through the centuries being social exclusion not communal enjoyment. The banquet, used by Italian princes and absolute monarchs as the outward manifestation of their superior, even divine, status was later employed by the elite as an essential weapon in their ceaseless flight from the bourgeoisie.
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