Charlemagne's Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting

by Nichola Fletcher

Feasts, banquets, and grand dinners have always played a vital role in our lives. They oil the wheels of diplomacy, smooth the paths of the ambitious, and spread joy at family celebrations. They lift the spirits, involve all our senses and, at times, transport us to other fantastical worlds. Some feasts have give rise to hilarious misunderstandings, at others competitive elements take over. Some are purely for pleasure, some connect uncomfortably with death, but all are interesting. Nichola Fletcher has written a captivating history of feasts throughout the ages that includes the dramatic failures along with the dazzling successes. From a humble meal of potatoes provided by an angel, to the extravagance of the high medieval and Renaissance tables groaning with red deer and wild boar, to the exquisite refinement of the Japanese tea ceremony, Charlemagne’s Tablecloth covers them all. In her gustatory exploration of history’s great feasting tables, Fletcher also answers more than a few riddles such as “Why did Charlemagne use an asbestos tablecloth at his feasts?” and “Where did the current craze for the elegant Japanese Kaiseki meal begin? Fletcher answers these questions and many more while inviting readers to a feasting table that extends all the way from Charlemagne’s castle to her own millennium feast in Scotland. This is an eclectic collection of feasts from the flamboyant to the eccentric, the delicious to the disgusting, and sometimes just the touchingly ordinary. For anyone who has ever sat down at a banquet table and wondered, “Why?” Nichola Fletcher provides the delicious answer in a book that is a feast all its own.

Genres: History, Food, Nonfiction, Food History, Food and Drink, Cookbooks, Medieval

272 pages, Hardcover

First published July 8, 2004

Reviews

[Lindsey Geddes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feasting is a universal language . We all have to eat, drink, love, laugh as Karen would say! The imagery in this book will make you salivate, put the book down and walk immediately to the fridge. The best part about this book was the time travel through history of feasts from all over the world. Each chapter was a different cultures feasting rituals from Roman Orgies, Mardi Gras, Christmas, Japanese tea ceremonies & over the top Medieval feats. Really an enjoyable book for the gastronome. I picked this book up at Cameron’s Books in Portland, OR. My husband and I were walking on our way to Le Pigeon for memorable feast. Glad we stopped in. Portland is small we walked back from dinner as well. It was much needed excersie after the epic meal we had. Sharing this book with my husband was special because we are both lovers of feasting and my husband is a chef....sooo...yeah let’s recreate that crazy full feathered medieval peacock soteltie from chapter 28!! 😆

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an odd breed of book. Fascinating and well-written once you've picked it up, but... I always had to kind of make myself pick it up and keep reading, which made the finishing of it take a LONG time. I really can't put my finger on why; I have few complaints about the book itself.

#16 in my read-through-the-bookshelf challenge.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting little book, it read more like an extended The Encyclopedia of the Exquisite rather than a linear historical nonfiction.

[Andrew Nease · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this book delivers what it promises. It's a book about eating well and celebrating the good times, in all the forms that takes and has taken throughout human history. If you're interested in that, and I have no idea why you wouldn't be, then this is exactly what you'd hope it would be.

[Alex Sarll]

A wonderfully odd book. I know nothing about the writer beyond what I gleaned from these pages, but found myself picturing a formidable figure, a slightly loopier version of Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia (NB: this is a compliment). The arrangement of the book is openly idiosyncratic - some chapters are historical, others geographical or thematic - and yet, a few repetitions aside, it all gels such that, like any fine feast, you can't picture it working better in any other arrangement. The definition of a feast here is itself elastic - as well as the obvious grand dinners, Fletcher finds room for everything from cannibalism to the austere pleasures of the Japanese tea ceremony. And along the way, various trivia tangential even to this wide field comes in - cows eating rabbits, asbestos in baking powder, Romans so fond of their pet eels that they gave the fish earrings despite said fish not actually having ears. Fletcher is also partial to putting on banquets of her own, so we get more first-hand detail than we might ever have expected about such outre topics as how to make a swan into a centrepiece (apparently, despite their size, there's surprisingly little storage space inside one).

The meals themselves didn't generally appeal to me. I'm a fussy vegetarian sometimes overcome with sadness at the thought of all those generations in the old world who lived before the introduction of the glorious spud. As such, any mediaeval or Persian or Roman feast - however many intricate meat courses, however grand the fake castle on the table - would be pretty much a dead loss for me. But despite that, Fletcher ensures that the overall atmosphere - generally, but not always, convivial - comes through. A good book to read as we begin our own festive, feasting season.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nichola Fletcher clearly reveres good food, which infuses a deep sense of love into Charlemagne's Tablecloth, a book about the art of feasting.

I found this book very enjoyable. I think that, in modern times, we tend to believe that we have the market cornered on excess and indulgence. What an incredibly wrong-headed and arrogant notion! Many of the historic feasts that Fletcher describes practically defy the imagination. I was often astounded, thrilled, impressed....and sometimes a little sickened. Our ancestors definitely knew how to cook a meal and not let anything go to waste.

I found a few of the chapters to be on the tedious side, but I also recognize that the ones I found tedious, others might find fascinating, and vice versa. I was also pleasantly surprised by a few chapters I thought would be a snooze (i.e. the one about pork). My biggest quibble is that there are a few chapters where Fletcher describes feasts that she herself has cooked and presented. While I understand her pride in her work, I found those chapters to be a touch self-indulgent.

However, on the whole, Charlemagne's Tablecloth was a fascinating read. I learned a lot, not only about feasting, but also about history and basic human nature.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look through the centuries on the importance a gathering of people around food has on the community and a leader's role in commanding his tribe or kingdom. Some of the feasts were excessive and were put on as a show of power. Some of the rituals from these feasts of old have carried over to present day, such as a waiter sweeping crumbs off the table before dessert.

Interesting material on the types of foods that were served during feasts across Greece, Rome, England and China, the difference between food for presentation and food that was meant to be eaten (this brought to my mind today's plastic food in front of restaurants made popular by the Japanese), what they did with the leftovers, and the distinction between food served to guests-of-honor sitting on the high table, and food served to general guests.

Apart from the food preparations and service over the years, we're also treated to anecdotes of people who were set on fire during a feast, details of the entertainment accompanying feasts and fights that have broken out during feasts.

Good fun read.

[Kathy Duffy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well there were some interesting bits here and there but mainly I felt that a great deal of the information was now dated -- I know a bizarre thought for a book on the history of feasting but since it was written an immense amount of research has been done in this area. There are books on the Anglo-Saxon Table, recipe books from a multiple number of cultures that have now been translated and made available from the Medieval and Renaissance time, and chemical/biological analysis of food that were stored in jar,stomach contents from mummies, etc. have all filled in our current knowledge on this front.

One thing that I wasn't aware of that is mentioned often in the book is the number of spectators at feasts...something that I hadn't come across before. I knew that sugar had been combined with a substance to make plates, goblets, etc. but not entire tablecloths. I found more information that intrigued me on the entertaining, the presentation than that of the feast information.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love to eat, this is the book that will give you a history of the feasting. From the Persians feasts that began with a perfuming ritual, to Medieval feasting, that could have as many as 50 courses. (39,000 eggs were used for the coronation of Pope Clement VI, 1342). The Chinese banquets of 1150 served dessert first and soup last, and meat of beast every kind, every way....
Yes, Charlemagne had a tablecloth spun out of asbestos, no spoiler, it is right on the first page. he would impress is guests by throwing into the fire after the feast to burn away the debris and put it back on the table clean and white. So, let us begin....

[Nathaniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me a long time to muster the strength to finish this book (clear my plate, so to speak). I digested the last of it on a flight from Atlanta to Boston when my only other option was to open my laptop. The book is scattered. The author collected a lifetime of trivia related to feasting and dropped it into various buckets that had chapter headings on them. Then he explained his own millennium feast based partly on other topics he'd discussed. While I like to eat, I'm not a foodie, and most of this book was wasted on me.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m bumping this up from three to four stars due to the fact it isn't just Euro-centric in its examination of human displays of feasting, which was nice to see. Fletcher makes a good point that it isn't just ye merrie olde England that’s had its share feasting.

There’s a lot of interesting information here, but its all so muddled its hard to get into and hard to get anything out of it. Fletcher couldn't decide if she wanted to present her meal of facts by time, country, or course, and ends up mixing them all together into one gloriously ill-organized all you can eat buffet.

[Syd · Rating 4 out of 5]

truly, if nothing else, this book tugs at my viscera merely through the list of menus - fueling bewilderment + excited laughter - of the many feasts discussed here.

i'm curious to explore more how these practices have evolved into modern day society - as the types of food we consume have shrunk significantly (considering pretty much all we eat is corn + soy these days) and our "feasts", consider thanksgiving, have become more private.

[Derek Davis]

Time to clean out the shelves with the dusty bookmarks on page 75.

This one seemed particularly interesting (visit daedalus books online for excellent deals in remainders) as a history of food, and I've already learned that the Persian leaders were making whole mosques of sugar at a time when my northern European ancestors were scratching fleabites. I also learned that I don't at all, at all like the writing, so off it goes.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fun historical facts is what made the book good but the detailed accounts of the author's personal feasts were unneeded. The book was disjointed with the chapters having no good transitions, you can tell the author is not an experienced writer or researcher. If you are not a cook much of this book can be skimmed.

[Alethea]

Less a history than a thematically-arranged mosaic, this is nevertheless a pleasant if not exceptional book. Enough interesting tid-bits to keep it, well, interesting, and some interesting thematic discussions, if very scattered. It might have worked better if simply treated as the series of essays that it in fact is.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea that dinner should be an event. I read it just before my wedding, and I was convinced I needed menu cards for the tables, (having the mind anticipate the meal is supposed to make the food taste better, and lead to a more favorable experience).

[AskNezka · Rating 5 out of 5]

The details of the historical feasts listed in this narrative history were mind-boggling! Great read.
Article at BBC magazine on kingly feasting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16...

[Jacob Yang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable history of feasts, their excesses and purposes. Certainly puts traditional western wedding traditions in perspective.

[Heather Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t impressed enough to buy this when it first came out, but remaindered at $10 for the hardcover, it seemed worth it. A variety of essays connected by the theme of feasting.

[LorCon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these kind of books. History by food!