HIST 840
Syllabus
Weekly discussion materials
Some historic menus
Week 7: Sharing the Table
Readings:
Reay Tannahill, Food in History, pp. 153-173 (Part Three: Introduction; Chap. 12: “Supplying the Towns”)
Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner, pp. 79-89, 109-136 (excerpts from Chap. 4: “The Pleasure of Your Company;” plus notes on pp. 363-5), 326-337 (“The Proprieties of Posture and Demeanor,” plus notes on p. 376)
Mauricio Borrero, “Communal Dining and State Cafeterias in Moscow and Petrograd, 1917-1921,” in Musya Glants and Joyce Toomre, eds., Food in Russian History and Culture (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 162-176.
Images:
fresco from catacomb of San Pietro e Marcellino depicting “agape” scene:
http://static.guide.supereva.it/guide/fantasmi/le-catacombe/big_marcellino_pietro.jpg
banquet scene from the “Tomb of the Banquet”:
http://www.ajaonline.org/sites/default/files/field/image/Hudson_Fig03_large.gif
5th-cent. Roman mosaic (private collection; on display at the Château de Boudry) depicting a symposium and an “unswept floor”:
http://parenthetically.blogspot.com/2012/08/unswept-and-unwelcome.html
Depictions of food preparation, service, and eating:from the Maciejowski Bible (made in Paris for Louis IX, 1244 x 1254):
King David hosts a feast
detail: tableware
detail: panter slicing bread
detail: drinking cup
detail: carved table-end
The Duc du Berry at table, from Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry: January (1412-16):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Limbourg_brothers_-_Les_tr%C3%A8s_riches_heures_du_Duc_de_Berry_-_January_%28detail%29_-_WGA13017.jpg
The celebrated grocery emporium, Eliseevsky, opened in 1901 at 14 Tverskaya Street, Moscow:
http://loveisspeed.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-famous-grocery-store-eliseevsky.html
Videos:
clip from Boris Barnet’s “The House on Trubnaya Square” (silent film, USSR, 1928, 3:06 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHd5vM8rYAw&feature=related
(original music by Vadim Sher and Dimitri Artemenko)
eating scene, from “Tom Jones” (3:31 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tezjznL9NzM
King of Queens, “Hungry Man” clip (1:13 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unXKYK0uRJ8