Feasts and All Their Finery

Le Grand d'Aussy ends his three-volume history of French food with these exuberant chapters, bristling with colorful details, about how fine dining in France grew more formal and more ambitious, remaining extravagant (by today's standards) even after the sometimes stunning, sometimes laughable excesses of the Middle Ages were reigned in and more sophisticated service and entertainment replaced a host of mechanical devices, pantomimes, and outright exotica. Le Grand draws on a classic cookbook and several forgotten memoirs to bring a wealth of details on menus, table decoration, royal households, customs, and entertainments to those who study the Middle Ages, food history, decoration or simply France in all its infinite variety. For the first time, this rich and unique text is available in English