Even Mr Creosote thought that the morel souffle may have been a course too far
Gluttony has probably got a lot to do with it but I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of huge feasts and the more outlandish they are the better. All those ancient tales of larks’ tongues in aspic and galleons constructed from cake and exotic fruits that sail upon seas of wine jelly have always tickled my imagination.
I’m not sure I would actually want to eat at one though. Just some of the six or seven tasting menus that some restaurants do can turn into a bit of a slog. By the fourth hour of a meal, even a guts such as myself loses much of his appetite and I don’t think I could hack some of the three days feasts that those decadent Romans or fey French aristocrats managed.
That said, I enjoyed reading about two very different sorts of feasting in the papers recently. The Telegraph carried this belt-busting piece on the recreation of one of Louis XIV’s banquets. I suspect that I may have passed out somewhere between the royal ballotine of pheasant and the beef madrilene with gold spangles but still, it sounds a hoot.
Rather more sober is this account in The Times of modern day state banquets. Due to the pressures of time and contemporary concerns about healthy eating, modern state banquets are a shadow of their former selves. Apparently, President Christofias of Cyprus scoffed at the Elysée Palace last year. The menu consisted of lobster and melon salad, sole millefeuille with a vegetable flan and praline and pineapple teardrops with citronella. It sounds lovely but President Sarkozy’s predecessors would have noshed that, said thanks for the amuse bouches and asked when the soup course was coming.
What was your most memorable feast?