Arranging the meal : a history of table service in France

244 Pages·2007·3.22 MB·English

by  Jean-Louis Flandrin

Arranging the Meal
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translated by Julie E. Johnson, with Sylvie and Antonio Roder
Arranging the Meal
a history of table service in france
Jean-Louis Flandrin
Translated by Julie E.Johnson
with Sylvie and Antonio Roder
Foreword to the English-Language Edition by Beatrice Fink
university of california press
berkeley los angeles london
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generouscontribution to this book provided by
the General Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.
Publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la culture, Centre national du
livre.Published with the assistance of the French Ministry of Culture’s National Center
for the Book.
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States,
enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions
from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
Originally published in French as L’Ordre des mets,
©Éditions Odile Jacob, janvier 2002.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2007 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flandrin, Jean-Louis.
[Ordre des mets. English]
Arranging the meal : a history of table service in France / Jean-Louis Flandrin ; translated by Julie
E.Johnson with Sylvie and Antonio Roder ; foreword to the English-language edition by Beatrice Fink.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn978-0-520-23885-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Food habits—France—History. 2. Dinners and dining—France—History. 3. France—Social
life and customs. 4. Food habits—England—History. 5. Food habits—Poland—History. I. Title.
GT2853.F7F63 2007
394.1'20944—dc22 2007007628
Manufactured in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 50, a 100% recycled fiber of which 50% is de-inked
post-consumer waste, processed chlorine-free. EcoBook 50 is acid-free and meets the minimum
requirements of ansi/astm d5634–01 (Permanence of Paper).
contents
Plates follow page 108
foreword,
by Georges Carantino vii
foreword to the english-language edition:
jean-louis flandrin’s world order,
by Beatrice Fink ix
preface
xix
part one
the structure of meals in the classical age
1
1 / Composition of the Classical Meal 3
2 / Roasts 12
3 / Entrées and Entremets 21
4 / Composition of Meatless Meals 32
part two
fourteenth to twentieth centuries: variations
in the sequence of courses in france
45
5 / French Meals in the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Centuries 47
6 / Sixteenth-Century Overview 57
7 / Classical Order in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries 72
8 / Innovations from the Revolution to World War I 90
9 / Hidden Changes in the Twentieth Century 106
part three
other countries, other sequences
109
10 / English Menu Sequences 111
11 / Polish Banquets in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and
Eighteenth Centuries 118
postscript
127
appendixes
131
A.Additional Material for Part Three 131
B.Dietetics and Meal Sequences 136
C.The Cuisine of the Renaissance 149
D.Additional Printed Sources 153
notes
159
works cited
195
index
199
foreword
Georges Carantino
Jean-Louis Flandrin had finished writing more than three-quarters of this
book, originally published in France as L’Ordre des mets, by the time he
passed away in August 2001. The knowledge that it would present the con-
ventions of the table in a totally new light must have driven him, in the last
months of his life, to see it completed. This act of will surely helped him
carry on for nearly a year in spite of the illness that eventually overcame
him. It is with gratitude that we acknowledge here the contribution of his
closest students, who sustained and assisted him in his final effort.
Having often discussed his book and its outline with him, we were
steeped in his approach and reasoning, but would never take it upon our-
selves to finish it in his stead. Nevertheless, being familiar with his other
writings and comments on the subject, we supplemented the completed
portion of his manuscript with selections in which he presents the tradi-
tional structure of meals in other European countries and ponders the rea-
sons behind these customs. Many of the points he would have wished to
make will no doubt be lost, but to presume to speak for him—not that any-
one could—was unthinkable.
While this book establishes a few axioms, it may also inspire new ques-
tions and new discoveries. There could be no greater tribute to its author.
Georges Carantino is a historian, a former student of Jean-Louis Flandrin, and now president
of De Honesta Voluptate, Société des Amis de Jean-Louis Flandrin (Friends of Jean-Louis
Flandrin Society).
vii
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foreword to the english-language edition
Jean-Louis Flandrin’s World Order
Beatrice Fink
Bernard Loiseau’s dramatic disappearance from the French culinary scene
in February 2003—like his illustrious forebear Vatel he committed suicide
rather than experience the downfall of his reputation as a chef—generated
impressive tremors throughout France. The great culinary artist was de-
clared a martyr by those wishing to undermine the all-powerful restaurant
critics’Diktats.“Regicides” was the term used by one of Loiseau’s follow-
ers to characterize this tyrannical cohort. More significantly, this chef ex-
traordinaire was given a hero’s farewell by his horde of admirers. His funeral
was the occasion for what amounted to a summit meeting of France’s culi-
nary crème de la crème. For the thousands unable to enter the small church
at Saulieu in which the funeral was held, the ceremony was projected on a
huge outdoor screen.
Had Jean-Louis Flandrin been alive, he would have been elated at such
a projection of cuisine’s grandeur, and would in all likelihood have been
among the privileged few invited to attend the funeral service inside the
church. Flandrin was a luminary in his own right, not only in his capacity
as a member of France’s exclusive—at times elusive—image-conscious gas-
tronomic elite, but also as a standard bearer of Academe, more precisely as
someone who had devoted a sizable part of his professional career to teach-
ing, researching, writing on, and otherwise fostering all aspects of food in
historical perspective. The context he drew on knew no limits: his real and
ix