CRAZY FEASTS
MARILYN EKDAHL RAVICZ
The cover is a painting by Jan Mandijn entitled “Burlesque Feast”, c. 1550. Its use has been authorized under the Creative Commons licensure afforded by Wikipedia for works of art, along with given rights for acknowledged publication.
Copyright 2016 Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2787-4
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FICTION
Requiem for Córdoba
Alexandre and Simone: the Two Musketeers
Blood, Soil and Art
Love Song for Dancing Strings
Murder as a Second Language
Alexandria: Cloud-Cuckoo-Town
Crossing to Samarkand
NON FICTION
Early Colonial Religious Drama in Mexico: From Tzompantli to Golgotha
Ken Friedman: the World that Is, the World That Is to Be
Erotic Cuisine: A Natural History of Aphrodisiac Cookery
Ergonomics for Home-based Workers: Use your Brain to Save your Body
TO BOB, TO LIFE, AND TO OUR MANY CRAZY FEASTS
OF HEART AND MIND
And let us honor the joyous hours of crazy mental feasts that Monty Python’s Flying Circus gave to us. Here’s to their
Theme: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:
So remember when you’re feeling small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray there’s intelligent life out there in space
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.
‘With good friends….And good food on the board, and good wine in the pitcher, we may well ask: When shall we live if not now?”
M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Living.
Author’s note
The idea for Crazy Feasts, which is a blend of history, fiction and cookbook, tweaked my interest while researching materials for a previous work: Erotic Cuisine:A Natural History of Aphrodisiac Cookery. The tweaking persisted until I succumbed and wrote this culinary history cookbook as personal catharsis.
The histories of religion, anthropology, literature, drama, art and music are littered with descriptions of and references to food, banquets and ritual feasting. Some of the feasts described appear so crazy – by reason of content or context – that they begged for attention, or at least a hearty laugh. The laugh didn’t last long enough, so this book inevitably happened. As a Cultural Anthropologist, part of my beat is learning about social patterns that appear cross-culturally with regularity and, not surprisingly, the universal urge to hold celebratory feasts fits one example nicely.
My thanks to the many friends who shared in our many straight or crazy banquets, and to the memories of those who helped prepare some of the recipes I’ll offer you. We survived co-chef kitchen warfare to remain best friends. You know who you are or were in case you have now celebrated reincarnation.
The books and articles from which I quote material are cited in the text and bibliography. For those presses which did not respond to my requests for citation permissions (I’ve waited more than three years), I hereby thank you in absentia, and have properly noted the cited sources in the text and bibliography.
The bibliography at the end lists the most relevant publications reviewed and referenced for this book, much of which was simply learned through many years of fieldwork data (I’m a Cultural Anthropologist), notes, directed research, cooking with friends and from gossip during our own occasional crazy feasts. I also wish to thank Project Gutenberg for the privilege of using their resources in those chapters where they are noted. This wonderful service is mentioned at the end of the bibliography. Garnering information and materials this way still seems like the best kind of sheer magic to me.
In short, friends and I have held some crazy feasts of our own; however, those tales will be told some dark and stormy night around a campfire, while tempting wary spirits with gourmet toasted marshmallows rolled in crushed almonds. And, dear readers, I acknowledge you in advance and wish you well if, having read this culinary history and its recipes, you decide to host some crazy feasts of your own.
Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz, Ph.D.
1. HOW CAN A FEAST BE CRAZY?
Feasts
In every mess have folly,
And the feeders
Digest with it a custom,
I should blush
To see you so attired.
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Many feasts have been called unusual, but few are acknowledged as truly crazy. So how is it that banqueting – dining to celebrate conviviality with family, friends and peers – can ever be considered crazy? Rest easy, since that question is at least partly answered in the following scenarios and tales of feasting follies. Some even smack of dark intrigue!
Since feasts typically celebrate important personal, family or group occasions that are secular or religious in nature, hosts strive to make them pleasing and memorable. Especially memorable? Aye, there’s the rub! While sharing food brings people together during holidays or rites of passage like birth, marriage, confirmation, initiation ceremonies or death memorials, it can also drive them apart. Although everyone agrees that commensality was biologically important to human evolution and the roots of social life, dining together can become dramatized as a love feast or battlefield. While relatively few hosts deliberately stage a crazy feast, except during reversal rituals like Halloween or Mardi Gras, craziness can and does happen for reasons beyond control. Is there a spy in the kitchen? Did Uncle Roscoe finally snap and come dancing downstairs without shorts? If so, quick – find Aunt Celeste in the kitchen before it’s too late!
The success of any feast depends on several interrelated factors: the nature of the occasion; the dishes served; the decorative settings; the entertainment; the dining environment; and, of course, the ages, sex and social statuses of the hosts and guests. And then there’s the amount of money or resources hosts are willing to invest in the celebration, and whether it is a religious banquet or feast with potentially dangerous liaisons.
Normal feasts are remembered because of one or all of these elements, but sometimes a feast sticks in the craw of social memories as extremely crazy. This can happen because of its timing, general presentation, or even an odd menu. And believe me, there have been feasts by Popes and Wise Guys I would never mention until after they are publicized in another Godfather exposé.
Learning about crazy feasts can be amusing, informative, and even stimulate a desire to stage one (or more) for your own reasons and guests. And I do mean stage one, since crazy feasts are as dramatic as the grandest opera, and we know those plots turn on craziness. If