Charlemagne's Tablecloth

We all eat, but how many of us know how to feast? If Fletcher, a food writer and occasional feast designer, has her way, we'll all be reconsidering our party habits. True, we're not likely to offer cannibalistic banquets (she discusses those of Fiji, New Guinea, the Aztecs and others), or platters of cats with rats (a dish from the 1870 siege of Paris), or Kwakiutl-style blubber-eating competitions. Even the complex Ruskin feast that Fletcher herself catered (seviche of wood pigeon, wild greens, Coniston char, and roast venison with wild bramble sauce, all served on pollen-inspired ceramic platters, with readings from Wordsworth and Ruskin) for a scholarly set of foodies in the middle of a British forest at sunset seems best left to its designated guests. But as Fletcher describes Roman, medieval, Renaissance, Persian, Japanese and Chinese feasting traditions, some universal elements emerge. Feasts often celebrate key life events and feature symbolic foods like eggs (for birth and fertility) or candied almonds (bitter and sweet, like life). Nature is either evoked or revoked, but rarely ignored. Fletcher serves her culinary history buffet-style; thematic chapters on meat or fish are followed by palate-cleansing pauses to examine oddities like 18th-century French food writer Grimod's funeral banquets or Mr. Billings's horseback dinner in 1903, followed by chapters on Victorian banquets and modern Day of the Dead rituals. This is a veritable cook's tour of a mesmerizing social custom. Photos. Agent, Susan Howe . (Aug. 16)