Don’t blame them for exporting an arguably superior way of eating.
The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/13
By: Wolfgang Georg Arlt
Credit: Depositphotos
A little more than 200 years ago, in January 1817, one of the greatest banquets in the history of Europe took place in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, on the occasion of the visit of the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia to George, the Prince Regent (later George IV, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover).
The 120 dishes were not served as was usual in Western Europe up till then à la française, which meant that all the dishes were placed on the table at the same time and people helped themselves from the dishes nearest to them. Instead, for the banquet given by the Regent for the Russian Grand Duke, in order to honor his guest and to make sure that everyone had a chance to taste all the dishes, the serving style was à la russe, meaning that each guest was served a portion of each dish on a separate plate or in a separate bowl, one after the other. The place setting for each guest included a service plate, all the necessary cutlery except those required for dessert, and stemmed glasses for water, wines and champagne.
Credit: SuppliedEuropeans ate like this too… until an 1817 banquet mucked it all up.
If that sounds familiar, it is because this is what is nowadays considered to be the ‘normal’ way of eating in Western countries. The spread of this habit across Western Europe – and the British colonies – was supported by the growth of an affluent urban population and the general acceptance of using a knife and fork in the early nineteenth century. The rural population, which had mostly survived on bread and pottage eaten with a wooden spoon from a common pot in Europe over many centuries, followed suit when people started to be able to afford a more varied diet as well as cutlery. [FULL STORY]