Gastronomic Exchanges? The Banquets given in 1378 for the Emperor’s visit in Paris
Lecture at the conference: The Power of Taste. Europe at the Royal Table | Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów
Viernes 5 octubre 2018, 10:30Pasado
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On January 1378, the Emperor Charles IV visited in Paris his nephew, King of France Charles V. During this week, the King organized many banquets to honour the Emperor and Wenceslas, King of Romans, who accompanied him. The official chronicle of the monarchy, known as the Grandes Chroniques de France, describes in detail the participants, the table plan and the “entremets” of the main dinner, which took place in the Royal Palace at the City Isle, on Wednesday 6 th of January (day of the Epiphany). Fortunately, we have the menu of this dinner but also of meals organized by King in the two previous days. These documents are now well known and were used for political history but their culinary analysis has been only sketched. Yet they are very important for the history of gastronomy because the meals were prepared by Taillevent, who was at that time the King’s chef and to whom a famous cookbook was attributed before 1392. The comparative study of the menus and the recipes can help to answer one important question, which concerns also the history of diplomacy: did the prince try to impose the tastes of the country he ran – perhaps his own tastes – or did he ask his cook to consider the food habits of his guests? In other words, were the huge international banquets that proliferated along the 14 th and 15 th c. an occasion of gastronomic exchanges? To enrich the answer, historians can use a quite unknown source: the account of the banquet that the Emperor gave to King in return. The study of late medieval banquet can then be seen as an important contribution to the history not only of the “court society” but also of cultural exchanges and national identities in Europe.
Bruno Laurioux, European Institute for Food History and Cultures, Université François-Rabelais Tours, France
Conference Programme: https://bit.ly/2MbrCOG
The conference is organized in frame of the project “A Place at the Royal Table” project developed by the Network of European Royal Residences for the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.
lecture, conference, food history, Old-Polish recipes, culinary, adults i Wilanów
