given by Philip the Good in 1454. Fortunate banqueters might be given something
resembling a modern “Chinese” banquet or Swedish smorgasbord, but those sitting at the
highest table would have been offered the choicest selection. Others may have been
served a quarter or less of the items listed on banquet menus. These menus included a
high proportion of game, especially game birds, with more elaborate stews and pastries
than those found on more modest menus, and they usually omitted the primarily
vegetable pottage, made with greens, peas, or beans, that was the usual basis, or sole
ingredient, aside from bread and drink, of everyday meals.
The order of service may seem odd by modern standards, and it varies in different
times and places. Sometimes, a sort of hors d’œuvres course came first; at other times,
banquets began, as in England, with the most basic meats and pottages. In most cases,
delicacies, often sweet, came last, followed by spiced wine and wafers, and/or fur-
A 14th-century banquet as depicted in
a manuscript of Guillaume de
Machaut’s Remede de Fortune. BN fr.
1586, fol. 55. Courtesy of the
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
ther confits and so on to end the meal. But it was between the courses, usually before the
last full course, that the most striking feature of a banquet appeared: the entremets,
usually edible but presented primarily as entertainment. Decorated pies were used as
entremets for centuries, but anything unusual could count as such a diversion, ranging
from a jellied fish to a skit involving live human players. The most famous examples of
this genre are the roast swans and peacocks reclothed in their own feathers, often seen in
pictures of such banquets.
Constance B.Hieatt
[See also: BEVERAGES; COOKING; MEALS]
Gottschalk, Alfred. Histoire de l’alimentation et de la gastronomie depuis la préhistoire jusqu’à
nos jours. 2 vols. Paris: Hippocrate, 1948.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 178