Crazy Feasts

Book excerpt: CRAZY FEASTS is a culinary history cookbook that includes descriptions of ten banquets that were quite crazy or bizarre in several senses. Each feast is preceded by a short description of the location and historical setting in order to give a background for the dishes served, as well as for the particular kind of craziness involved. The feasts vary in historical depth from the Roman Empire period to the first decades of the twenty-first century. The locations include cities from Rome to other European capitals, as well as Mexico City, when it was called Tenochtitlan as the Spanish conquistadores entered it in the early sixteenth century. Each feast described was either an actual historical incident, or is an imagined banquet that could well have occurred given the culture and habits of the time. Each feast described is followed by recipes garnered from that culture and historical period. CRAZY FEASTS is a salute to human folly and the happy circumstances of glorious banquets meant to stimulate your sense of fun and folly should you decide to create a crazy feast of your own.