[.ca] The rituals of dinner: The origins, evolution, ... (ISBN 0006391052)

Amazon.ca:
Eating is a strange phenomenon, if you think about it: to survive, we must kill and then incorporate other living things into ourselves. It is this basic strangeness with which Margaret Visser's The Rituals of Dinner confronts us. "Eating is aggressive by nature," Visser writes, "the implements required for it could quickly become weapons." Table manners have thus evolved to keep our own rapaciousness in check. Winner of The International Association of Culinary Professionals' Literary Food Writing Award, the Jane Grigson Award, and selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1991), The Rituals of Dinner continues the investigation of "the anthropology of everyday life" that Visser began in her first book, Much Depends on Dinner. She approaches her subject from diverse cultural and historical angles, and the book's organization reflects her own ravenous curiosity. Her travels range from ancient Greece to Papua New Guinea, and from cannibalism to cocktails. Visser, with a doctorate in classics from the University of Toronto, is a serious scholar. But this best-selling author is also an accomplished stylist. Her greatest gift is for distilling information culled from an astounding range of sources--her bibliography is 30 pages long!--to produce prose that is not only thought-provoking but also highly digestible. --Russell Prather

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover:
I can't imagine doing the research for this tome. And I don't use the word tome lightly. This book is chock full of little tidbits of trivia that are fascinating, but that you will probabaly never need nor have an opportunity to share. What is the origin of the word, 'menu?' How did the fork evolve; how did table cloths come into use? "The ritual of Dinner" digs down to the tiniest of details, the most remote possible history and the widest variety of customs. If you expect such questions when you appear on Jeopardy, or when quizzed by your mother-in-law to be, this book is thorough and very well written. My, is it thorough! But, is this the information that you seek? I was looking for a book that went into more detail than Amy Vanderbilt in the proper placement and use of dishes, utensils and glassware. I wanted to know the difference between a 'rim soup' bowl and a 'cream soup' bowl, and which spoon goes with which dish as well as which type of soup. Although some of this book was fascinating reading, it didn't really answer my questions. Well, maybe some of them, but you have to research and work at finding any guidelines. Visser insists that you learn the why and history of a ritual before letting you in on it's current practical use, and how it may be applied. If you are not a museum curator and just want to set a proper table, I suggest you turn to "The Art of the Table" by Susanne Von Drachenfuls instead. And no, I'm still not sure about the soup bowls.

Exploration of table manners thru-out time and the world.:
This is a fascinating book. Everyone who reads a bit of it wants to own it. You can learn lots of trivia and impress your friends as well as develop a whole new outlook on food, eating, dinner parties, etc.