The rituals of dinner: the origins evolution eccentricities and meaning of table manners

About this book

This is the book on the way we eat.Solidifying her standing as a preeminent observer and scholar of everyday life Margaret Visser takes on the sweeping history of table manners from the civilizations of ancient Greece and medieval Europe to the way that technology has altered and continues to alter our behaviour over dinner.She writes of everything from cultural idiosyncrasies around preparation and consumption to the surprising origins of tableware - forks took eight centuries to become common utensils the plate began as a four-day-old slice of bread. Blending folklore history and humour this is a feast of fact and observation on one of our most primal the meal.