Elaine Mahon is a researcher specialized in culinary arts and food technology studies, in the Technical University of Dublin. She is on the board of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies and is a trustee of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery where she also coordinates the Young Chefs programme. She is also on the organising committees of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium and the Food And Drink As… conference series, and is editor of the Journal of Franco-Irish Studies. She was awarded her PhD for her research on diplomatic dining, state entertainment and the protocols established for the reception of important visitors to Ireland following the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, and is currently preparing a monograph for publication by Peter Lang, Oxford entitled The Minister requests the pleasure: Irish Diplomatic Dining, 1922-1963. (extract of https://www.tudublin.ie/explore/faculties-and-schools/arts-humanities/culinary-arts–food-technology/people/academic-staff/elainemahon.php)
She wrote a review of my book À la table des élites. Les repas privés de la Régence à la Révolution, in the European journal specializing in gastronomy and tableware Food and History (Mahon, E. (2015) Krikorian, S. (2013). ‘A la table des élites. Les repas privés en France de la Régence à la Revolution’. Food & History, Volume 13 n°s 1-3 2015).
Please note : my first article entitled « Nourriture et arts de la table à travers deux romans du XVIIème siècle illustrés au siècle des Lumières : le Don Quichotte de Cervantès et Le Roman comique de Scarron » was published en 2005 in a numero of the same scientific journal Food and History.
Here is the review :
This book is the second publication in a study of the French royal cout by Sandrine Krikorian. The author’s first book, Les rois à table. Iconographie, gastronomie et pratiques des repas royaux de Louis XIII à Louis XVI, was a study of the culinary iconography associated with royal meals between 1610 and 1789. The period of research presented in the publication under review here begins nearly a century later and covers the Age of Enlightenments, from the death of Louis XIV (1715) to the French Revolution (1789). Krikorian’s new study focuses on the iconographic representations of those meals which took place away from the etiquette and ceremony of the royal courts « à l’abri des regards » (p. 9). Its strength lies in the range of resources upon which the research into the development and evolution of private meals amongst the eighteenth-century French elite is based, and the resulting thesis is equally well place to be read alone, in tandem with ou complementary to the previous publication.
Krikorian outlines the timid beginnings of the iconography of private dining with Louis XIV’s visits to Marly and its subsequent development following his death and the accession to the French throne of Philippe d’Orléans in 1715, followed by Louis XV en 1723. While the ceremony of court might be intriguins, she proposes that what happened behind the scenes when the King was « off duty » (so to speak) was equally so. What did he eat ? How did he act ? Did the court follow his example ? What tastes, food pratices and mindsets were hidden behind the royal pomp ? A quick glance at this private sphere and certain differences are immediately apparant according to the author. Diners’s seating positions were less important than at public meal, activities such as hunting were omnipresent and dining afresco began to develop, as did new ideologies, practices and tastes. Given that access to the private sphere was restricted to a certain elite by the very nature of their societal position, an issue arises in that they are both the subject and the viewers of the iconography on display. The question the research sees to answer therefore is whether the artwork which is to be the focus of the study is a reflection of the food pratrices, tastes and ideologies of the elite or whether their hehaviour and self-perception was influenced by the artwork.
The author’s thesis is presented over five chapters and begins with the selection of the artwork. Private meals during the period appear on a far wider range of supports than those of public meals of previous periods. While the latter were represented primarily in etchings and paintings, the former are to be found (mostly) in oil and etchings, but also in watercolour and gouache. The appearance and quantity of food-related earthenware and porcelain demonstrates the emergence of decorative table pieces during the period, along with a notable increase in the use of illustrations in general, which can also be seen in the high volume of printed items during this time. In keeping with the fact that most representations were in oil, the majority of the illustrations chosen for the study are oil paintings. However, as Krikorian points out, illustrations began to appear on alternative supports and this is reflected in the other pieces chosen : oil on wood, porcelain, illustrated menus and silverware.
Chosen for their content, setting and depiction of the developing ideologies, pratices and tastes, the scenes in the artwork portray ordinary meals in the life of the elite. Krikorian draws out these developments by means of a qualitative and serial study of the pieces, cross-referencing them with manuscript and printed sources of the period, and thus producing a detaile analysis of the pieces both individually, and as a whole. This methodology successfully establishes the type of meals depicted by the iconography, the locations in which they took place as well as identifying those whose took part and the food pratices, private social habits and emerging tastes of the French Court.
In the chapter prensenting the body of artwork selected for study, Krikorian highlights various points often hidden from plain sight for the unimitated. For example, the design of the location in which a meal took place is relevant to understanding not only a meal’s structure but more importantly its theme. Illustrations such as Le Déjeuner d’huîtres (1735) by Jean-François de Troy and Le Souper fin (1777) by Moreau le Jeune make this point (pp. 140-1). In the first, the fact that the meal takes place in a circular room is demonstrated by the shape of the wall and the convex perspective of the floor. Diners seated around an oval table, the presence of a fountain and bassin, and a tiled floor are characteristics of dining room of the period. The statue of Venus and the love-themed sculptures suggest a certain element of the erotic. Sexual libertinism, the author writes, is repeated by the notion of gastronomic libertinage associated with the food on the table : in this case oysters, reputed in the eighteenth century for their aphrodisiac qualities. This sens of libertinism can also be seen in Le Souper fin, writes Krikorian. Situated within a similiar decor, the couples’ behaviour conveys the intimacy of the setting, as does the absence of staff, the small serving tables and the garlands of flowers on the wall, all of which appear to allude to what is happening around the table.
The Déjeuner de chasse du comte de Ségur devant le château de Romainville demonstrates the importance of the scene in identifying the theme (p. 142). The fact that the meal takes place outdoors is evident. The presence of a saddlebag and a rifle on the ground beside those eating identifies the hunting theme, as does the presence of dogs and a rider on horseback in the background. The hunt is an important element in the life of the monarch and the elite, and its relevance is apparent in the steady increase in the number of its representations throughout the eighteenth-century iconography reported in Krikorian’s findings.
Krikorian discusses the arrival of coffee, tea and chocolate in France, the subsequent production of tableware dedicated to their consumption and the notable presence of teapots, hot chocolate pots and cafetières on the tables of the elite within the iconography. In Le Déjeuner by François Boucher (1739), two women are busy offering a spoonful of liquid to the child nearest them in what Krikorian calls the child’s « gustarory education » (p. 145). Children are seen to appear in many illustrations during the period, albeit often simply as spectators. The consumption of these new drings and the presence of children are noted by the author amongst a portion of the iconography of the period and demonstrate new ideals in the Age of Enlightments : family, sociability and privacy.
Amongst the written resources consulted by Krikorian to underpin her thesis are French language dictionaries of the époque, principally the Dictionnaire de Trévoux (1752), the 1694 and 1765 editions of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, and on occasion, Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. These publications enable the correct understanding of eighteenth-century French use of words such as « meal », « breakfast », « lunch », « dinner » and « snack », what was eaten at thouse meals and how their meaning evolved during the period being researched. A further chapter in the book analyses the iconography within the context of the person(s) for whom it was destined and the physical setting within which it would be displayed. The resulting analysis carried out by Krikorian highlights the social and cultural practices, culinary tastes and mentality of the period. The analysis is preceded by a study of the inventory of Madame de Pompadour’s homes as well as the business accounts of the jewellery merchant to the King and aristocracy. This portion of the study allows the author to cast a « gastronomic magnifying glass » over the contects of an aristocrat’s home, in which the artwork would ultimately be displayed and made the contemporary re-enactment of certain aspects of the iconography possible, such as the table setting at Chambord in 2002 (p. 162).To say that the research presented in this publication is robust would be to underplay somewhat the quality of the content, the range of resources examined as well as the length and breadth of the author’s obvious knowledge of the discipline and familiarity with the primary and secondary resources. Its extensive bibliography will be much appreciated. Students of fine arts and material culture will appreciate Krikorian’s references to the methodologies of Jacobson and Panofsky, while gastronomy students will recognize Mennell, Flandrin, Montanari and Ketcham-Wheaton. If this reviewer has one criticism it would be that there does not appear to be an English version of this or any of Krikorian’s author work in translation. This book would be a welcome addition to a faculty library where it would make a valuable contribution to a programme of research, methodology and analysis within the fields of gastronomy, history, anthropology and fine arts.
Please note : an english article is forthcoming « The diets of rich and powerful« , in Early Modern Food, sous la direction de Roderick Phillips, Routledge.
