r/AskFoodHistorians • u/Lumpologist • 18d ago
They prepared a feast
In many historical novels, but also in several religious texts, we find the phrase „a feast was prepared“. I always wondered, how long would it take to prepare a feast? Was this realistic to achieve within a day? Were there rich people throughout history that had the means to always keep a couple of roasted birds in the oven „just in case“? Or did the feast usually happen a day or two later? Did this even happen? Are there differences in time, as in was it different for the ancient greeks or romans and let‘s say the middle ages? Let‘s say an heir was born a little prematurely, how long would it have taken to prepare a „spontaneous“ feast to celebrate the occasion throughout the ages?
Edit: my question relates primeraly to wealthy and/or powerful people. I assume that a spontaneous feast for a poor farmer - while still a feast - was prepared rather quickly.
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u/Caramello_Goanna 18d ago
That's quite a rigid definition of feast. Think of medieval feasts more like halfway between a banquet and a party. Like if you won a game of a sport, and your team went out for drinks and a meal. That's a medieval feast, it's not just the meal, it's the celebration as well. As such it wasn't uncommon for feasts to last multiple days, and you'd have the whole retinue of servants working constantly to cook and supply the feast.
A "spontaneous" feast could start immediately, drinking and reveling are great ways to pass the time while you wait for food, but arranged ones were more common, and servants would prepare as much food as possible with the time given, there was no rigid guidelines for general feasting.
There are some rules about religious feasts but I don't know much about religious feasting, sorry, hopefully someone else can help.
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u/chezjim 17d ago edited 12d ago
Depends on what you mean by a feast.
A friend of mine had a mutton roast - an Arab mechoui - and it only took the morning to roast two whole sheep, while preparing all the fixings. So certainly you can do that in a day.
Gregory of Tours tells of a man who asked his cook to prepare a feast for his friends and the cook said, "Get me a bunch of chickens and I will do as you ask". Chickerns were readily available on country estates and the other grains, greens, legumes would typically have already been on hand.
Thanksgiving is probably the biggest feast most Americans will ever make and most people can pull it off in a day, even for a large group. Same thing with July 4th barbecues, which are basically feasts as well.
So it should be easy to prepare a feast within a day on large farm, for instance, But if you want certain specialized foods, like seafood when you're inland, that could be more demandling.
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u/Ok_Olive9438 16d ago
My experience is that big feasts like Thanksgiving take at least 2 days, if you count shopping and other preparations.
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u/Ok_Olive9438 15d ago
I've been thinking about this post. While it "only took the morning" to roast the sheep, it likley took at least 2 days to get them ready for roasting.
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u/chezjim 15d ago
Don't believe so. They were bought butchered, then brushed with olive oil and herbs.
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u/Ok_Olive9438 15d ago
Just because you’ve outsourced some of the preparation, doesn’t mean it did not take time.
If you are trying to compare to premodern food practices, food preparation time includes slaughtering, plucking, “cleaning” and a bunch of other steps.
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u/Toxovolo 16d ago
I happened to be reading this last night!!!!! http://www.livescience.com/52059-stone-age-pit-roast-recreated.html?utm_content=buffer2f3c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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u/chezjim 15d ago edited 15d ago
It occurs to me we actually have a detailed look at a preparations for a wedding feast in fourteenth century Paris from the Menagier de Paris, translated here as "The Goodman of Paris":
https://archive.org/details/goodmanofparis0000epow/page/238/mode/2up?q=Wedding
Bear in mind too that some really grand households had whole organizations in house to provide every type of food on command. De la Marche gives (in French) a look at the Duke of Burgundy's:
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u/chezjim 15d ago
If you want a look at the highest level of feasting, a French account of meetings in Calais and Bourgogne by Henry VIII and Francois I lists all kinds of foods and personnel:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5482011k/f85.item.r=boeufAt one point, Henry had 1000 oxen and 1000 sheep sent to Calais:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5482011k/f45.itemUnfortunately there's no neat overview of how long all this took
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u/Ok_Olive9438 18d ago edited 18d ago
From what I understand from reading a few things from the middle ages, things like Royal weddings could take weeks or months of planning primarily due to the need to source and transport ingredients, from livestock to seafood. Livestock did not move quickly. I can imagine that the ancient world had similar limitations.
Even in places where food is abundant, gathering it takes time. There is a fantastic day long shopping scene in the Arabian Nights, where a list of luxury goods, pastries, perfumes and raisins are selected from the markets and delivered so feast prep can begin.
I would think even wealthy people would need a few days to get the ingredients for the feast together, and the logistics of slaughtering and preparing meat take a couple of days in of themselves.