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Banquets as Cultural Events: More Than Just Food

Royal banquets were joyful and opulent affairs, a mixture of playful conviviality and official solemnity. Eating together was also a cultural act, and tables were carefully laid with tablecloths, one drinking vessel for every two people, only a few pieces of tableware—mainly for broths, which were drunk directly from the bowl—and large serving dishes.

Portions of meat or fish were cut by the carving servant and served by the steward on thick slices of bread. Food was eaten with the hands, but, according to etiquette, preferably using only the fingertips.

Frederick II himself displayed first-hand knowledge of culinary techniques and even created new dishes to which he did not hesitate to attach his own name. The Emperor was neither a glutton nor a voracious eater, perhaps because of his natural temperament, but also because of the influence of different cultural traditions that encouraged moderation.

Restraint in eating and drinking is in fact explicitly mentioned among the physical and mental qualities required of a falconer in the De arte venandi cum avibus.

In this regard, Anna Martellotti’s study I Ricettari di Federico II (ISBN 978 88 222 5442 9) is particularly noteworthy. It highlights how Maestro Martino’s Il libro de Arte Coquinaria may be a fifteenth-century reworking of an anonymous earlier draft attributable to Frederick II.

The Emperor is believed to have collected his recipes in a kind of notebook, including many culinary secrets acquired from the so-called exotic cuisines he encountered during his travels among different courts.