Cautionary Tales – Missing Fish and Fatal Feasts: Ritual and Ruin at the Sun King’s Table
In the gilded court of Louis XIV, 17th Century France, manners are everything. Where to sit, how to eat, what to wear – any misstep is costly. No one knows this better than François Vatel, the greatest party planner in all of France. Tonight, Vatel must deliver the ultimate banquet, a chance for his master to rise through the ranks and win the king’s favour. But where there is opportunity there is danger, and even one mistake could prove deadly.
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Further Reading
The key source for story of the party at Vaux-le-Vicomte is Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver: Stories of Dinner as a Work of Art (2002) by Carolin C. Young
Other sources include
Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789 by Barbara Ketcham Wheaton
King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV by Philip Mansel
Vatel et la naissance de la gastronomie by Patrick Rambourg
And by Norbert Elias: The Court Society (1968) and The Civilising Process (1939)
Contemporary accounts and sources included:
Le Cuisinier, Pierre de Lune (first published 1656)
The Letters of Madame de Sévigné to Her Daughter and Her Friends
Memoirs of Louis XIV., by The Duke of Saint-Simon
Useful articles:
Good servants and bad masters: the several deaths of François Vatel by Daniel M. Lavery (29th August 2022)
Chateau raises a glass to party planner undone by missing fish by Adam Sage (8th August 2023)
The websites Etiquipedia and en.ChateauVersailles.fr
