SC - The Pennsic Shindig

[Angie Malone]

Elise Fleming wrote:

> In the Elizabethan and Tudor years, the "banquet" was the final course
> of sweets, frequently served in a separate location from the dinner.
> This was often a special room or set of rooms called a "banquetting
> house".  There are banquetting houses on islands in  artificial lakes,
> and even a drawing of one up on a secluded roof.  There is a very good
> chapter about the evolution of "banquet" and "banquetting houses" in
> the book _'Banquetting Stuffe'_, edited by C. Anne Wilson.  My
> understanding is that the use of "banquet" for the sweet course
> predated our use of it as a feast of multi-course meals.
> 
> Alys Katharine

I seem to recall that the term "banquet" was indeed the final course of
sweets (and was sometimes the sole food served, possibly at a ball of
some kind), but that the term itself actually refers to the piece of
furniture on which the sweet dishes were laid out: in English it is more
or less equivalent to the sideboard (you know, where the butler hangs
out in the novels of Agatha Christie or P.G. Wodehouse, when they're not
up to No Good).

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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