Crazy Feasts. Dr. Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz Ph.D.
gutted nor cooked, but merely seasoned with cumin! Therefore, he announces, his chef must be stripped and beaten! A simulated beating of the groveling cook follows, after which the punished chef recovers his shirt, smirks broadly and takes up a knife. With a nervous hand, the chef slashes open the pig’s belly, and out pour heaps of cooked sausages and blood puddings.
The vindicated chef is then rewarded with money and a fine Corinthian bronze platter. After this bit of dramatic farce, more ribaldry, joking and drinking follow. Next, a series of acrobatic dancers and clowns entertain the guests. During this series of theatrics, conversations turn to joking, citing poetry, and ultimately a collective decision not to punish the youngest acrobat who inadvertently fell onto Trimalchio’s dining couch.
Fine Falernian wine continues to flow during the dinner, even after some guests became slightly verbally abusive, but probably in an orchestrated manner as their part of the show. Since performing excerpts from the Classics was popular during Roman feasts, peace was restored, and an actor loudly recites several passages from Homer. After this dramatic interlude, the banqueters return to more dedicated prolonged eating.
The servants now form a double line so that an entire broiled calf can be carried in on a two-hundred pound silver platter. The calf, which wears a warrior’s helmet, is served whole. Following the arrival of the roasted calf, one slave marches in garbed as Ajax and begins slashing at the calf with a drawn sword. He then collects huge chunks of meat on his sword-point which he further slices and distributes pieces among the surprised guests.... The guests eat the roasted meat pieces while continuing to gossip and drink.
All of a sudden the coffered ceiling begins rumbling, and the entire dining room seems to vibrate. The surprised guests leap to their feet in a panic as the rumbling continues. When the frightened guests look up in surprise, they see that the ceiling panels are opening. Next, an enormous hoop is let down from which dangle gold tiaras and several alabaster jars of fragrant unguents. The startled guests are asked graciously by Trimalchio to accept these as presents to take home after the feast.
Once the guests settle down again, they peer around and find that yet more food has been served. There is a large tray of cakes already placed on the table, and in its center is a sculpture of Priapus (god with outsized penis) made of pastry. He also holds fresh apples and grapes in his very adequate lap. Apparently the apples were somehow injected, so that when squeezed or bitten, they ejaculate saffron-flavored water!
More laughter, conversation, storytelling and wine-drinking follow, until even the slaves join in. They also sip wine mixed with water as they wander around serving more casually to say the least. A large tray of cakes is followed by several more savories. Instead of typical thrushes, however, fat roasted capons are brought in – one for each guest – and each one is accompanied by flavored goose eggs in baked pastry shells.
By now it is very late, and another somewhat drunk guest and his wife noisily arrive. They are accompanied by Fortunata, Trimalchio’s wife. Fortunata immediately ambles around and shows-off her jewelry to all the guests. Then she proceeds to dance around the tables while flapping her cerise petticoats about. After this wild show-and-tell interlude, more high kicks and ribald sexual joking ensue. These are initiated by Trimalchio’s loud vocal jibes, since he is by now quite clearly as intoxicated as the guests.
Trimalchio calls out loudly for desserts, while the servants scatter sawdust tinted with saffron, vermilion, and powdered mica on the floor. The guests sing and tell jokes, after which professional singers enter and perform more songs. Meanwhile, yet another endless course is served. This one consists of thrushes stuffed with raisins and nuts and covered in baked pastry shells. These savory birds are followed by roasted quinces with thorns stuck into them so that they resemble sea urchins.
A staged fight among the servants then occurs, followed by a simulated rumble between Trimalchio and Fortunata. The guests laugh as they watch these scenes until they notice that oysters, scallops and snails are sliding out of several jugs that have been carried in on steaming silver gridirons. During this serving interlude, boys with long hair walk around with silver bowls of perfumed cream with which they massage the feet of the guests reclining on their couches. The slave boys also wrap the guests’ legs and ankles in wreaths of fragrant flowers.
Trimalchio delivers a rambling but detailed account of the outrageously sumptuous funeral he hopes will mark his death one day. It will feature a large tombstone that carefully lists an inventory of his great wealth. Although he and Fortunata dissolve in tears after this pseudo-sad narration, they eventually stop sniveling about death in front of the guests, and return to laughter and joking.
By now, the guests are tipsy, so the party undertakes an exit trip to the baths for a much-needed intermission of dousing. (A kind of Keystone Cops routine follows in the baths). When the bathed guests return, they are escorted to a second dining room where tables are already laden with wine and pastries. During this dessert interlude, the guests continue to exchange light verbal banter until, after the break of dawn, the end of the feast is in sight.’
Petronius’ account of Trimalchio’s feast ends with a description of the bleary-eyed guests as they stagger off with their slaves who bear Trimalchio’s rich dinner gifts.’ (Extracted and paraphrased from: Satyricon, and the Apocolocyntosis, Volume II; translation and introductory notes by J.P. Sullivan, as well as on-line Project Gutenberg’s version, which was consulted for comparison).
Well! Trimalchio’s feast combined dining with theater-in-the-round, several true confessions, the services of a massage parlor and a surreal trick ceiling. The use of multi-ethnic slaves and actor-chefs as part of The Dinner Show is notable, as is the cameo role of the trophy-wife and her high-stepping performance. Trimalchio’s feast emphasized his wealth in a manner that epitomized imperial Roman theatrical entertainment among the newly rich, many of whom were – by Imperial Times – upstart canny tradesmen instead of the traditional clan-centered aristocracy.
Freely serving Falernian wine is analogous to serving Jeroboams of the best French champagne today. Good Falernian was seldom mixed with herbs or spices, as were less impressive wines, although wines were typically cut with water during the earlier courses of any feast. The Romans, like the Greeks, typically drank wine diluted with water or juices, because drinking it neat was (rightly) surmised to cause early drunkenness. This practice was often honored in the breach during the final hours of feasts and symposia.
Imperial Roman culinary patterns, such as stuffing smaller animals or their parts into larger ones, encasing foods in dough, or larding fowl and fish with herbs and sauces all characterize Trimalchio’s feast. Serving food ingredients in pastry shells and shaped into sculptures was very popular in Imperial Rome, and similar food-as-artwork patterns were elaborated during medieval culinary history too.
Interspersed periods of entertainment such as dances, music, recitations, dramatic scenes, poetry and literary readings were echoed in many Roman feasts, crazy or not. The excesses of this crazy feast, with its blatant focus on the conspicuous consumption of endless courses of dishes, and blatant use of slaves, costly ingredients and fine wines, compose its crass profile to feature Trimalchio’s wealth. Reviewing the menu for a ‘casual’ feast such as this was, helps us understand a need for the Senate’s sumptuary laws. The guests could not possibly eat a fraction of the rich dishes served, and the use of baths, two dining-rooms, and costly take-home gifts emphasize luxury intended as pure display. Moreover, the obviously crass manners and conversation of the host and hostess, add the frosting on the cake of their gauche demeanor.
Thus, most of this feast’s craziness relates to its gross distortion of traditional Roman values into wasteful opulence, trick ceilings, and overly sumptuous gifts to the guests. In spite of Trimalchio’s attempts to appear upper class, his gross exaggeration of personal wealth and coarse behavior outweigh the kudos wealth might have given him. Crazy is as crazy does.
Imperial Roman dinners (coena recta) or feasts (comessatio) were typically organized as follows. First came an antipasto (ante coenam or gustum) consisting of fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts, shellfish or the ever-popular dormice, served with mulled wine (mulsum). Next came the first main course, mensa prima, consisting of game, boar, roe, deer and Picenian (wheat) breads, along with other meat or