Margaret Visser

'One of the most important books ever written about food...every time I turn to it I am struck by some fresh detail'

Superlative... learned as anything: Visser quotes from Aeschylus, Rabelais, Erasmus, books of etiquette, P J O'Rourke

A wide-ranging reference book, useful to addicts of quizzes and etiquette...you will be both informed and entertained

The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities and Meaning of Table Manners

This is the book on the way we eat. 
 
Solidifying her standing as a preeminent observer and scholar of everyday life, Margaret Visser takes on the sweeping history of table manners, from the civilizations of ancient Greece and medieval Europe to the way that technology has altered, and continues to alter, our behaviour over dinner. 
 
She writes of everything from cultural idiosyncrasies around preparation and consumption, to the surprising origins of tableware - forks took eight centuries to become common utensils, the plate began as a four-day-old slice of bread. Blending folklore, history, and humour, this is a feast of fact and observation on one of our most primal rituals: the meal.

The Rituals of Dinner

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Margaret Visser

Praise for The Rituals of Dinner

'One of the most important books ever written about food...every time I turn to it I am struck by some fresh detail'

Superlative... learned as anything: Visser quotes from Aeschylus, Rabelais, Erasmus, books of etiquette, P J O'Rourke

A wide-ranging reference book, useful to addicts of quizzes and etiquette...you will be both informed and entertained

'One of the most important books ever written about food...every time I turn to it I am struck by some fresh detail'

Superlative... learned as anything: Visser quotes from Aeschylus, Rabelais, Erasmus, books of etiquette, P J O'Rourke

A wide-ranging reference book, useful to addicts of quizzes and etiquette...you will be both informed and entertained

'One of the most important books ever written about food...every time I turn to it I am struck by some fresh detail'

Superlative... learned as anything: Visser quotes from Aeschylus, Rabelais, Erasmus, books of etiquette, P J O'Rourke

A wide-ranging reference book, useful to addicts of quizzes and etiquette...you will be both informed and entertained

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