Charlemagne's tablecloth - Nichola Fletcher

Feasts, banquets and grand dinners have always played a vital role in our lives. They oil the wheels of diplomacy, smooth the paths of the ambitious and spread joy at family celebrations.

Nichola Fletcher has selected the most colourful feasts in history to give a captivating account of why we enjoy gathering around a table to eat, drink and be merry. There is the extravagance of the high medieval and Renaissance, swallowing fathoms of blubber in North America, the exquisite refinement of the Japanese Tea ceremony - an eclectic collection of feasts from the flamboyant to the eccentric.

Why did Charlemagne use an asbestos tablecloth at his feasts? What is the connection between Salvador Dali and the Aztecs? What links caviar to quinces? Nichola Fletcher answers these and many more questions in her compelling investigation of the feast in all its guises.