The Ritual Master What constitutes a feast ? How much is too much or is it indecent to indulge in fancy food ? There is no right answer to any of these questions, but the idea that connects them is one I am very fond of : the pleasure of taste and the importance of educating it.
I grew up hearing that my mother’s favourite film was Babette’s Feast, and I always imagined it was French cinema. It wasn’t until later that I learned it was Danish and that it won the Oscar for foreign film in 1988. So what better occasion than my Scandinavian Advent Calendar to dive into the novella that inspired it all.
Baroness Karen Blixen was a Danish author who wrote works in Danish and English, sometimes under her pen name Isak Dinesen. You might know her famous memoir called Out of Africa that was adapted for the cinema by Sydney Pollack, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. And Babette’s Feast is a novella, or short story, from a collection called Anecdotes of Destiny, but the French translation has kept the title of the novella for the whole collection.
Somewhere in a hamlet on the coast of Norway (although the movie changed this to the coast of Denmark), two pious sisters, take in a refugee from the French Commune, and keep her as a cook. She finds herself winning the lottery and decides to use the money to offer to the entire community that had saved her, a French dinner fit for a King. This ends up becoming a lesson in grace and finesse, an ode not only to French gastronomy, but to the idea that pleasure can bring us closer to divinity and not the other way around.
The shortness of the text suits the label anecdote of destiny, and I was tempted to consider it simply entertaining. But the best books are exactly like that, they don’t grab you by the collar to force their meaning onto you. If you’re willing to discover it, it will reveal itself with gentle gestures. Babette has that essential subtlety of true grace. Her life story, her desire to offer what she knows best to those around her, are a lesson in open mindedness. And her practice of fine gastronomy, an artist’s tribute to the essence of life.
Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me a chance to do my best.
― Karen Blixen, Babette’s Feast
My steps were guided recently in Copenhagen, to a little restaurant hidden away behind the royal palace. A tiny place that I would like to imagine was Babette’s home away from home. My Danish feast was memorable, the best fish I have ever tasted, King Frederick’s hering marinated in Port, and a homemade liver paté covered in salted beef on a slice of rye bread, with a name that I shall never forget : the vet’s midnight snack. Served in Royal Copenhagen porcelain, and in the company of a Christmas beer from a local brewery, this was a Danish feast for a Parisian. My taste buds were acquainted to some of the finest dishes of Denmark, and for a moment I was connected to everything that a culture distills in its gastronomy.
Until tomorrow, enjoy your feasts !
If you would like to support The Ritual of Reading, please consider purchasing your books from the Bookshop.org dedicated site by clicking the link below. You get to support local bookstores and I make a small commission with every purchase. Thank you !
