The most enjoyable feast described by Nichola Fletcher, a feast in the bath painted for Antoine de Bourgogne around 1470, is illustrated on the cover of Charlemagne’s Tablecloth, although it is not clear how essential the food and drink were to the pleasure of the guests. The painting shows a handsome canopied table, blue and gold tapestries, pitchers of hippocras, ripe greengages, luscious cherries and the naked guests sitting in his-and-hers bathtubs separated, but barely, by the place-settings. The text beneath runs, ‘High living is a pleasant vice, which it is easier to condemn than to avoid.’
Almost as esoteric is the feast on horseback given in March 1903 by Cornelius K. B. Billings to celebrate the opening of his new stables. Thirty placid horses were taken via the freight elevator to the turfed floor of the ballroom on the fourth floor of a New York Fifth Avenue restaurant; from trays attached to the saddles the guests enjoyed 14 courses that included Aiguillettes of Bass and Selle d’Agneau Richelieu, and drank Mumm’s Selected Brut 1892 through nippled rubber tubes.
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