Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 573 Dinner
Exquisite furnishings, exquisite food, well-dressed attendance, elegant dining etiquette, and the service of butler servants are the necessary conditions for a noble family banquet.

As Hedren Meckler, author of The History of Banqueting, puts it, "The grand banquets held by the nobles were a good stage to show and prove their organizational skills and culinary talents."

Generally, formal aristocratic banquets often have to be prepared several days in advance: the sous-chef opens a whole secret room of food reserves, the maids change the curtains and make the bed, the servants carefully wipe the silverware with a small brush, and the butler Carson comes to the wine cellar to carefully prepare the food. Picking out wine for a dinner party...

Since the Renaissance in Europe, people have required more elegant behaviors when dining. For the utensils needed for dining, not only the functional practicability is emphasized, but also the exquisite appearance is required.

As a result, napkins, tablecloths, cutlery, and wine glasses are more beautifully designed, made of finer materials, and even arranged according to some unusually strict rules.

When setting the table, everything is measured, and the housekeeper often has a wooden ruler to accurately measure the distance between the placed items.

Between the chair and the plate, between the plate and the cup, between the chair and the table, everything must be measured accurately.At the same time servants would not touch the cutlery without gloves, as that would leave marks on the silver.

Each cutlery had its own person in charge, the silverware and glasses generally being handled by a housekeeper, while the crockery, tablecloths and napkins were handled by a housekeeper.The servants brought from the warehouse as many objects as were needed for the dinner.Um.

At the same time, the table is also decorated with colorful flowers, ferns, vines and fruits.The pineapple has been a symbol of hospitality since ancient times.There are also many families who put grapes, peaches and other fruits grown by their gardeners in the orchard and greenhouse on the table for guests to taste.

And when it comes to eating, there are more rules for noble banquets, and there are specific requirements for which wine to match and which dish.The butler will work closely with the cook: determine what the guests will eat and which wine in the wine cabinet will best match it, and use this to prepare the dinner.

The dinner generally consists of 7~11 dishes, including soup, fish, side dishes, meat (main dish), bird and animal meat.When the food was served, the servants would sneak in with trays.

They serve the highest-ranking female guests first, and then present the plates one by one in a clockwise direction.The butler should control the overall situation and pour wine for the guests in time.

Sometimes they also need to stand by the sideboard of the banquet hall, cutting large pieces of meat into small portions.The table was cleared by the time cheese and dessert (ice cream and fruit) were served.

Red wine is usually paired with red meat (such as beef and mutton), and white wine is usually paired with white meat (such as chicken, seafood, etc.).At today's aristocratic family banquets, a sommelier will also recommend wines that match the dishes.

After the host chooses the wine, the sommelier will open it and give the host a sip to taste. If he is satisfied, he will pour the wine for all the diners.

For Liang En and the others, one thing that made them breathe a sigh of relief was that the preparations tonight were not very complicated due to the small number of people and the lack of time. It looked like a sumptuous ordinary dinner.

Because if it is a formal dinner, there are usually three or four glasses placed in front of the diners with wine glasses alone. Among them, the largest round glass holds red wine, the medium glass holds water, and the smallest glass holds white wine.The thin glass is used to hold sparkling wine.

As for tableware, it is more complicated. There will be a variety of spoons on the table for eating different foods.Divided into tea spoon, soup spoon, melon spoon, grapefruit spoon, jam spoon, meat spoon and so on.

Some spoons have little difference and need to be carefully distinguished.For example, a meat spoon is suitable for smaller dishes of soup, and different spoons should be used for different fruits.

And this is obviously not what Liang En is good at. At least for him, it is much more complicated to distinguish those forks that look similar in his eyes than to distinguish the relics of different ages.

At least after seeing a knife and a fork on the side of the plate, Liang En felt that he was relieved all of a sudden, but when he sat down, he found that Joan of Arc beside him suddenly turned ugly.

"What's the matter?" Before Du Lisi came, Liang En turned his head and asked in a low voice.

"My ring is missing." Jeanne stretched out her left hand and said to Liang En. "It should have been accidentally placed there by the side of the sink just now."

Because that ring is the only relic left to him by Joan of Arc's parents, she cherishes it very much at ordinary times. Although she always wears it on her finger, she usually takes off this silver ring and puts it aside when she washes her hands and things. Avoid getting damaged.

But in this way, sometimes it is inevitable to forget the ring somewhere. In desperation, Liang En could only ask the butler Lubzon for help, but because of the beginning of the banquet, he was not brought over until the side dishes were served.

Traditionally, the content of this kind of dinner chat should be relatively simple and relaxed, and there should often be a hostess to control the atmosphere of the entire banquet.

At the same time, there is a set of rules for speaking at the banquet, that is, formality, restraint, and roundaboutness.If ever there were a specific set of rules for conversation, it's a restaurant.

The dinner table is not an arena for debate, but a place where the art of good communication is valued.Aristocrats need to be proficient in gossip and gossip. One thing they must not do is to get involved in any form of argument, let alone quarrel with the master's family.

Fortunately, in a normal banquet, the hostess knows how to maintain a relaxed atmosphere, try her best to make the conversation of the guests lively, and gracefully resolve awkward social situations.

Therefore, because there is no hostess in this banquet, the only female Joan of Arc naturally becomes the protagonist. Of course, this is also related to the reason why he is French and a Catholic.

What is even more worthy of celebration is that, unlike the traditional noble banquets where discussions are bound by strict relationships, this kind of banquet is obviously much more relaxed, and the content of the chat is also very relaxed.

For example, the ring of Joan of Arc was recognized as an antique. After all, for this group of nobles, their eyesight is fine, at least the antique can tell.

After learning that the ring was a relic given to her by Joan of Arc's parents, His Excellency the Earl also expressed his apologies for provoking this inappropriate topic.

In the banquet that followed, everyone only discussed some light-hearted matters related to various experiences, and finally the guests and the host ended the banquet happily.

After the banquet was over, Butler Lubzon personally came to each seat and took two servants to clear the table, while Liang En and the others went to the next room with Mr. Du Lisi and chatted for a while before leaving.

"I feel that Mr. Du Lisi is a very nice person." On the car back to the hotel, Joan commented on today's visit, "He also invited us to visit him again in the future."

"Indeed, at least you can tell what kind of person Steward Lubzon is like." Liang En nodded and said, "We will indeed have the opportunity to visit him in the future."

For Liang En, at least now he has enough capital to communicate with these people, and it is inevitable to deal with these people at this stage of development.So naturally there is no objection to Joan's point of view.

(End of this chapter)