The punishing gluttony of Georgian high living
Georgian dining, if you were wealthy, was an incredible experience. Everything, from the location to the furniture, was carefully planned and meticulously executed to really hammer home the taste, status and impeccable education of the host. This was of course regardless of the actual likings, wealth and intellectual leanings of the party-giver. One of the delights of Amy Boyington’s book is the descriptions of the many, frequently ghastly, aristocrats whose country pads feature. There are murderers, adulterers, gluttons and spendthrifts. They did eat well, though. The Country House Dining Room is a Yale publication and, as such, can be expected to err toward the academic and the artistic.
