Arquivo para October 6th, 2020
Eça de Queirós and the eating table
06
Oct
Being in Portugal in 2018, and the Uab (Universidade Aberta) being
very close to Confeitaria Cister, where Eça de Queiroz attended, there is even a drawing of the song he liked to stay and write there (photo), I remember the Portuguese table remembering this corner of Lisbon, and Eça’s writings on the dining table.
One of the most common texts on the subject is an article known as “Archaeological cuisine”, published in 1893, in Gazeta de Notícias, Lisbon, Portugal. In it Eça stated: “the table has always been one of the strongest, if not the strongest foundation of human societies” and also “the character of a race can be deduced simply from its method of roasting the meat” (III, p. 1226)
Eça anticipated the reflections of historians such as Jean François-Revel (1996) and Massimo Montanari (2004), for whom the values of the food system are the result of the representation of cultural processes and relationships develop according to economic, nutritional and symbolic criteria.
The author not only proposed observations of cuisine in classical societies, but also considered that gastronomy has an arché, a basic element of the representations of Portuguese society, which was noticed by several of its readers and critics, the food awoke, for example, Machado de Assis’s attention as early as 1878.
The Brazilian fashion, Machado de Assis saw there in Eça an unnecessary abundance, the argument about this type of excess is opposed to the gastronomic coherence that is constituted throughout the work, the food is related to the excess of this literary school, if Eça had not continued to be careful with this theme, care should increase both in quantity and in quality in the following works and versions, reinforcing for example that the author of “Os Maias” may have found in the kitchen the fundamental elements of his project of represent Portugal through its most characteristic features.
What is certain is that the table expands to cultural and social values, as well as literary schools, the times of development of societies and cultures reflect them.
ASSIS, Machado. Eça de Queirós: O Primo Basílio. In: Obra Completa. V. III. Rio de Janeiro: Aguillar, 1997.
Plato’s banquet
06
Oct
At banquets, tables and food sharing celebrate many things,
including dialogue on essential topics.
Occurring around 380 BC it is a dialogue, and there are some who prefer the translation of Greek as Symposium (in ancient Greek sympotein means “to drink together”), and the central theme is Love, between eros and agape, and the central character as in most of his dialogues are Socrates.
Also in the dialogue Aristophanes and Ágaton (or Agatão), in his house there had been a previous banquet in celebration of the literary prize he had won, in this banquet Socrates and other participants spoke about “love”, Apolodoro and Glaucon, Aristodemo and Agaton himself.
Glaucon considers Apolodoro as crazy because he despises the material, Ágaton means “good” in Greek, good things and love lead to the practice of good and beautiful, and if we knew the practice of love the good it does, men would make an army of lovers, reminiscent of the army of banos, whose front was Pelopidas and Epaminondas in 371 BC
Phaedrus’ speech is that the love worshiped by men reveals them to be more virtuous and happier during life and after death, but it is in cosmogony that the speeches will oppose, while Phaedrus sees the origin of Eros as a very ancient god, without mention of parents, he was born next to Geia (land) after Chaos.
Pausanias the second to speak, contrary to Phaedrus, there are several Eros, he was the son of Aphrodite, and two Aphrodites, a daughter of Uranus and another of Zeus, that of Zeus generates vulgar eros and that of Uranus a heavenly Eros.
Eriximaco approves the distinction of Pausânias on the duplicity of Love and, universalist, extends it to every cosmos: “great and admirable, and it extends to everything, both in the order of human and divine things”, being a doctor says that the love and concord provide harmony, combining opposites (the healthy and the morbid) that extend throughout the universe: “one must keep one love and the other…”.
Aristophanes will insist on the power that love has over historical nature, using the myth of the androgens, legitimizing homo-affection and the unbridled search for what we now call “soul mates”, which is a search for perfectionism and in a way narcissism . Socrates praises the fact that Agaton began to show nature and what are the works of Love, but then follows his classic Question method: “Is Love such that it is Love of something or nothing?”, Ágaton confirms that Love is Love of something. Which “something” is Love from and continues with the question: “Does Love, what it is love, does it want it or not?” and the banquet follows the fashion of the Greek classics.
The banquet, the table at which everyone sits is the important part of this dialogue, seems so classic and so present, but we would add a question and Francisco de Assis, remembered these days, he said with conviction: “Love is not loved”, so before to be an instrument as stated by Agaton is itself something to be used as an instrument, at a time of so much pain in humanity, or else the Socratic way of asking: “Is Love loved?”
Plato, (2003). The Symposium, trans. by Christopher Gill. London: Penguin.
