“and when Dr Grant had brought on apoplexy and death by three great institutional dinners in one week”

One groovy book I think Mark was alluding to in his Edwardian Dinner Party suggestion was a “cellar book” purchased at the Lifeline book sale last year. It would be really hard to get wines to correspond to the Chateau Lafitte (18)76 etc, but it’s fascinating to read because this dude reproduces the menus from dinner parties he started hosting in the late 1880s and continued doing - with gusto - til 1914. There’s often something like 10 courses. And with a different wine to go with each. If you read the late 19th century fiction, these sorts of parties customarily ended around 4am or 5am.

I thought it was Denmark.

Yeah, but Denmark and Germany are very recent creations. There’s actually lots of dispute - among historians of late antiquity - about where the post Roman withdrawal population of England came from.

Anyway, just by the by, the Germanic language English is closest to is Frisian.

“Anglo” derives from Angle - a place in modern Germany.

I thought it was Denmark.
.
Ye cannae blame the Anglo-Celts fer their lousy food culture, they have such lousy food. Why didja think the British conquered the world? They were in search of a decent meal and couldna conquer the fookin Frogs. (Or stomach ‘em).

From the closing pages of Mansfield Park, Jane Austen.

“and when Dr Grant had brought on apoplexy and death by three great institutional dinners in one week”

the beeb left that bit out of its adaptation.

I can’t speak for the Officers’ Mess, folks, but I doubt if they’re much different to the Sergeants’ Mess. One major change is this: in the past, no-one was permitted to leave the table at a formal dinner until after the toasts, and maybe a few games (which played merry hell with your bladder, as by then you’d had heaps of wine and also quite a lot of port). These days, as a concession to the ladies, there’s a piss-stop between the main and the sweets. (I might add that many of the blokes are relieved as well.) Oh, and the language has been cleaned up. A bit.

As noted:

“one of the Monty Python spin-offs”

Roger of the Raj if I’m not mistaken.

Kimmoi,
I’d say “Western” has a huge number of current useages, including several that would definitely include Mediterranean peoples, on the northish coast of that sea - natch. These include:
* Christian
* Anglo/Scandinavian/German/French
* NATO nations
* non-Asian
* Anglosphere + selected allies (hence including Australasia, Canada, Hong Kong, etc

I’ve never thought the Italians or Spanish were excluded.
But Greece seems to me much less “European” and more “Western Asian” in its customs etc, though Athens’ golden age is credited with…..

golly, this gets complicated, eh? We need Ute Man on the job.

Angles, Jutes and Saxons all invaded Romanised Celtic Britian, drinking their beers and eating their pies circa 4th-6th c ad.

Otherwise, I’m probs not getting something here. But then it’s almost 2am.

their deportment.

Ha! Send them to finishing school in Switzerland I say!

Not so much the customs, more the language I’d reckon. And from what I’ve seem of female ADF officers, they’re fully aware of the culture they’re going to encounter and are more than capable of not only rising to such traditions but also of giving ‘em a good kick up the arse when needed while also retaining respect for such traditions stand for. At the very least, they’re making their brother officers pay more attention to their deportment.

I was once chatting to an RAAF Captain of the female persuasion about this very issue and she pointed out that once she and a few other women started turning up in the officers’ mess, the CO remarked that many of the bloke officers were looking a lot more shaven, crisply ironed and well barbered.

Was about to say exactly the same , Adrien. Its just Anglo-Celts who treat food as an input. I give you exhibit A: the pie. Look at it. It just somehting to line the stomach, so you can soak up more booze.

Whereas the Latins, only wine with dinner, and other people. No drunken nonsense.

One of the greatest, and yet most shameful nights of my life was in Palermo, when Italy won the world cup.

6000 people in a square celebrating, and only two were drunk: me and my Irish mate. They partied all night with us, and kindly found cabs to pour us in when we were messy. Great people, the Sicilians.

Once a fish out of water like that, you realise how completely dysfunctional the Anglo Irish pisshead culture is.

Well for starters “the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and the voluntary ability to inhibit defecation” to quote Robertson Davies slightly out of context.

And speaking of Bunuel, his autobiography My Last Sigh is a must read. He writes better in a second language than most do in their first and provides an all-time great Martini recipe.

He’d be a must for any all star dinner party. I guess some will run with that concept now. But I reckon you nthe absolute maximum for any great dinner party is a dozen.

“Pass the port without touching the table, then the Loyal Toast. They’re a blast as long as you don’t take them too seriously.”

Oh yes. I’ve been for drinkies at some classic Brit Army regimental bars and messes and they do a very nice line in turning on the style with a fair bit of tongue of cheek. Then you look at the stuff on walls that remembers many other dashing, irreverent young men who used to drink there and are now buried a long way from home. It’s an atmosphere that is very charming, slightly ridiculous and quite haunting all at once.

Western attitudes to food regard it mostly as just an “input” rather than link to each other.

I’m sorry to nitpick but that’s a phenomena of the English speaking world. The Italians, the French the Spanish etc are Western too and they’d strongly disagree that this statement applies to them. If anyone knows ritual it’s the Latin cultures.