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Title
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The Sin of Gluttony and the Cultural Conflict / Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue
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Description
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Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue s.294-295
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Creator
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Leśniakowska, Marta
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Date
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2014
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Format
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application/pdf
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Identifier
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:6104
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Language
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ang
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Publisher
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Instytut Sztuki PAN
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Relation
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:publication:6532
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Rights
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Licencja PIA
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Subject
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anthropology of film
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Type
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czas.
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Text
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and become part of the genetic code. Cultural habits
are our “second nature”, making itself known in the
most varied situations.1
2.
Babette’s Feast: a refugee fleeing France in the
throes of revolutionary terror arrives in a small Dan
ish settlement. The kindly albeit distant Danish women
who offered her shelter entrust her with keeping their
home and introduce her to the arcana of local culi
nary art - simple or even primitive, frugal recipes based
on a few basic ingredients (the famous recipe for rye
bread soup, nota bene used up to this day in traditional
Scandinavian cooking). Babette, slightly mysterious,
with an obscure past, adapts herself to the new envi
ronment but when she unexpectedly wins in the lot
tery she spends all the money on a curious caprice - a
1.
De re coquinaria by Apicius (first century A.D.)sophisticated banquet for her Danish hosts. The meal
was probably the first to verbalise the view that the way becomes a demonstration of her culinary mastery as the
former chef of a famous Parisian restaurant as well as a
of taking nourishment is a refined “culinary art” - a skill
manifestation of the refined and always slightly liber
that belongs to the domain of art (ars techne), and thus
tine French culture of dining.
entails doing something according to a set of rules. Close
This simple plot told in the unhurried rhythm of
to Aristotelian “productive knowledge”, ars victuaria in
consecutive
sequences of preparations for the feast the twelfth-century classification by Radulf da Campo
whose detailed presentation at a certain moment out
Lungo, known as el Ardiente, and by Hugo of St. Victor
right balances on the edge of a television cooking show was one of the seven mechanical arts. Although later it
should be analysed as an out-and-out textbook exercise
was excluded from classifications aimed at formulating
in
cultural anthropology. We are dealing with a typical
a definition of art exclusively as an ability to produce
confrontation
of two different lifestyles - dissimilar sets
beauty (the seven fine arts according to Batteax in the
of daily/routine behaviour within the range of European
mid-eighteenth century), thanks to idealistic aesthetics
culture in which the table (the culture of dining) is,
“culinary art” could find its place either among skills
according to Norbert Elias, a fundamental element of
still comprehended according to the classical and only
Western
civilisation and testimony of certain domains
slightly redefined distinction (art conceived as profes
of
cultural
competence (lifestyle/manner of living).2
sional knowledge, such as tailoring, medicine, trade,
Obviously, “table manners” (to paraphrase the title of
and “defensive capability”) , or - as Libelt interpreted it
a textbook by Erasmus of Rotterdam, basic for modern
in a slightly convoluted manner - among the so-called
social sciences showing Platonic ideals of truth, beau Western civilisation) is simultaneously an expression of
a certain existential thesis and, consequently, as a be
ty and goodness in life, all enhancing the latter. Such
havioural
category it is an element of social stratification
maximalist speculations constituted the whole sphere
and
a
factor
shaping distinctive behaviour. This makes it
of material culture, of which it was demanded that it
should satisfy purely practical needs on par with “supe possible to treat the story described in Babette’s Feast as
rior” requirements, so that the useful would be simul part of the socio-ethnological orbis interior-orbis exterior
thesis and an illustration of a cultural confrontation ini
taneously pleasant, as Aristotle desired. This shifts the
tiated by the appearance of the “stranger”. In this case,
whole issue to an equal degree towards psychological
we are concerned with a confrontation of two antitheti
aesthetics (especially its Cartesian hedonistic version,
rendered dynamic by basically anti-intellectual twenti cal European cultures: the closed, severe “town” culture
and the open, refined and cosmopolitan “court” culture,
eth-century speculations on the theory of satiation) as
well as towards the history of culture and cultural an created and “civilised” by modern France, whose social
thropology. Culinary art, together with the accompany symbol became French cuisine. French cooks (M.A.
Careme), aristocrats and statesmen (e.g. cardinals Rich
ing ritual of recipes, cookbooks, hierarchy of interiors,
elieu and Mazarin or Marquis Louis de Béchamel), suc
furniture, table setting, servants, etc., is one of the key
ceeded in granting modern culinary art created during
moments in manners and morals (lifestyle) embedded
in social hierarchies. Today, it may be viewed in yet an the sixteenth century by the Italians a heretofore un
known sophistication and diversification, propagated
other, new way toppling the old, segmentary findings,
subsequently by such works as the famous La Physiologie
which separated the inherent from that, which is gained
du Goût by A. Brillat-Savarin (1825).
through culture: we know that manners and morals From this viewpoint, the story told in Babette’s Feast
social experience - cultural (milieu) conventions shape
assumes
the features of a veritable “credo” by referring
our personality thanks to their durability/rootedness
MARTA LESNIAKOWSKA
The Sin of Gluttony
and the Cultural
Conflict. On the
Margin of Babetteys
Feast
294
M arta Lesniakowska • THE SIN OF GLUTTONY AND THE CULTURAL CONFLICT ON THE MARGIN OF B A B E T T E 'S F E A S T
- presumably - to the very essence of Kantian poetic
involving the middle class (the bourgeoisie) and the
higher court class. As a consequence, it evokes a dis
pute between two moral stands: Protestant (in the ex
treme version represented by the pietists) and Catholic,
together with their dual comprehension of civilisation
either as closed and internal morality (Protestantism)
or its external counterpart (Catholicism).
All these factors require that we regard Babette’s
Feast as a morality play exploiting the immanent feature
of the culture of dining, namely, that as a quintessence
of a certain philosophy of life this particular culture is
determined by its characteristic ethical premises. In
accordance with the steadfast rules of a philosophicaldidactic tale we witness a battle waged for human souls,
in which the protagonists face the necessity of making
a choice between basic categories and concepts that
they appear to allegorically personify: between Vir
tue and Sin (here: Gluttony), Pride and Faith, Truth
and Falsehood. The situation of the choice balances
on the very edge of a cultural/world outlook conflict
in its entire dimension. The decision to participate, or
not, in the feast is tantamount to choosing one of two
choices evaluated, however, from the Protestant point
of view: to opt for tradition (stability, durability, truth)
or change (revolution and motion and hence also false
hood and illusion).
Despite the referent danger of disturbing the bal
ance, the very fact of sitting down to a table proves de
cisive for the ultimate rejection of a conflict for the sake
of participation and opening up towards the “stranger”.
An examination of this process of attaining acceptance
may be explained by the mechanisms of the mutual im
pact of cultures; we know that such impact is provoked
more by differences than similarities for two reasons:
either because the “strange” idea becomes part of famil
iar conceptions and ideas (“a search for one’s own”) or,
on the contrary, because it is unfamiliar and thus gives
29 5
rise to curiosity (“the quest for the strange”). It is the
“stranger” who introduces into the inner cultural struc
tures that, which comes “from the outside” and causes
the impulse of cultural change.
The course of Babette’s feast, with its growing drama
turgy of gradually overcoming distance and conventions,
turns almost into a rite of mutual gift giving in the manner
of the potlatch, a key moment of activating two authentic
European cultures “towards integration”. The first bite of
sophisticated French hors d’oeuvre produces an integra
tion of different traditions; in this case, the gesture has
an outright oecumenical dimension, so distant from the
destructive leftist vision of the self-annihilating consumer
society shown in La grande bouffe. Quite possibly, this
could be also a poetical gesture if we were to consider the
problem from the viewpoint of the still utopian vision of
a united Europe (and, more widely, a united world, in
the once again activated illusion of “internationalism”).
A t this point it seems worth recalling the end scenes of
Babette’s Feast: after the magnificent dinner everything
becomes the same as before. The level of understanding
and acceptance did not cross the limits delineated by, for
example, dinner in an exotic restaurant - a mere pleas
ant, festive episode in the routine of daily life or a tourist
programme. New experiences outlined even more strong
ly the spheres of “one’s own-ness” (“smaller homeland”),
established by tradition and prejudice, in order to protect
them against a successive utopia.
Endnotes
1 These problems were presented in detail by Elżbieta
Gieysztor-Miłobędzka, Natura, nauka, sztuka - nowy p a ra
dygmat, in: Sztuka a natura. M ateriały XXXVI I Sesji
Naukowej Stowarzyszenia Historyków Sztuki przeprowadzo
nej 23-25 listopada 1989 roku w Katow icach, Katowice
2
1991, pp. 15-29, especially p. 17.
Norbert Elias, Przem iany obyczajów w cyw ilizacji Zachodu,
Warszawa 1980.
