This is very belatedly in a response to a question someone asked when I or Jane Lockwood was guest blogging (and before I forget, you can enter Pam Rosenthal’s contest to win a copy of Jane’s book Forbidden Shores–the dirty one with the bodiceripper cover). The question was, who would I invite to dinner if I could have anyone from any time?
Great question, and it opens up all sorts of possibilities. As far as real people go, I’d like to invite Brummell, Byron, and Jane Austen, and watch her have fun with them both, possibly aided and abetted by Harriet Wilson. I think I’d serve shish kebabs… definitely something on skewers, to be followed by raspberries.
If you open it up to fictional characters, you could have a lot of fun mixing and matching characters–the Miss Dashwoods meet Toad of Toad Hall, for instance. The Bennett sisters enjoy rat pie and chips with the Watch of Ank-Morporkh, while one of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler’s sausages has a profound effect (but not the usual one) on Proust. Sir Walter Elliot and Mr. Micawber dine (on food bought on credit, cooked and served by servants who haven’t been paid in months) and discuss matters of economy.
What do you think? Who would you invite to your literary (or otherwise) feast, and what sort of food and drink would you serve? Which characters would you like to mix and match for a dinner party?
**I think I’d serve shish kebabs… definitely something on skewers, to be followed by raspberries.**
You just made Santa’s naughty list.
Guests: Mrs. Norris, John Waters, Huck Finn, Beatrix Potter, Fagin and Scarlet O’Hara.
Food: Sushi and blanched vegetables.
“Seriously” tho, dinner for two with Professor Severus Snape tops the list. I’d leave what to serve to the house elves and instead concern myself with what to wear. 🙂
hmmm. I don’t think I’d enjoy Byron, unless I could watch Jane Austen skewer him, that is. Brummell would be an entertaining guest, I think. It, along with his dress, was something at which he excelled. I’d love to have Wellington there, too.
Maybe Mary Robinson, Jane Austen, and Mary Brunton and we could talk writing, like I do with my writing friends.
Marie Antoinette–she would probably bring the champagne. 🙂 Jane Austen, though I would be afraid she would make fun of me. Nancy Mitford–ditto. Nell Gwyn, she’d probably be fun AND bring some hunky guys with her. Georgiana and Harriet Spencer, they would probably brings guys, too. And some Italian soccer players, just because I like them. With people like that and champagne, who needs food? We’ll just call out for Pizza Hut when the Restoration guys start throwing up on the lawn.
I’d better stop, or this party will be out of hand.
I’ve been reading the diaries of Samuel Pepys recently, and he is a man who clearly understood the importance of a dinner party. Omit all the references to eating and drinking from his diaries and you’d have a much, much shorter book. 🙂 Samuel Johnson is another famous dinner companion–though given his attitude towards Americans, perhaps I should beware. And to round things out, why not have Samuel Taylor Coleridge? That way, I could start every sentence with “Tell me, Sam…”
If I could attend a historical dinner party, I think I’d like to sample one of those famous fin-de-siecle Parisian salons. Have to practice my French first, though.
Todd-who-will-next-plan-a-dinner-with-only- guests-named-Jane