Lapham's Quarterly wrote:He should not place his head upon his plate to eat.
Neither should he sit beneath the table for any length of time.
He should not place unpleasing or half-chewed pieces of his own food upon his neighbor’s plate without first asking him.
He should not wipe his knife upon his neighbor’s clothing.
Nor use his knife to carve upon the table...
He should not set loose birds upon the table.
Not snakes nor beetles...
And if he is to vomit then he leaves the table.
Likewise if he is to urinate.
Josephine wrote:This was a delightful article, well worth reading in its entirety. Thanks, JoelF. Let me also call attention to the etiquette for a dinnertime assassination.
After the corpse (and bloodstains if any) are removed by the serving persons, it is customary for the assassin also to withdraw from the table as this presence may sometimes be disturbing to the digestions of the persons who now find themselves seated next to him, and to this end a good host will always have a fresh guest, who has waited without, ready to join the table at this juncture.
Polenta was the restaurant’s signature dish, a tasteless hash of meats and corn porridge.
jbw wrote:Polenta was the restaurant’s signature dish, a tasteless hash of meats and corn porridge.
This is likely a British usage (along with "tasteless . . . porridge"), where "corn" typically refers to "wheat" ("oats" in Ireland and Scotland) as in "The Corn Laws." The grain Leonardo was dealing with was probably buckwheat (or grano saraceno), popular in his time and still used in Tuscany: http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/polenta.asp
happy_stomach wrote:It's satire. I don't think the writer is going for historical specificity with polenta. It's supposed to be funny.