10 occasions to eat yourself silly

Yes, I'm a glutton, and proud. I'm well aware that gluttony is supposed to be one of the original seven sins, and I've also forever associated the word with the image of the fat chap being forced to eat himself to death in the movie Seven. However, eating to repletion and beyond must be one of the chief pleasures of life, at least if it's done once in a while. What's certain is that many cultures in many times and places have devised ways and means of doing it. Here are 10 of the best.

1. Beefsteaks

I first got to know about these this year, when I read an article in the New York Times. At it's simplest, it's an excuse for men to get together, eat a lot of meat, and drink a lot of beer. There are 2 versions, the New York one which has mostly died out, and the New Jersey one which is still going. In the New York one, men gathered to feast on bacon-wrapped kidneys, sirloin steak, lamb chops and roast potatoes, whereas in the New Jersey version, men just eat grilled tenderloin, which is served on pieces of bread. They then stack the bread up as a means of keeping score.

2. Smörgåsbords

A smörgåsbord is a Swedish buffet-style feast, where various hot and cold dishes are laid out on a sideboard for guests (it's usually a party) to help themselves. This being Sweden, there's usually a lot of fish, pickled and smoked, which people start off with. They then move to other cold dishes (pickled reindeer meat maybe? Or is that Finnish?) and thence on to the warm dishes, like Swedish meatballs. Funnily enough, Canadian Chinese cuisine is sometimes done smörgåsbord-style. Apparently, early Chinese immigrants who opened Chinese restaurants also served a Scandinavian immigrant clientele, who encouraged their local favourite to arrange the food in a way that they were used to.

3. Bedouin weddings

Roast camel. That's why Bedouin weddings are good. Apparently this dish is something of an urban legend,which is understandable, as only the richest sheikh could afford the manpower and ingredients for this. According to snopes.com, it's only been verifiably cooked once or twice. Take eggs, stuff them into fish, take stuffed fish, stuff them into chickens, take stuffed chickens, stuff into sheep, take stuffed sheep, stuff into one camel. Roast. It ought to taste really, really good. As long as we're talking about stuffed stuff, you can get turduckens in the US (really) - it's a stuffed chicken (stuffing of choice) stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey. All fowl are deboned before hand.

4. Ethiopian Christmas

Ethiopians are Coptic Christians, and celebrate their Christmas (called Ganna) according to their own calendar. It falls on the 7th of January for them, and is a day of prayer and ceremonies followed by a special meal. They eat wat, a spicy chicken stew made with peanuts, scooped up with the traditional injera bread. The wat is sometimes served in an injera basket, as opposed to the usual way where it comes separately. Everyone also drinks tej, the local mead, made with honey (obviously) and gesho, a herb.

5. Manchu Han Imperial Feast

This was a legendary feast that included 108 dishes over 3 days and 6 banquets. It consisted of dishes from both Manchu and Han Chinese cooking, and was held during the Qing dynasty to celebrate the 66th birthday of Emperor Kangxi. Among the dishes served (some of this is apocryphal) were bear claw with sturgeon, live monkey brain, and phoenix and dragon (snake and chicken). The feast is occasionally reenacted in China today, although you have to be a VVIP to get an invitation. And they don't really serve that many endangered species any more either.

6. Kaiseki ryori

Kaiseki is traditional Japanese cuisine, making use of only seasonal ingredients, prepared using methods that enhance the flavours and the aesthetic appearance of said ingredients. It evolved from imperial Japanese cuisine. Nowadays, one can get it at ryokan, or traditional inns, in Japan. There are at least 5 courses, an appetiser, sashimi, a braised dish, a grilled dish and a steamed dish, and the chef may improvise further dishes. Technically, one should not be a glutton when enjoying a kaiseki meal, but hey...

7. French haute cuisine

Not only are these meals known for quantity, they are also known for the richness of the food. Think foie gras and scallops, lots of them, and decadent endangered ingredients. Francois Mitterand's last solid meal was oysters, foie gras, capons and roast ortolan, an endangered bird prepared by force feeding and drowned in a snifter of Armagnac before roasting. Mitterand had two. On a less depressing note, a restaurant I want to visit in Paris is L'ami Louis, a place where you can only get in "by invitation". This place serves good rustic French cooking, and what's legendary is the size of the helpings - you order foie gras, you get a slab of the stuff, you order scallops, you get a pan of the things, and best of all, you order whisky for your digestif, you get the bottle for as long as you want it.

8. Indian thali meals

Yes, I know that thalis are relatively commonplace - many Indian restaurants will serve at least one version - but ordering one is a great chance to pig out on the restaurant's specialty. The word "thali" refers to the round tray on which the dishes are served. Typically, there is at least one carbohydrate source - rotis, chapatis, rice or puris, and some curries, which could be vegetarian or non-vegetarian, as well as some vegetable dishes. Generally in India, thalis are a way of serving the local cuisine in a rounded, structured meal.

9. El dia de los muertos

Spanish for "Day of the Dead", this is a celebration of All Souls Day and All Saints Day, on the 1st and 2nd of November. Lots of eating takes place, especially in Oaxaca, where the cooks really pull the stops out. There, one may get mole (special Mexican stews), roast pumpkin in brown sugar, special bread (pan de muerto), nicuatole (prickly pear and corn blancmange), all washed down with tequila, mezcal and maguey.

10. Purim

Purim is a Jewish holiday, one that is less austere than Hanukkah or Passover. Purim celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from death at the hands of Haman, a Persian noble, when the Jews were in captivity in Babylon. Jews mark the occasion by giving each other food and drink. Among the delicacies exchanged are Haman's ears, a triangular pastry filled with poppy seed (although I have had one filled with prunes) and Haman's pockets, a pouch of pastry filled with the same sort of fillings as the ears. At the commemorative meal, alcohol is allowed, which means that the occasion is really an excuse for a big drunken party. Probably in order to line the stomach against alcohol, kreplach dumplings are served, golden matzo dough filled with meat or liver, floating in soup. Don't go swimming after eating kreplach, as you'll sink.


How many of these have I done? 2, actually. Only 8 to go. There should probably be a caution label on these occasions - "Enjoy the food responsibly. Please eat and exercise."