The Ironist
Differing Perspectives
Dinner Is Served: Stalin, Dominating at the Table
Continuing his reflections on the great meals of history and literature, Jonathan Bennett recalls a feast where appetite became an instrument of power. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin enjoyed his food. By the time of his death in 1953 he had grown stout enough that the...
Dinner is Served: Trimalchio’s Banquet
In this first installment of a series on the greatest meals ever (or never) served, Jonathan Bennett reconstructs a feast so vulgar that it achieved immortality. Written in the first century by Petronius, courtier to Nero and self-styled arbiter elegantiae, the...
Forgotten Heroes #7 – Boris the Butt Brush
Nigel explains how the Roman precursor to our modern toilet brush, the xylospongium, gave us our grilled meat on a stick, our modern kebabs…and then he concludes with an original Parthian recipe. The other day, while fulminating on the algorithmic vacuity of Facebook,...
Forgotten Heroes #6 – Rattus Romanus
Nigel writes about a long-forgotten chapter of Roman history: the rise and recipes of Rattus Romanus, consul, Stoic, and father of fusion cuisine. Everyone knows the great suffering rats endured during the Black Death. For centuries, historians, poets,...
Forgotten Heroes #5 – Filippa the Flaxen
Filippa the Flaxen, Queen of East Anglia, with hair like soft strands of warm gold, shimmering in sunlight, the colour of the muted sun, is seldom remembered these days. Once upon a time, though, her people, the Flax, were cultivated and eaten in much greater...
Forgotten Heroes #4 – Antonov von Anchovy
Many people know the great-grandson of Antonov von Anchovy, the popular musician Bonjovy, who, despite promising to be there for the family, proved to be livin’ on a prayer, and ran from his family after being wild in the streets, hunted and wanted dead or alive. It...
Forgotten Heroes #3 – Rudolf Rutabaga
“Carpe rutabaga folia!” - Horace, Odes 1.11 (The cruel mocking of rutabagas by carving them into Jack O’Lanterns, practiced in Ireland and Scotland) Rutabagas, and their cousins, white, red, and purple-top turnips, are a generous-hearted, kind and forgiving root...
Forgotten Heroes #2 – Juana the Tamale
Today we tell another sad tale of famous foods and vegetables left to compost. Juana was a Soladera Tamal of the Mexican Revolution, 1910 – 1920, and her Herculean strength and invincibility so frightened her enemies that they erased all memory of her – even changing...
Forgotten Heroes #1 – Pusillanimous Parsnip
Parsnips were so valuable Emperor Tiberius permitted Germania to provide parsnips as tribute starting in AD 4. Major languages adopted words from parsnips.