Read Online The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down by Jesse Browner - Free Book Online
Authors: Jesse Browner
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pretend to eat, and you will both be happy. If you
try to force-feed him, you will both end up covered in slop.
CHAPTER III
ODD FISH
The host in the role of confidence man never inspires faith.
Richard Ellsworth Call, The Life and Writings of Rafinesque
In the spring of 1818, a weary traveler disembarked from a small boat on the Ohio River at the village of Henderson, Kentucky.
Carrying what appeared to be a sheaf of dried clover on his back, wearing a badly stained and worn suit of yellow nankeen
and pantaloons buttoned down to the ankles, and sporting a long beard and lank black hair below his shoulders, the traveler
gave every appearance of being a wandering quack or herbalist of no social standing. Approaching the first person he met on
the riverbank, he asked in a heavy French accent for directions to the grocer's house. The man happened to be that very grocer
and told him so. The traveler then presented the grocer with a letter of introduction from a mutual acquaintance in Lexington.
"I send you an odd fish," the brief letter read, "which you may prove to be undescribed." The grocer asked the traveler if
he might see the fish. The traveler smiled with good humor.
"I am that odd fish I presume," he said.
In Greek, the word for hospitality is xenia, derived from xenos, meaning "stranger" or "foreigner." Although xenia was a central element of Greek culture, the word survives in common English only as the root of xenophobia, with very negative connotations. Our word hospitality, on the other hand, comes from the Latin hospes, meaning "host," as well as "guest," and which itself is a condensed form of hostipotis, meaning "lord of strangers." In other words, the Greek concept of hospitality was based on the primacy of the guest, whereas
the Latin concept, which we inherited, was based on that of the host. In ancient Greece, the host always sat in the smaller
chair, lower than that of the guest; with us, the host sits at the head of the table. In Greece, even the wealthiest host
served simple dishes designed solely to satisfy a guest's hunger; with the Romans, as with us, elaborate culinary constructs
serve mostly to highlight the host's tastes and skills. Some may argue that our espousal of the Latin model has nothing to
do with cultural identity, but that is clearly not so. We choose our words to fit our ideas, and the Latin fit better than
the Greek. In the West, it is the role of the host that matters, for he is lord of strangers.
I must admit, to my chagrin, that almost everyone who gets to enjoy my hospitality is a friend, or at least someone I know.
I wish I could say that, like the Greeks, we make friends and connections by offering food and shelter to strangers, but that
doesn't seem to be the way in New York City. We make friends by going to someone else's house and meeting their friends, which
is not terrible per se, but may be limiting. You tend to meet more people like yourself that way, people who probably don't
need more friends and who are almost certainly not strangers stranded in a foreign city, for whom hospitality is more than
just a pleasant way to while away an evening.
As an example of just how limiting this approach can be, my wife and I recently learned of a dinner party given by friends
of ours, to which we had not been invited. That was fine, of course, but we were dismayed to discover that they had invited
friends of ours whom they had met at a dinner we had given several weeks earlier. Everyone we spoke to agreed that it was
at the very least bad manners to exclude us, the introducers, from their first unmediated encounter. There was a sense of
poaching in the reproach, almost as if something had been stolen from us. At the time, I shared the general feeling that a
wrong had been committed, but I've changed my mind. A host, I've come to see, should aspire to be the lord of strangers, not
the lord of friends of friends.
Many anthropologists
try to force-feed him, you will both end up covered in slop.
CHAPTER III
ODD FISH
The host in the role of confidence man never inspires faith.
Richard Ellsworth Call, The Life and Writings of Rafinesque
In the spring of 1818, a weary traveler disembarked from a small boat on the Ohio River at the village of Henderson, Kentucky.
Carrying what appeared to be a sheaf of dried clover on his back, wearing a badly stained and worn suit of yellow nankeen
and pantaloons buttoned down to the ankles, and sporting a long beard and lank black hair below his shoulders, the traveler
gave every appearance of being a wandering quack or herbalist of no social standing. Approaching the first person he met on
the riverbank, he asked in a heavy French accent for directions to the grocer's house. The man happened to be that very grocer
and told him so. The traveler then presented the grocer with a letter of introduction from a mutual acquaintance in Lexington.
"I send you an odd fish," the brief letter read, "which you may prove to be undescribed." The grocer asked the traveler if
he might see the fish. The traveler smiled with good humor.
"I am that odd fish I presume," he said.
In Greek, the word for hospitality is xenia, derived from xenos, meaning "stranger" or "foreigner." Although xenia was a central element of Greek culture, the word survives in common English only as the root of xenophobia, with very negative connotations. Our word hospitality, on the other hand, comes from the Latin hospes, meaning "host," as well as "guest," and which itself is a condensed form of hostipotis, meaning "lord of strangers." In other words, the Greek concept of hospitality was based on the primacy of the guest, whereas
the Latin concept, which we inherited, was based on that of the host. In ancient Greece, the host always sat in the smaller
chair, lower than that of the guest; with us, the host sits at the head of the table. In Greece, even the wealthiest host
served simple dishes designed solely to satisfy a guest's hunger; with the Romans, as with us, elaborate culinary constructs
serve mostly to highlight the host's tastes and skills. Some may argue that our espousal of the Latin model has nothing to
do with cultural identity, but that is clearly not so. We choose our words to fit our ideas, and the Latin fit better than
the Greek. In the West, it is the role of the host that matters, for he is lord of strangers.
I must admit, to my chagrin, that almost everyone who gets to enjoy my hospitality is a friend, or at least someone I know.
I wish I could say that, like the Greeks, we make friends and connections by offering food and shelter to strangers, but that
doesn't seem to be the way in New York City. We make friends by going to someone else's house and meeting their friends, which
is not terrible per se, but may be limiting. You tend to meet more people like yourself that way, people who probably don't
need more friends and who are almost certainly not strangers stranded in a foreign city, for whom hospitality is more than
just a pleasant way to while away an evening.
As an example of just how limiting this approach can be, my wife and I recently learned of a dinner party given by friends
of ours, to which we had not been invited. That was fine, of course, but we were dismayed to discover that they had invited
friends of ours whom they had met at a dinner we had given several weeks earlier. Everyone we spoke to agreed that it was
at the very least bad manners to exclude us, the introducers, from their first unmediated encounter. There was a sense of
poaching in the reproach, almost as if something had been stolen from us. At the time, I shared the general feeling that a
wrong had been committed, but I've changed my mind. A host, I've come to see, should aspire to be the lord of strangers, not
the lord of friends of friends.
Many anthropologists
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