Now and then, we like to host 'Floating Features', periodic threads intended to allow for more open discussion that allows a multitude of possible answers from people of all sorts of backgrounds and levels of expertise.
Today, our theme is a dinner party! You have the power to host a small dinner party with your guests plucked from any point in time. Tell us about who you are inviting, how the party goes down, and perhaps most importantly, what you serve them!
As is the case with previous Floating Features, there is relaxed moderation here to allow far more scope for speculation and general chat than there would be in a usual thread! But with that in mind, we of course expect that anyone who wishes to contribute will do so politely and in good faith. Bon appétit!
Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev. We're going to take a stroll through downtown Moscow to get Big Macs with a large Coke. How do you like them apples!?
I invite the Donner party, because of the menu.
Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and H.G. Wells.
We dine in the London Eye, revolving around a city we're all familiar with during the beginning of rush hour. A selection of the days papers is strewn across the table for them to pursue and mentally take in while we wait for guests to arrive.
The menu is food that is the product of our populous and technologically advanced future, like Laboratory Grown Meat and Zero Calorie Drinks and Robotics farmed produce.
The topic of conversation I'd open with is ''so is this what you pictured when you we're thinking about the future?''
I invite the Marquis de Sade, L. Licinius Lucullus and Kleopatra VII.
What's on the menu? Everything.
Nezahualcoyotl, ruler of Texcoco
Tenamaxtli, Caxcan resistance leader during the Mixton War
K'inich Janaab' Pakal, ruler of Palenque
We eat modern Mexican cuisine and compare it to past cuisine. We talk about the history of Mesoamerica from their time to my present and discuss how modern Mexico should move forward in the future with perspective from the past.
Alcibiades, Antony, and Archilochus. Do we need anything on the menu besides wine?
But if I get more invitations, I want Fulvia, Cleopatra, and Aspasia. Or maybe Phryne.
Do we get a universal translator or a babelfish?
Presuming we couldn't understand each other without speaking the language, I'd say Abraham Lincoln, Sylvia Plath, and Eleanor Roosevelt. I'd serve what I usually serve for a dinner party, macaroni and cheese - I think they'd all be polite, even if they didn't like it.
But if I did get a Babelfish or UT, oh man I couldn't narrow it down! Maybe Akhenaten, Lincoln, and Elizabeth I for three leaders who fascinate me. I think since I'd be serving a living god, as pharaohs were believed to be, I'd be pickier and serve something like roast chicken and vegetables. I'd also want to feature something from The New World, which I think would amuse Elizabeth. I feel like Lincoln would be pretty chill whatever you served him.
Aaron Burr, Christopher Marlowe and Alcibiades.
A salad of warm betrayal with a drizzle of bitter espionage. Baked dissembling accompanied by a side of amorality. A honey-tongued mousse of subterfuge
I would invite Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, and Justinian. I think having three of the most renowned and respected leaders of Rome swapping stories of how the empire changed and evolved over 800 years, as well as doing their share of bragging and blaming each other, would make for a pretty entertaining evening.
What do I serve them? Well, I don't think that I can easily get much Garum or peacock tongue these days, but I think they'd be pretty impressed with the progress of winemaking in the past millennium or two.
There would also be the added benefit of getting to hear spoken classical Latin, the pronunciation of which is still a point of contention. I'm unfamiliar with whether Justinian spoke Latin, but I'd imagine that between Latin and Greek the trio could manage.
Jesus Christ, Aristotle, and Grace Kelly. I would be serving carnitas tacos with roasted corn on the cob. Add a little Carta Blanca with lime and some top shelf margaritas.
Erasmus of Rotterdam
CS Lewis
St. Augustine
EDIT
I chose them because I am a fan of much of their work, but I believe that they had some variety of theological views that would be fascinating. Bonheoffer was also on my list as was St. Francis. I chose to take Jesus off the list because it was cliche, but honestly he would be at the top and I would be jealous for his attention and wouldn't invite anyone else :)
We would eat steaks and drink beer.
Montaigne, George Eliot, Alexis de Tocqueville and James Baldwin. For food I guess I would go with French classics - Cassoulet, coq au vin, that kind of thing. French wine, mostly claret but maybe some Rhone stuff. The menu would show to Montaigne what had happened in France since cooking stopped being a Saffron-dousing competition.
What would they talk about? I hope it would be the nature of knowledge, what kind of life is most happy, and how one can act in the world when the world is opposed to so much of what you hold dear (or indeed, opposed to your existence.). Baldwin and Eliot and Tocqueville might go on a tangent about democracy, but I am sure Montaigne could hold his own with a few classical references.