Hahaha, "eating marathon" is a hilarious way to put it. I might call it "masculinity in crisis chivalry for show." But yes, this is a reference to the so-called "Feast of the Pheasant" in February 1453/54. Spectacle is next week's Tuesday Trivia theme, but this banquet would qualify on every level. According to the chronicle accounts--from Olivier de la Marche and Mathieu d'Escouchy, such wonders were present as an enormous backdrop tapestry displaying scenes from the life of Hercules, a giant, maybe an elephant (says one chronicle), and a lord vowing to forego drinking wine for an entire day every week. An entire day! No wine!

And among the splendors was the promised pie:

The second table, which was the longest, had first of all a pie, which had inside twenty-eight living persons playing diverse instruments. (from Olivier's 'Memoires')

The decor was the food and the food was the decor. In the late Middle Ages, just having dish after dish after dish was a foregone conclusion (Johanna Van Winters talks about an English feast that used 11,000 eggs. A more typical number might be three to four thousand). No, it had to become a show. Duke Philip couldn't just have his servants keep refilling everyone's glass with the traditional spiced wine throughout the evening. No, he had to have a wine fountain. Oh, and it had to be shaped like a statue of a Greek goddess. And the wine had to pour out of her breasts.

Oh, and next to her there had to be a chained but "very alive" lion.

The Middle Ages, I tell you, were the best ages.

~~

I tracked down an English translation of Eschouchy's version, if anyone is interested. (He wrote a continuo on the chronicle of an earlier author, a fairly standard medieval practice--other authors would continue it further after him).