kids encyclopedia robot

List of dining events facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Julbord 1990b (cropped)
Foods at a Scandinavian Julebord banquet

This is a list of historic and contemporary dining events, which includes banquets, feasts, dinners and dinner parties. Such gatherings involving dining sometimes consist of elaborate affairs with full course dinners and various beverages, while others are simpler in nature.

Individual events

Banquets

Nobel banquet 1958
Attendees at the 1958 Nobel Banquet
  • Julebord – a Scandinavian feast or banquet in the days before Christmas in December and partly November where there is served traditional Christmas food and alcoholic beverages, often in the form of a buffet. Many Julebords are characterized by large amounts of food and drink, both traditional and new, hot and cold dishes. There is often lively partying and the party can be an important social meeting place for colleagues.
  • Nobel Banquet – an annual banquet held on December 10 in the Blue Hall of Stockholm City Hall, after the Nobel Prize ceremony. At the banquet, for which a formal dress code exists, a multi-course dinner is served and entertainment provided.

Breakfasts

Dinners

Badnikva vecera
A Christmas dinner in Macedonia. Some Christmas dinners such as this one occur on Christmas Eve.
White House chefs 1981
Under the direction of White House Executive Chef Henry Haller, chefs prepare food for a state dinner honoring Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in 1981.
  • Bracebridge Dinner – a seven-course formal gathering at the Ahwahnee Hotel presented as a feast given by a Renaissance-era lord. Started in 1927, the Ahwahnee's first year of operation, the dinner is inspired by the fictional Squire Bracebridge's Yule celebration in a story from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving.
  • Christmas dinner – a meal traditionally eaten at Christmas, which can take place any time from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day itself
  • Kūčios – the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Lithuania, held on December 24
  • Passover Seder – dinner during the Jewish celebration of Passover. Usually held with family and friends. During the dinner, the host reads the Haggadah, which tells the story of Jewish enslavement in Egypt and their liberation by God through Moses. The story is considered a central part of Jewish identity.
  • Pennsylvania Society Dinner – the main event of The Pennsylvania Society's annual weekend retreat
  • Progressive dinner – called a progressive dinner in the U.S. and a safari supper in the U.K., it is a dinner party with successive courses prepared and eaten at the residences of different hosts. Usually this involves the consumption of one course at each location. An alternative is to have each course at a different dining area within a single large establishment.
  • Reunion dinner – held on New Year's Eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, during which family members get together to celebrate. It is often considered the most important get-together meal of the entire year.
  • Réveillon – a long dinner held on the evenings preceding Christmas Day and New Year's Day. This occurs in various areas of the world.
  • Rock Dinner – a series that aired on MTV Tr3s that let people in the Los Angeles area have the opportunity to cook dinner for their favorite Latino artist
  • State dinner – a dinner or banquet paid for by a government and hosted by a head of state in his or her official residence in order to renew and celebrate diplomatic ties between the host country and the country of a foreign head of state or head of government who was issued an invitation. It may form part of a state visit or diplomatic conference. State lunches also occur.
  • Thanksgiving dinner – the centerpiece of contemporary Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada is a large meal, generally centered on a large roasted turkey which is only enjoyed once per year. The majority of the dishes in the traditional American version of Thanksgiving dinner are made from foods native to the New World, as according to tradition the Pilgrims received these food from the Native Americans.
  • Three Emperors Dinner – a banquet held at Café Anglais in Paris, France, on 7 June 1867. It was prepared by chef Adolphe Dugléré and consisted of 16 courses with eight fine wines served over eight hours. The dinner was prepared at the request of King William I of Prussia and was attended by King William I, Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his son the tsarevitch (who later became Tsar Alexander III), and Prince Otto von Bismarck.
  • Thursday Dinners – meetings of artists, intellectuals, architects, politicians and statesmen held by the King of Poland, Stanisław II August in the era of Enlightenment in Poland
  • Wild onion dinner – social gatherings held in the spring by various Native American tribes in Oklahoma, especially southeastern tribes. The meals focus on the spring appearance of wild onion, a food that was familiar to most of the tribes east of the Mississippi.

The White House

Obama hosts Iftar dinner on Ramadan
President Barack Obama hosting the White House Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan in the East Room of the White House in 2015

Feasts

Manchu Han Imperial Feast Tao Heung Museum of Food Culture
A simulation of the Manchu Han Imperial Feast, located at the Tao Heung Foods of Mankind Museum
  • Bean-feast – was primarily an annual dinner given by an employer to his or her employees. By extension, colloquially, it describes any festive occasion with a meal and an outing.
  • Boar's Head Feast – a festival of the Christmas season
  • Commercium – a traditional academic feast known at universities in most Central and Northern European countries
  • Feast of the Seven Fishes – an Italian-American celebration of Christmas Eve with meals of fish and other seafood.
  • Karamu – a feast that takes place on December 31, the sixth day of the Kwanzaa period
  • Manchu Han Imperial Feast – one of the grandest meals ever documented in Chinese cuisine, it consisted of at least 108 unique dishes from the Manchu and Han Chinese culture during the Qing dynasty, and it was only reserved and intended for the Emperors. The meal was held for three whole days, across six banquets. The culinary skills consisted of cooking methods from all over Imperial China.
  • Mesoamerican feasts – Feasts in Mesoamerica served as settings for social and political negotiations. Wealthy or royal families hosted feasts for the purpose of gaining loyalty and a strong image that would help them politically or socially in the future. People of every social status hosted feasts as a celebration of family and life.
  • Oyster Feast – the centrepiece of the annual civic calendar in the ancient borough of Colchester located in Essex in the East of England.
  • Supra – a traditional Georgian feast and an important part of Georgian social culture. There are two types of supra: a festive supra called a keipi and a sombre supra called a kelekhi, that is always held after burials.
  • Tableround – a traditional academic feast known at universities in most Middle and Eastern European countries. At a tableround, tables usually are placed in the form of a U or a W, the participants drink beer and sing commercium songs. A more formal form of the tableround is the commercium.

Suppers

Cutting the haggis
Haggis at a Burns supper
Wigilia potrawy 554
A traditional Wigilia Christmas Eve supper
  • Burns supper – a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, the author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January. However, in principle, they may be held at any other time of the year.
  • Pie supper – is a social gathering where pies are auctioned to raise money, often for a local school or fire department.
  • Wigilia – the traditional Christmas Eve vigil supper in Poland, held on December 24

See also

kids search engine
List of dining events Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.