The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

You will never look at an onion them same way again. Pages and pages describing the lowly but fantastic onion. Capon encourages us to enjoy our food without the guilt. "The modern diet victim sees his life at the table not as a delightful alternation between pearls of great price and dishes of lesser cost, but as a grim sentence which condemns him to pay for every fattening repast with a meal of carrot sticks and celery." He writes with humor; on plastic wrap he says, "... cover with plastic wrap. (You see, I hope, that I am no mere antiquarian, insisting on barefoot walks though unimproved sculleries. I am grateful for real progress as any modernist. More so, perhaps. Anything that preserves freshness for the pot is on the side of the angels.)" He writes with humor and half way through the book declares, "If you are still with me at this point, it can only be because you are a serious drinker of being: a man who will walk back ten paces to smell privet in bloom; a woman who loves to rap sound turnips with her knuckles. let us congratulate one another: The party has taken a distinct turn for the better. The busy bodies with late meetings to attend have long since departed. The fidgeters who yawned their way through the evening have flaunted their early rising and vanished mercifully into outer darkness. Rejoice, dear heart; the ribbon clerks are finally out of the game. At last we may speak freely of the things that matter. Put away the cooking Sherry, Margaret; only the real ones are left. The good stuff is in the right hand end of the sideboard." Wow! Does it remind you of Christ saving the best wine for last!? And on the simple subject of knives and their purpose: "The road from the temple to the kitchen is quite plain. It lies through the subject of knives." The "unobliging reciprocity in which life lives by death but still insists that death is robbery." It is such a relevant book today with people so prone to flailing themselves for enjoying a good, filling, fat filled meal. This book makes you want to party in the kitchen with the incredible abundance and variety of food and then eat fully, drink deeply, and thank God: "O, Lord... Take away our fear of fat, and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron's beard. Give us pasta with a hundred fillings, and rice in a thousand variations. Above all, give us grace to live as true men- to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand... cast out the demons that possess us; deliver us from the fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition..." Nourishment is only for awhile; what we shall need forever is taste.

I came across The Supper of the Lamb at a particularly deep and prolonged nadir in my life, and not being particularly religious, I was sceptical. O what joy! What love! What exuberance, richness, fertility and fancy! What unbounded wonder! Father Capon shows us the wonder in ordinary things, and shows us how to look, really look, at humble, quotidian things to see the glory in them -- the chapter on a simple brown onion is worth the entire book. So is the chapter on wine. Again and again, I've stretched out my hand and the right book was there. Thank you Father Capon for showing me the way back to laughter, love and celebration! L'chaim!

This book was my first taste of Robert Farrar Capon's writings. One of those underground treasures which makes its way by word of mouth, The Supper of the Lamb was a seminal book in my spiritual and literary development, along with his book, The Parables of the Kingdom. It may include recipes, but The Supper of the Lamb is a cookbook for life. Each chapter offers lyrical insight on what it means to be human. Read about cutting an onion in "The First Session" and you'll never take an onion for granted again. "Wave Breast and Heave Shoulder" is one of the most beautiful and biblical passages in the entire book. I have read the final pages of "The Burning Heart" many, many times and never fail to be moved. Some sections of the book are reminiscent of Annie Dillard's descriptive style in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or some of the best of M.F.K. Fisher's writings. Capon's salty observations balance the high spirituality, creating a complex blend of philosophy and kitchen craft. As Capon himself says, "We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great." This book continues to inspire my writing, my cooking, and my spirituality. If you want a flavorful literary feast, buy The Supper of the Lamb. I highly recommend Robert Farrar Capon's other books as well. Each one is a treasure.

Lets face it...all of us who cook (unless we are filthy rich) do a lot of work with leftovers (Ferial cooking). Yet most folks buy cookbooks that give us these grand, one time and you're done (Festal cooking) recipes. This is not what you get from Robert Capon's "The Supper of the Lamb." This book is all about Ferial cooking--and proud of it.Capon is a true wild man. He has become one of my favorite authors (His book Between Noon and Three is one of my top ten). "The Supper of the Lamb" is earlier, yet vintage Capon. The book is indeed a cookbook. It is also so much more. What the reader will find here, besides the recipes, are reflections on life and reality. The theme of Ferial cooking is transferred to a kind of manifesto on Ferial living. Capon sees food, and life as well, through a lens of wonder. Capon's book is really a recipe for living life more fully. While his recipes for food are great, it is this "larger" recipe that holds the greatest appeal for me.I recommend "The Supper of the Lamb" to you with all my heart.

Father Capon has written one of the most absurd "cookbooks" anyone has ever seen. It purports to be about serving eight people four meals from a (large) leg of lamb. His wanderings in tortured philosophical byeways and his admonitions about avoiding water in soups ("soup waterer!") will make you reach for the wine bottle instead. He is clearly a portly fellow who enjoys hearty food, not stinting on the butter, but determined to find the best in life (or at least the best food in life). I have re-read the book several times, and always come away with the sense of awe at a man so dedicated to his stomach and to avoiding the traps of modern "inventions" in cookware and lifestyles. Buy it: you'll not regret the time you spend reading it, admiring it, and chuckling aloud every few pages. There are recipes occasionally in the first two thirds of the book, all dealing with those 8 times 4 servings, but also a wonderful collection of special recipes toward the end. Do read it: it may just change your life.