Art of Food - Babette's Feast

The Art of Food

According to The Random House Dictionary, one of the definitions of art is "the quality, production, expression, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful." (1) The concept of art and artistry and how they can affect life is a central theme of Isak Dinesen's short story, "Babette's Feast," primarily expressed through characters and their actions. Babette Hersant is the most obvious artist, her medium of choice is food as the title implies. Some believe that life itself is art, and this short story explores that concept to the fullest.

The title character, Babette, has the most obvious and the most complicated relationship to art of any character. Throughout the novel Babette uses her culinary talent to provide people nourishing and sustaining food, but this is far from the quality of food that she is use to making. Though Babette is grateful to the sisters for providing her a home and a position after she came to their door penniless and alone, the limitations of the sisters' severe and quiet lifestyle affects Babette's ability to express her art the way she had in Paris before the uprising. When the sisters demonstrate to her, what their preferred meal is--split cod and an ale-and-bread soup--Dinesen writes that she masters it like a native of the city. Babette gives in to their demand for plain and simple food for themselves, but when told that the food she creates for the poor--"soup-pails and baskets" (Chap 5) is important; she puts much effort into doing the best she could. Her food for unfortunates "acquired a new, mysterious power to stimulate and strengthen the poor and the sick."(Chap 5) Though these small works are not as extravagant as the meals she cooked in Paris, they allow Babette a limited outlet for her artistry. They give her leave to do her utmost and be an artist every day of her life.

When Babette wins the lottery of 10,000 Francs instead of choosing to go back to Paris where she could have lived a different, if not better life, Babette spends her money to make a "feast". Her willingness to do this show that she could make sacrifices for her art. To Babette being able to create what she had not been able to do for the past several years while she had been in the sisters' employ; to create an extravagant culinary work of art. During this feast is when you get the glimpse that Babette may be more than just a servant. During the meal General Loewenhielm directly verbalizes the extraordinary nature of the meal that Babette has cooked. He states that he has eaten her culinary art before. In the text, he recounts an original dish he ate in Paris and that a woman, implied to be Babette, was considered "the greatest culinary genius of the age." (Chap 11). Loewenhielm is constantly amazed by the courses that Babette cooks for them, and knows the name of each