Entertaining at Home or Hideous Absinthe

Entertaining at Home

Author: Bridget Jones

Mouthwatering recipes to impress guests.

Read also Pedometer Power or Libro de Cocina Ilustrado de la Nueva Dieta Atkins

Hideous Absinthe: A Story of the Devil in a Bottle

Author: Jad Gerard Adams

"The book looks at absinthe's contribution to the hedonistic culture of the French Second Empire and to Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris of the 1890s. It gives a sceptical examination of the agitation against absinthe in the bizarre world of the French temperance movement where wine was not considered to be alcohol and drunks were referred to as absintheurs even if they never drank it." "The book details the outraged English reaction to absinthe in the context of resistance to French art. Absinthe was seen as a foreign poison undermining the national resolve just as the decadence of Oscar Wilde and his circle was undermining national culture at a time when war with France was thought to be inevitable." It comes up to date via the thrill-seeking American absinthe drinkers in the twentieth century, from Hemingway to the backpackers of Prague. It ends with the rediscovery of absinthe in England's club culture of the twenty-first century.

The New York Times - Christine Schwartz Hartley

Adams offers rich historical context, cultural perspective, anecdotes and pointed observations, for instance, that for turn-of-the-century British bohemians, ''coming to terms with absinthe was as much a part of becoming an artist as finding a studio.'' He finds no reason to believe, as is often claimed, that the ''green fairy'' sparked the radical new art of heavy drinkers like Verlaine, Rimbaud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Wilde and Strindberg. Still, as absinthe's recent European comeback demonstrates, the promise of rare new altered states remains. This book is as titillating as it is sobering.

Table of Contents:

	Illustrations
	Acknowledgements
	Introduction: The Devil Made Liquid	1
1	Bitter Beginnings	15
2	The Green Hour and the New Art	24
3	Absinthe for the People	46
4	Poets Breaking the Rules	65
5	Madmen of Art	87
6	The Absinthe Binge	123
7	English Decadence and French Morals	138
8	Anglo-Saxon Attitudes	159
9	Absinthe Paranoia	177
10	Twilight of the Fee Verte	196
11	Green in the USA	216
12	Pop Goes the Fairy	236
App	'Lendemain'	251
	Notes on the Text	253
	Select Bibliography	275
	Index	283