And the sun, even as you and I and all there is, sits in equal honour at the banquet of the Prince whose door is always open and whose board is always spread.

The thrill of discovery quickly wore off. TV crews and reporters were soon scurrying frantically to satisfy the medium’s insatiable appetite for novelty, sometimes achieving massive inanity instead. During coverage of the first great banquet, correspondents—who had not been given menus—variously described those little orange balls decorating the table’s center as pomegranates, oranges or JellO. (They were actually North China tangerines.)

At Inverkeithing the teetotalers objected to this profligate expenditure, so the Provost and magistrates manfully paid for their “cookies” out of their own pockets. At Dunse, instead of a cake and wine banquet, there was “a fruit conversazione,” whatever that may be.

1580, George Cavendish, quoted by John Stow (ed.), The Annales of England, Faithfully collected out of the most autenticall Authors, Records, and other Monuments of Antiquitie, 1600 edition, “Henry the eight.,” p. 907,
Then was the banquetting chamber in the tilt yard at Greenewich, to the which place these strangers were conducted by the noblest personages in the court, where they did both sup and banquet.

1800, Frederick Schiller, The Piccolomini, or the First Part of Wallenstein, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, London: Longman & Rees, Act I, scene i, p. 2,
Just in time to banquet
The illustrious company assembled there.

Banquet

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