China in Seven Banquets ranges through 5,000 years of Chinas food history in seven iconic meals, from the opulent Eight Treasures fete to the Tail-Burning banquet of the Tang Dynasty and the Qing courts extravagant complete Manchu-Han feast. We also experience lavish repasts from literature and film, a New Years buffet from 1920s Shanghai and a delivery menu from the hyper-global twenty-first century, and even peek at the tables of the not-so-distant future. Drawing upon decades of experience eating his way around China, Beijing-based historian Thomas David DuBois explains why culinary fashions come and go, as well as recreates dozens of historical recipes in a modern kitchen. From fermented elk to absinthe cocktails, this is Chinese food as youve never seen it before.