This is a list of historic and contemporary dining events, which includes banquets, feasts, dinners and dinner parties. Such gatherings involving dining sometimes consist of elaborate affairs with full course dinners and various beverages, while others are simpler in nature.
Trefa Banquet – a dinner held in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 11, 1883, in honor of the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College. It became controversial for serving non-kosher dishes, thereby highlighting philosophical disagreements within the Reform Jewish community.
An anonymous sixteenth-century painting showing participants of the Feast of the Pheasant
Banquets
Julebord – a Scandinavian feast or banquet in the days before Christmas in December and partly November where there is served traditional Christmas food and alcoholic beverages, often in the form of a buffet. Many Julebords are characterized by large amounts of food and drink, both traditional and new, hot and cold dishes. There is often lively partying and the party can be an important social meeting place for colleagues.
Pancake breakfast – a public meal attached to many summer festivals and community events in the United States and Canada which involves volunteers cooking large quantities of pancakes and other hot breakfast foods for the general public.
Christmas dinner – a meal traditionally eaten at Christmas, which can take place any time from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day itself
Kūčios – the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Lithuania, held on December 24
Passover Seder – dinner during the Jewish celebration of Passover. Usually held with family and friends. During the dinner, the host reads the Haggadah, which tells the story of Jewish enslavement in Egypt and their liberation by God through Moses. The story is considered a central part of Jewish identity.
Progressive dinner – called a progressive dinner in the U.S. and a safari supper in the U.K., it is a dinner party with successive courses prepared and eaten at the residences of different hosts. Usually this involves the consumption of one course at each location. An alternative is to have each course at a different dining area within a single large establishment.
Reunion dinner – held on New Year's Eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, during which family members get together to celebrate. It is often considered the most important get-together meal of the entire year.
Réveillon – a long dinner held on the evenings preceding Christmas Day and New Year's Day. This occurs in various areas of the world.
Rock Dinner – a series that aired on MTV Tr3s that let people in the Los Angeles area have the opportunity to cook dinner for their favorite Latino artist[12]
State dinner – a dinner or banquet paid for by a government and hosted by a head of state in his or her official residence in order to renew and celebrate diplomatic ties between the host country and the country of a foreign head of state or head of government who was issued an invitation. It may form part of a state visit or diplomatic conference. State lunches also occur.
Thanksgiving dinner – the centerpiece of contemporary Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada is a large meal, generally centered on a large roasted turkey which is only enjoyed once per year[citation needed]. The majority of the dishes in the traditional American version of Thanksgiving dinner are made from foods native to the New World[citation needed], as according to tradition the Pilgrims received these food from the Native Americans.[13]
Bean-feast – was primarily an annual dinner given by an employer to his or her employees.[19] By extension, colloquially, it describes any festive occasion with a meal and an outing.[20]
Karamu – a feast that takes place on December 31, the sixth day of the Kwanzaa period
Manchu Han Imperial Feast – one of the grandest meals ever documented in Chinese cuisine, it consisted of at least 108 unique dishes from the Manchu and Han Chinese culture during the Qing dynasty, and it was only reserved and intended for the Emperors. The meal was held for three whole days, across six banquets. The culinary skills consisted of cooking methods from all over Imperial China.[22]
Mesoamerican feasts – Feasts in Mesoamerica served as settings for social and political negotiations. Wealthy or royal families hosted feasts for the purpose of gaining loyalty and a strong image that would help them politically or socially in the future. People of every social status hosted feasts as a celebration of family and life.
Supra – a traditional Georgian feast and an important part of Georgian social culture. There are two types of supra: a festive supra called a keipi and a sombre supra called a kelekhi, that is always held after burials.
Tableround – a traditional academicfeast known at universities in most Middle and Eastern European countries. At a tableround, tables usually are placed in the form of a U or a W, the participants drink beer and sing commercium songs. A more formal form of the tableround is the commercium.
Suppers
Burns supper – a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, the author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January.[23] However, in principle, they may be held at any other time of the year.
Pie supper – is a social gathering where pies are auctioned to raise money, often for a local school or fire department.
Wigilia – the traditional Christmas Eve vigil supper in Poland, held on December 24
^Gould, Louis L (28 November 2011). Theodore Roosevelt. USA: Oxford University Press. p. 45. ISBN9780199797011. His first action in October 1901 was to invite the prominent black leader Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. [...] When the news of the social event became public, southern newspapers erupted with denunciations of Roosevelt's breach of the color line.
^"Last Supper. The final meal Christ with His Apostles on the night before the Crucifixion.", Cross, F. L., & Livingstone, E. A. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed. rev.) (958). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
^Clark, Melissa (16 December 2013). "Surf's Up on Christmas Eve. Feasting on Fish to the Seventh Degree". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-12-30. It's a Southern Italian (and now Italian-American) custom in which a grand meal of at least seven different kinds of seafood is served before midnight Mass The fish part comes from the Catholic practice of abstaining from meat on Christmas Eve, while the number may refer to the seven sacraments.
^Hoover, Michael. Stokes, Lisa, Odham. (1999). City on Fire: Hong Kong Cinema. Verso publishing. ISBN1-85984-203-8