A framed series of banquet conversations in which learned guests catalogue and debate foods, recipes, dining customs, and drink. Discussions move through detailed treatments of fish and other dishes, cooks and cookery terms, festivals and feasts, wine mixing and drinking practices, cups and pledges, and related lexical and literary citations. The work combines gastronomic instruction, antiquarian curiosities, and wide-ranging quotations to produce an encyclopedic, anecdotal record of culinary, social, and verbal culture.