Warning: spoilers ahead.

Usually when I talk about books or films here, I only share a part of the plot, some quotes, and my thoughts about them. I don’t want to give away the end or any surprises.

But “Babette’s Feast” is a short story. This post would only be a paragraph or two if I just shared a bit about it. Plus, I’d love to explore what it means and hear your thoughts as well.

“Babette’s Feast” is part of a collection published as Anecdotes of Destiny in 1958 by Isak Dinesen (pen name of Danish Author Karen Blixen). In 1987, it was made into an award-winning Danish film.

The story opens with two elderly sisters in Norway in the 1800s. Their late father was a pastor who created his own strict sect. “Its members renounced the pleasures of this world, for the
earth and all that it held to them was but a kind of illusion, and the true reality was the New
Jerusalem toward which they were longing.”

The women were beauitful and admired in their youth. Many young men noticed them, but those who approached their father for permission to court them were rebuffed. The girls were his right and left hand—would these young men tear them from him?

However, both young women had a chance at love. Lorens Löwenhielm, a rakish Calvary officer, was sent by his father to visit his aunt in the country and meditate on his ways. Lorens sees Martine in the marketplace. He visits her home and admires her all the more. But her purity seems to show up his own smallness. He eventually leaves to go back to his garrison and pour himself into his career. He marries a lady-in-waiting to the Queen.

An acclaimed singer, Achille Papin of Paris, visits the area on vacation. Bored one morning, he wanders into church and is captivated by the voice of Philippa. He offers to give her singing lessons, telling her father she will “sing . . . to the glory of God.” But inwardly, he thinks she could be a famous prima donna and sing with him.

He shares his dreams with Philippa. In one lesson, they sing a love song together and he kisses her.

Philppa tells her father she does not want to take singing lessons any more.

The young women ministered beside their father for years until he passed away. They continued charitable works in the community, helping the poor and needy, holding meetings in their home.

But the little congregation had thinned out and gotten old and contrary. Members focused on old wrongs with each other.

Now elderly, the women are startled when a pale woman shows up on their doorstep and faints. When she awakes, she gives them a letter. She was a French refugee fleeing from civil war in Paris. Achille Papin sent the sisters the letter asking them to take the women, Babette, in. It was proposed that she work as a cook and maid, but the sisters cannot afford to hire her. Babette does not want pay.

Babette recovers from her troubles and becomes a real asset to the sisters and the community. The sisters eat very plainly and show Babette how everything must be cooked. She’s savvy with merchants and saves the sisters money. Her efforts at home free them to minister even more to the community.

As the hundredth birthday of the sisters’ father approaches, they want to prepare a special dinner for the congregation. They not only want to honor their father’s memory, but they hope to inspire the congregation back to the ideals he taught.

Meanwhile, a friend of Babette’s in France had purchased a lottery ticket for her and renewed it every year. Suddenly, Babette receives news that she has won 10,000 francs.

The sisters rejoice in Babette’s good fortune but grieve that they will lose her. They are sure that with independent means, she will no longer need their hospitality.

But Babette wants to use her money to provide the feast for their father’s hundredth birthday dinner. The sisters reluctantly agree.

Babette wants to make an authentic French meal and orders supplies. The sisters are alarmed at the strange items that arrive, including a massive live turtle and several bottles of wine. The sisters face a conundrum. How can they allow these rich and foreign foods to be given to the congregation? But what can they do? They don’t feel they can offend Babette by rejecting her offer.

They go to the congregation and confess what has happened. The members understand and promise not to comment on the food, good or bad.

Meanwhile, officer Löwenhielm’s aunt wants to be included in the feast to honor the late pastor. And her nephew, Lorens, is in town: could he accompany her?

By now, Lorens has achieved all the honors he could want. But he sees it all as vanity. He remembers enough of what he heard back in the little congregation to convict him that there is more to life, and he has been foolish.

Finally the big feast arrives. Lorens is well-traveled and is the only one to recognize the superb quality of the wine and food. In fact, they remind him of the time he ate at a restaurant of one of the most famous and acclaimed chefs in Paris.

The sisters and congregants eat silently and tentatively at first. But soon the meal and the wine and the fellowship warms their hearts. They renew their love for each other and put away old wrongs.

When everyone leaves, the sisters thank Babette for the meal. They ask when she will be leaving them.

She won’t be leaving, she says. She has spent all her 10,000 francs on the meal. She had been the famous chef Lorens spoke of and gave the sisters and congregation the best meal she could produce.

_______

On the surface, this story could seem like a slam at the Puritanical practices of the sisters and an encouragement to enjoy life’s good things.

But I think the story goes deeper than that.

I don’t think it’s meant to be a slam, per se, but perhaps a different way of looking at things. The sisters’ religion looked on love and marriage as illusions. They were to concentrate on the life to come, not this one. But God gave us richly all things to enjoy, after all (1 Timothy 6:17). God’s Word and gifts do not just affect us on a spiritual plane. Some of His good gifts are physical and tactile. He wants us even to eat and drink as unto Him (1 Corinthians 10:31).

When the officer first visits the meeting at the sisters home, their father speaks of Psalm 85:10: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” The translation in the book says “bliss” rather than “peace.” When the officer comes back to the feast so many years later, not a general, he stands up to speak and shares this same verse and talks about grace. So perhaps the author is bringing together the idea that righteous and bliss are not antithetical.

One facet of the tale is the ministry of food. Psalm 104:14-15 says God causes “the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” Craig Claiborne said, ” Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.”

One article talked about the women caring for each other in their own way. The sisters provided a home, even though their means were meager. Babette made meals to their preferences, even though it must have galled her to do so, until the feast. They all grew to care for and appreciate each other.

Another aspect is to not judge a book by its cover. Though austere, the sisters were genuine and kind. They were wary of Babette’s foreignness at first, but came to see her heart.

Dione Lucas said, “The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living.” And this idea of giving through one’s art is mentioned in the story of Babette. She tells the sisters that the people she cooked for in France “had been brought up and trained, with greater expense than you, my little ladies, could ever imagine or believe, to understand what a great artist I am. I could make them happy. When I did my very best I could make them perfectly happy.” Later she quotes Monsieur Papin, “Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!”

When the sisters lament that Babette will be poor all her life, now that she has spent her fortune, she replies, “Poor? No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor. We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing.”

Here’s the trailer of the film. It’s in Danish with English subtitles.

This article discusses the film and story and the differences between the two.

Have you read or watched “Babette’s Feast”? What did you think of it?