Samuel Pepys was a 17th century British nobleman, and one of the most prolific diarists of all time. This book is a collection of some diary entries about his meals. Whatever you think was the most food you ever ate in a day, I bet that Pepys has you beat. Many bottles of wine with supper and dinner. Huge pieces of meat and meat pies. Desserts aplenty. It's all here. He chronicles many times where he (and often his companions as well) ate and drank so much that they were sick, and the terrible hangovers that would plague him the next day.

Along with the meals, we get a sense of what else occupied Pepys' mind. He fretted about the time and cost of home improvement projects. He hung maps and pictures in his home. He had the occasional extramarital affair. He hobnobbed with prominent politicians and aristocrats. He worried about his wife's inability to get pregnant, and solicited a list of rules (do's and don't's) from his male friends. He traveled around the countryside and across London. He was worried about the plague. He went to the opera and the theater. He had quite a life.

This was a man with the means and the tastes to really enjoy his life and live it to an excess. ( )