A remarkable film adaptation of the Izak Dinesen story - about a French refugee from Paris, the late 1800s, who seeks refuge in Denmark in the employ of two sisters who head a religious community which their father founded years earlier.
Babette works for free, serving the meager food of fish soup and ale bread, grateful for a roof over her head and the love of the sisters.
Her only link, she says, is a friend in Paris who annually renews a lottery ticket for her.
After fourteen years of her new life in Denmark, a letter arrives from Paris. It seems that Babette's won the lottery, 10,000 francs.
She asks the sisters a favor - to prepare the meal for the 100th anniversary of their father's birth - a French dinner, she says. The sisters are skeptical, for such "worldly" things are not a part of their life, yet they agree out of regard for Babette.
Babette orders the food from Paris - everything from quail and turtle to wine and champagne, and everything in between. When the magnitude of Babette's feast becomes apparent, the sisters gather the small community and apologize for what they feel to be a transgression of their values, yet all agree, for the sake of Babette, to eat the meal, but to do so without comment about either food or drink.
As it would happen, the son of a community member, now a general of renown, and once a suitor of one of the sisters, is in town and asks to be invited to the dinner. Of course, and he comes that evening dressed in military finery.
The feast is served ... on a table set with fine china, goblets and glasses of every size and shape, and silverware on fine linen. Course after course. The general is amazed and speaks of one such meal at a famous Paris restaurant where the head chef was a woman.
The community refrains from conversation about the meal, but a pleasant expression comes over all of their faces, and soon a powerful but subtle transformation occurs.
The General stands to make a speech and utters one of the great lines of literature and faith:
"We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble .... We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty."
The feast is a delight for the eyes, and for those who love to cook, a celebration.
Babette is the Lamb whose sacrifice brings the presence of love.
The table comes the Table of the Lord; the feast the Lord's Supper - and all is made new.
At the end, the sisters know that Babette will return to Paris, but when the meal is finished and the guests on their way home, Babette says: There is no one in Paris for me; they're all dead. I will stay here."
"But you have money now," says the sisters.
"No. I spent it all for the feast."
