Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
" A refreshing addition to the field of food studies … This book makes an important contribution to food studies by placing food in the foreground of identity formation as well as explaining how various groups have used food at various times." (Journal of Social History)
2001
Paper about all issues related to food and all forms of identity construction (age, gender, ethnicity, geographically, class...), published in 2001 (but still very relevant) to introduce Food, Drink, Cooking and Eating in Europe since the Middle Ages (ed. Peter Scholliers), Berg Publishers
Food & History vol. 10 n. 2, 2012
The decade under review was a very productive one for the development of medieval and Renaissance food history, which can be said to have made its way into “mainstream” history. The trend observed in the past decade seems to bear out the increasing dominance of a cultural version of food history. This is true for the histories of dietetic medicine, cooking, feasting, and wine, among many other fields. There has been also a widening of geographical and chronological horizons, especially into the early Middle Ages, thanks to the use of new kinds of sources, including the endlessly renewed resources offered by archaeology.
Food occupies a central role in all cultures. However, what we eat, how and why we eat it and where it comes from differs remarkably. This intersession course examines the sociohistorical context of food in European societies during the classical, medieval and renaissance periods. Lectures will address such topics as technology, trade networks, political institutions, religious observances, and medicinal/magical applications with respect to both staples, like bread and salt, and luxuries, such as spices and swans (!).
2013
In the last few decades new theoretical perspectives have emphasized the significance of material culture for an understanding of historical and sociocultural developments. As a consequence of this renewed interest in more pragmatic aspects of daily life through the ages scholars have turned to the study of food as a window to the cultural dynamics that are embedded within. The acquisition, preparation and consumption of food is a basic human need that provides a lens through which scholars can explore relationships among economic, religious, literary, legal, political, cultural and social activity. Scholarly study of food, as well as its surrounding ideas and practices, illuminate the boundaries and nexus of material and mental exchanges which are so fundamental to human experience that they often escape a culture’s nominal categories to occasion the crossing of social and political borders. Scholarly interest in food and eating in the Middle Ages increased after the publication of...
Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2015
Global Food History, 2019
In February 1576, Giles Wiggers of Antwerp set out on a voyage from Lisbon to Calais with a cargo of sugar and spices. On route, while most of the crew was sleeping, eight of the company "fell upon" the rest, killing six. The master surrendered and was forced to bring his ship into the bay of Rosscarbery, in West Cork. Coming into the bay, he was greeted by Bishop Cornelius Brenner, who agreed, with the help of local fishermen, to bring to ship safely ashore to Glandore Haven, in return for 30 ducats. This, they agreed, was to be paid with 60 lbs of spices, in lieu of money. Trusting the kindly bishop, the master asked for help in dispossessing the murderous mariners and reclaiming his ship and cargo. The bishop in turn "promised him "great friendship" and "took him to his house". Instead, the bishop held the captain hostage for four days releasing him only when he agreed to pay a ransom of 732 lbs of spices: 200 lbs each of nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper and 132 lbs of cloves. 1 How the bishop disposed of his extorted spices is unfortunately unknown, but it is clear from this and from the evidence to be explored in this chapter, that there was a market for such luxury foodstuffs even, it would appear, in less commercialised parts of sixteenth-century Ireland.
European Studies: A …, 2006
2013
Identity is formed and reproduced through our relationships with human and non-human others. This paper applies this perspective to conduct an archaeological investigation of how identities emerged in urban environments during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries through cuisine. This is achieved through a comparative analysis of food remains and the associated material culture from a range of medieval sites in Hampshire of different size and status. I argue that choices and strategies in preparing, cooking and consuming food were enmeshed within multiple facets of urban identity including gender, status and profession.
La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, 2021
In projects developed in the area of food history and in the different symposia organised by ICREFH in the past 30 years, the history of the senses has remained in the background. However, the senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing, and taste are appealed to when we deal with the production of foods for consumption. The use of the senses, which is quotidian, but equally ephemeral, seems to be outside of the written scholarship produced by historians. The creation, by elites, of taste, of fashion, of " bon gout " , are familiar areas of discussion today. This symposium, which will be presented for the 30th anniversary of ICREFH, proposes moving forward in our analysis of this area by drawing on recent research. Each sense can be a separate topic of historical research. However, separating each sense activated by food presents a somewhat impoverished image. In fact, all the senses are at work when we are eating. Thus, let us take them as a whole so as to seize a " balance of the senses " (Corbin), a rapport among them which can appear in the form of a hierarchy or of a balance. This ensemble is produced, it grows, it transforms, and then it sometimes disappears. Actually, the enhancement of taste indicates a constructed and deliberate hierarchical organization. In the same way, a crunch activates our sense of hearing initially, with the other senses staying in the background. All of this remains to be explored in order to evaluate and historicise the place accorded to the senses vis-à-vis food by 19th and 20th century society. We shall approach the history of food and the senses by means of an event, a product, a particular source (a family journal, a cookery book...), prohibitions, speeches… On the basis of already familiar archives or by utilising lesser known sources is it possible to generate new avenues of research or to reinterpret previous research? Three main themes have been adopted, but the organizing committee is open to other proposals: 1 – An analysis of the hierarchy of the senses in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their transformations: these can be produced in various ways: • By vocabulary: In this time period how was specific vocabulary constructed (e.g., for wine), how were words for food and the senses created? Some words disappear or change their meaning. • Can we observe geographical food distinctions that arose from the senses? Did the combination of the senses and food play a part in the creation of nations or of nationalism (national dishes and the senses that are particularly connected to them). Can we distinguish between the senses developed at home, and those developed outside of the home? Do there exist places of intensity for the senses (the kitchen, for example)? Seasons? • Is the appeal of the senses a function of social group, stages in life, type, body type (fat or thin, small or large, healthy?). The analogy between body odours or social position and certain dishes and their odours should perhaps be explored: foot odour/ cheese; poverty/cabbage smell; wealth/gameyness. • The industrialization of the senses: a new hierarchy? 2 – Production and construction of norms Are there rules, and how are they applied when it is a question of combining colours, forms, tastes, and odours? We can envisage the roles of regulations, European or national, of specific trades (doctors, cooks…), hygiene and the senses, the media: the press, radio, books, religion…
Writing Food History. A Global Perspective (eds: K. Claflin & P. Scholliers), 2012
In 2007 I published a survey dealing with research about Europe's foodways in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 1 Rather than being interested in the conclusions of this research, I wished to examine how scholars study food history, which offered an opportunity for testing the application and relevance of interdisciplinarity. Luckily, not only historians but also scholars who were not trained as historians investigate foodways of the past. Studying food in the modern era has indeed attracted a large number of disciplines, ranging from anthropology and sociology to communication sciences and geography. I wished to learn whether and how these approaches, methods, and insights inspired historians. My conclusions confi rmed the extraordinarily thriving interest in Europe's past foodways by an ever-growing number of disciplines, the total lack of common ground of these studies, and their hesitant interest in interdisciplinary approaches. In this chapter I want to expand this inquiry by using recent literature and asking additional questions. I am, fi rst and foremost, interested in the way historians have dealt with the overwhelming attention from other disciplines since the early 2000s. Would they welcome it and explore new themes, methods, and insights, or resist and ignore the loud knock on their door? Also, I consider the question of how amateur historians (i.e., nontrained historians as well as nonacademics) set off with historical questions and debates, apply historical concepts, search for historical sources, and refer to adequate historical literature. This chapter has three sections: the fi rst two form a chronological survey with the year 2005 as a caesura (in order not to replicate my 2007 survey and to emphasize recent developments), while the third section is a lengthy conclusion. Separate Rooms in a Cozy Hut (1960s–1980s) and Accessible Rooms in a Welcoming House (1990s–2005) Broadly speaking, two intellectual loci in food studies existed between 1900 and 1960: that of economic history and that of folklore. 2 The two neglected each other. Economic historians dealt with the food supply, hunger, and prices, while folklorists studied
Insatiable Appetite Food as Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond , 2019
In this chapter, both zooarchaeological and historical evidence are used to explore variation in patterns of consumption among different sectors of medieval English society (ca. A.D. 1066-1520). While in the early part of the period the consumption of meat carried a status value, the impact of the Black Death and the resultant shift in the balance of society and the weakening of aristocratic wealth and power changed this. The lower classes of society subsequently had access to a greater quantity of meat while the aristocracy shifted its focus to the consumption of wild birds. It is argued that this change in food consumption represents an attempt to reestablish social differentiation through diet.
Culinary Heritage - Tracing, shaping and reshaping food culture from the Middle Ages to the present, 2024
This anthology explores food and cultural heritage from various eras to show how food history helps us understand the past, present, and future. It provides new insight into local food cultures and focuses on the creative use of historical food culture for the future. The chapters cover new research on medieval food culture, starting with the Viking ship excavation at Gjellestad, which sheds light on early Norwegian fishing culture. Others address animal husbandry, cultivation, and food processing on medieval farms, and the dietary practices of monastic orders based on Cistercian rules. The history of beer brewing is also highlighted, along with the transition to traditional Nordic cooking after the Middle Ages, influenced by global food trade. Finally, the book discusses the radical changes in Norwegian food culture over the past hundred years, partly driven by developments in the restaurant industry. Culinary Heritage is illustrated with recent photographs taken by the authors, as well as historical images from various collections.
Food Heritage and Nationalism in Europe, 2019
This paper introduces the special issue of Food & History, which is the product of a two-day colloquium that was organised in December 2010, aiming at closing a large-scale research project. This investigation questions whether food (and if so, to what extent) serves as a reliable proxy for measuring rough and more subtle social hierarchies. Three themes have been considered, which this paper presents and situates in a broader context: elite cuisine, middle-class shopping for food, and bourgeois eating out.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
