A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age

by Kümin, Beat

• ISBN13: 9780857850263
• ISBN10: 0857850261
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-17
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries form a very distinctive period in European food history. This was a time when enduring feudal constraints in some areas contrasted with widening geographical horizons and the emergence of a consumer society.While cereal based diets and small scale trade continued to be the mainstay of the general population, elite tastes shifted from Renaissance opulence toward the greater simplicity and elegance of dining à la française. At the same time, growing spatial mobility and urbanization boosted the demand for professional cooking
and commercial catering. An unprecedented wealth of artistic, literary and medical discourses on food and drink allows fascinating insights into contemporary responses to these transformations.

A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age presents an overview of the period with
essays on food production, food systems, food security, safety and crises, food and politics,
eating out, professional cooking, kitchens and service work, family and domesticity, body
and soul, representations of food, and developments in food production and consumption
globally.

Author Biography

Beat Kümin is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Warwick, UK.
He is the author of Drinking Matters: Public Houses and Social Exchange in Early Modern Central
Europe and the editor of The European World: An Introduction to Early Modern History.

Table of Contents

Series Preface

Introduction
Beat Kümin, University of Warwick, UK

1 Food Production
Govind Sreenivasan, Brandeis University, USA

2 Food Systems: Central–Decentral Networks
Anne Radeff, University of Bern, Switzerland

3 Food Security, Safety, and Crises
Pier Paolo Viazzo, University of Turin, Italy

4 Food and Politics: The Power of Bread in European Culture
Victor Magagna, University of California San Diego, USA

5 Eating Out in Early Modern Europe
Beat Kümin, University of Warwick, UK

6 Professional Cooking, Kitchens, and Service Work: Accomplisht Cookery
Sara Pennell, Roehampton University, UK

7 Family and Domesticity: Cooking, Eating, and Making Homes
Sara Pennell, Roehampton University, UK

8 Body and Soul, or Living Physically in the Kitchen
David Gentilcore, University of Leicester, UK

9 Food Representations in Early Modern Europe: Powerful Appetites
Brian Cowan, McGill University, Canada

10 World Developments: The Early Modern Age
Fabio Parasecoli, The New School, New York City, USA

Notes
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index