The Oxford Handbook of Food History

by Pilcher, Jeffrey M.

• ISBN13: 9780199729937
• ISBN10: 019972993X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-10-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The historical study of food, culture, and society has become established within the academy based on a generation of high-quality scholarship. Following the foundational work of the French Annales school, the International Committee for the Research into European Food History and the Institut Europeen d'Histoire et des Cultures de l'Alimentation have conducted wide-ranging research, particularly on the changes brought about by culinary modernization. In the United States, the ascendancy of cultural history in the 1990s encouraged young scholars to write dissertations on food-related topics. Despite the existence of at least four major scholarly journals focused on food, the field still lacks a solid foundation of historiographical writing. As a result, innovative early approaches to commodity chains, ethnic identities, and culinary transformation have become repetitive. Meanwhile, scholars are often unaware of relevant literature when it does not directly relate to their particular national and chronological focus. The Oxford Handbook of Food Historyplaces existing works in historiographical context, crossing disciplinary, chronological, and geographic boundaries, while also suggesting new routes for future research. The twenty-seven essays in this book are organized into five basic sections: historiography and disciplinary approaches as well as the production, circulation, and consumption of food. Chapters on historiography examine the French Annales school, political history, the cultural turn, labor, and public history. Disciplinary methods that have contributed significantly to the history of food including anthropology, sociology, geography, the emerging Critical Nutrition Studies. The final chapter in this section explores the uses of food in the classroom. The production section encompasses agriculture, pastoralism, and the environment; using cookbooks as historical documents; food and empire; industrial foods; and fast food. Circulation is examined through the lenses of human mobility, chronological frames, and food regimes, along with case studies of the medieval spice trade, the Columbian exchange, and modern culinary tourism. Finally, the consumption section focuses on communities that arise through the sharing of food, including religion, race and ethnicity, national cuisines, and social movements.

Author Biography

Jeffrey M. Pilcher is professor of history, University of Minnesota. His books include The Sausage Rebellion: Public Health, Private Enterprise, and Meat in Mexico City, 1890-1917; Food in World History; and Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity, which won the Thomas F. McGann Memorial Prize.

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. xi
Introduction	p. xvii
Food Histories
Food and the Annales Schools	p. 3
Political Histories of Food	p. 23
Cultural Histories of Food	p. 41
Labor Histories of Food	p. 61
Public Histories of Food	p. 81
Food Studies
Gendering Food	p. 99
Anthropology of Food	p. 117
Sociology of Food	p. 135
Geography of Food	p. 154
Critical Nutrition Studies	p. 172
Teaching with Food	p. 191
The Means of Production
Agricultural Production and Environmental History	p. 209
Cookbooks as Historical Documents	p. 227
Food and Empire	p. 241
Industrial Food	p. 258
Fast Food	p. 279
The Circulation of Food
Food, Mobility, and World History	p. 305
The Medieval Spice Trade	p. 324
The Columbian Exchange	p. 341
Food, Time, and History	p. 358
Food Regimes	p. 370
Culinary Tourism	p. 389
Communities of Consumption
Food and Religion	p. 409
Food, Race, and Ethnicity	p. 428
National Cuisines	p. 444
Food and Ethical Consumption	p. 461
Food and Social Movements	p. 481
Index	p. 499
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