The Food of History

Dr. Fabio Parasecoli

PID_00168260
© FUOC • PID_00168260 The Food of History

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© FUOC • PID_00168260 The Food of History

Index

1. Introduction: Food history and globalisation........................... 5

1.1. The questions, the methods, the sources ................................... 5
1.2. Is food globalisation a new phenomenon? The speed of
change ......................................................................................... 9
1.3. Plant domestication and diffusion ............................................. 11
1.4. The impact of migrations ........................................................... 15
1.5. Commercial and Cultural Exchanges ......................................... 17
1.5.1. The seafaring routes: The Mediterranean and the
Indian Ocean ................................................................. 18
1.5.2. The land routes: the Sahara and the Silk Route ............ 21
1.5.3. The Columbian Exchange ............................................. 23
1.5.4. Food and political domination ..................................... 24
1.5.5. Colonial empires ............................................................ 26

2. Sharing tables..................................................................................... 30
2.1. Body and soul: Food and religions ............................................. 30
2.2. Body, health, and science ........................................................... 33
2.3. Distinctions: Food and social dynamics ..................................... 35
2.4. Sexing the plate: Food and gender ............................................. 38

3. Food and local identities................................................................. 40

3.1. Relational identities, exchanges and networks ........................... 40
3.2. Colonialism, creolisation, hybridization .................................... 41
3.3. The History of terroir.................................................................... 44
3.4. Fusion, nouvelle cuisine and other trends ................................. 46

4. Methods, signs and ideas................................................................. 49

4.1. The transfer of knowledge .......................................................... 49
4.1.1. Recipes and traditions ................................................... 49
4.1.2. The cooks ....................................................................... 53
4.2. Gastronomy and the standards of taste ..................................... 54
4.3. Food in the arts .......................................................................... 56
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1. Introduction: Food history and globalisation

1.1. The questions, the methods, the sources

I have no quarrel with the student of history who brings to his work a touchingly
childish, innocent faith in the power of our minds and our methods to order reality; but
first and foremost he must respect the incomprehensible truth, reality, and uniqueness
of events. Studying history, my friend, is no joke and no irresponsible game. To study
history one must know in advance that one is attempting something fundamentally
impossible, yet necessary and highly important. To study history means submitting to
chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task,
young man, and possibly a tragic one.

Herman Hesse (2002/1943). The Glass Bead Game. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston.
New York: Picador (pp. 168-69).

Reading the quote from Herman Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game that opens
this module, it would be legitimate to ask oneself what is the point in studying
history, if we are dealing with pure chaos devoid of order and meaning. The
impression that many have when they start studying history is that they are
facing a dizzying array of apparently unconnected events, names, and places
that require lots of memorisation and little reflection. One of the goals of
this module is to actually prove how history can shed light on aspects of
food systems that would be invisible to other disciplines and how the effort
to find meaning and causality in historical phenomena is a rewarding and
stimulating endeavour that can help us achieve a better understanding of our
contemporary realities.

Contemporary food systems at the local, regional, and global level can
be analysed from a synchronic point of view, focusing on their various
components and on the way they connect with each other and with the
system as a whole in the present. However, it can be useful to consider issues
with a diachronic approach, aiming at achieving a better understanding of
their origin and their changes over time. This second possibility informs
this module. Indeed, the goal is to look at food and food systems from a
historical point of view in order to add further depth to the examination of
the present-day issues that might constitute your specific interest. At the end
of this module, you will have acquired a set of analytical tools in terms of
concept and methodologies that you will be able to apply to your specific field
of research or to your professional activity. This course will mostly focus on
examples taken from the food history of Western Europe and the Americas,
not because they are intrinsically more interesting or more important than
events and phenomena that took place in other parts of the world, but because
more written bibliographical material is available in English, the language of
this programme.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 6 The Food of History

Before presenting the module content, it is necessary to address a few

preliminary questions.

• How do we frame historical questions related to food and food systems?

• How do we take into account the multiple ways of approaching food
history that are available to us?
• How do we define what makes research on food history rigorous?
• How do we develop a language for communicating our research so that
what we have to say can have a large impact, somehow speaking to
everyone?

To answer the first question, it is possible to identify the impact of food

on historical events and phenomena in the short-, medium- and long-term,
each offering a very different frame of reference in terms of the length of the
period that constitutes the object of analysis. This is an important conceptual
distinction that has a noticeable impact on the way historical research is
organised and on what sources are used. Events can be studied in the short run,
examining the most immediate causes and their development over a short
period of time. However, concentrating only on the proximate effects, causes,
and dynamics can at times keep us from identifying deeper transformations
and trends that develop over long periods of time and that might or might not
culminate in visible and specific events. To overcome this limitation, it can
be useful to adopt the medium- and long-term as our scope of analysis. This
approach, formulated in the 1930s by a group of historians working around
the French journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale (now called Annales.
Histoire, Sciences Sociales), positioned history closer to other social sciences
such as sociology and economics. The Annales historians, among whom
were Marc Bloch, Lucien Lefebvre, Fernand Braudel and Jacques Le Goff,
took all aspects of society into consideration and emphasised material life,
cultural practices and mentalities over purely political or diplomatic themes,
facilitating the ensuing expansion of quantitative studies. It is not surprising
that this approach often took aspects of food production, distribution and
consumption as its subject matters, together with more immaterial aspects
regarding reflection and writing about food.

Since the analysis of food systems (production, distribution, marketing,

consumption, and disposal) from a historical point of view can cover a
very wide and varied array of events and phenomena, it is not surprising
that there are several approaches to the topic that at times can provide us
with interesting material and useful insights. This will provide answers to
our second preliminary question. Researchers have been interested in the
actual history of particular foodstuffs: Sidney Mintz's groundbreaking study
on sugar, Mark Kurlanski's books on cod and salt, Andy Smith's work on
specific products like peanuts or tomatoes exemplify just one among the many
different methodologies to frame the vast material historians encounter when
they start dealing with food. Another approach looks at culinary history (from
the Latin word culina, meaning kitchen), which analyses the development
© FUOC • PID_00168260 7 The Food of History

of dishes, cooking techniques, and the roles and skills of cooks and chefs.
Historians have also focused specifically on the history of dining, of how,
where, in what occasion and with whom people ate, which is of particular
interest from the social point of view. This line of research also has lead
to the study of social spaces of food consumption, from the street stall
to the most refined restaurant, and to the historical analysis of diets in
terms of components, nutrients and calories. And when people eat, they also
think about what they eat. History can look at the development of ideas
about food from the social, cultural and nutritional point of view: what
is right to eat according to various religions and upbringings? How does
food reflect social status? And what is considered best for health in different
cultures? Food history can also be examined from very specific points of
view such as economics, demographics and other approaches borrowed from
social sciences. Biology, ecology, zoology and botany can provide us with
invaluable information about foodstuffs and their availability to humans,
while geography and environmental sciences can help us understand how
different communities have dealt with food in different places.

The richness and diversity of approaches to food history bring us to our

third preliminary question about what sources are available, useful and
rigorous. First of all, it is necessary to make a distinction between primary
and secondary sources. When talking of secondary sources, historians refer
to the work of other experts and researchers, which include articles, books,
websites, film and radio segments that can be used as references in their
investigation to support or explain their own arguments. However, these
sources are inherently influenced by their authors' biases, culture, upbringing
and political views, which need to be critically taken into consideration. For
this reason, historians prefer to found their research on documents, objects
and various kind of material traces from the past that bring direct evidence
of events, phenomena and developments. For centuries, the only sources
deemed credible were written documents, as it seemed absurd to trust oral
traditions, myths or even actual objects. This choice of sources inevitably
leads to more or less voluntary misrepresentations not only of the cultural
worlds of the protagonists of the events examined, but often of the events
themselves. First of all, written documents are easily modifiable and subject to
falsification. Moreover, they can be destroyed, which means that only winners
made history, imposing their points of view and keeping silent on everything
else that could prove detrimental to their power and their image. This has
happened many times throughout history and, at times, if we now know
something about certain events or topics, we owe it only to intrepid spirits
who, at their own peril, retained some of that memory. When the Emperor
Qinshi Huangdi managed to unify China in 221 BC, he ordered to destroy the
texts from the Confucian philosophical school, which supported the need for
a ruler who reigned supreme because of its virtues and not through force and
coercion. Some copies, written on strips of bamboo, were saved only because
some scholars, risking their lives, hid them inside walls. It took centuries
for them to return to light. The Catholic Church in the early Middle Ages
© FUOC • PID_00168260 8 The Food of History

gave the same treatment to the many texts from pagan authors that were
supposed to pose a threat to Christian morality. As a result, today we can access
directly only a small part of all Greek and Roman classical literary production.
The preference for written documents also meant denying a historic past
to many cultures that handed down their traditions orally. Historians have
always relied on archaeology for information, but also in this field, in the past,
scholars showed a clear preference for objects and structures that could be
considered as expression of arts and "high culture". So paintings and vases had
priority over grain grinders, grand architectural structures were deemed more
interesting than the humble food pantry or other productive facilities.

Today archaeologists focus their attention not only on remains of such tools
and all kind of objects for daily use, but they also analyse the dirt from the
digging sites to find fossil pollen and any other traces of material culture.
Primary sources for more recent events can include a multiplicity of elements,
including iconography, recordings of oral segments, photographs and movies.
Written documents outside official sources, such as diaries, letters, accountant
books, cookbooks, shopping lists and menus have also acquired particular
relevance in food history.

This leads us to our fourth preliminary question. Since the growing scope
of historic research makes the discipline more complex and requires skills in
specific techniques of analysis of primary and secondary sources, how can
we avoid that the results of this research remain limited to a small group of
experts? How can we make historical research about food relevant and useful
for the public at large and to practitioners in policy and administration? A
large part of the problem is a question of language. The topics of historical
research and its conclusions can definitely offer interesting reflections and
suggestions to achieve a better understanding of contemporary issues, as long
as they are conveyed in clear and understandable terms, avoiding jargon and
clarifying the most complex theoretical concepts. This module aims precisely
at that goal, in order to offer historical material of interest to present-day
professionals.

Further readings

Braudel,�Fernand (1960). "History and the Social Sciences: The Long Duration". American
Behavioral Scientist 3(6): 3-13.

Fernàndez-Armesto,�Felipe (2002). Near a Thousand Tables. New York: The Free Press.

Flandrin,� Jean-Louis� and� Massimo� Montanari (ed.) (1999). Food: A Culinary History.
New York: Columbia University Press.

Kurlanski,�Marc (1997). Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. New York:
Walker Publishing.

Kurlanski,�Marc (2002). Salt: A World History. New York: Walker Publishing.

Le�Roy�Ladurie,�Emmanuel (1981). The Mind and Method of the Historian. Trans. Sian
and Ben Reynolds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Pilcher,�Jeffrey�M. (2006). Food in World History. New York: Routledge.

© FUOC • PID_00168260 9 The Food of History

Smith,� Andrew (2002). Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.

1.2. Is food globalisation a new phenomenon? The speed of

change

We will start applying this approach to one of the most contentious and
debated issues regarding food: globalisation. We are all to witness the rapid
change of food systems, often framed in terms of loss of traditions, local
identity and cultural heritage both from the production point of view,
with the worldwide diffusion of the same seeds and plants varieties, the
dislocation of production for international companies and the standardisation
of agricultural processes that followed the spread of the Green Revolution
in the 1960s. In terms of consumption, we immediately think of fast
food restaurant chains, mass-produced items and the growing uniformity of
worldwide consumer culture, determined by transnational industry, powerful
marketing machines and international trade. Some negative consequences of
these epochal transformations, such as the shift of nutritional models from
grain-based to meat and diary intensive diets, the diffusion of sugar and fat
heavy foods and the obesity epidemics affect not only Western countries, but
also developing countries and the most remote corners of the planet.

These changes in food systems are part of a larger phenomenon often referred Bibliographical
to as globalisation, usually indicating the increasingly (and apparently) reference

unfettered mobility of ideas, information, goods, money and people from Phillips,�Lynne (2006).
one corner of the world to another. The demands of food corporations, "Food and Globalization".
Annual Revue of Anthropology
which often invest directly in developing countries, play an enormous role 35:37-57.
in determining the agricultural choices as well as the planting, picking
and packing techniques adopted by rural communities worldwide, while
determining what foods will be available and promoted worldwide.

Food as a commodity has become the objection of international trade

negotiations, especially with the establishment of the World Trade
Organisation, which from 1995 has determined the principles and the
modalities of food-related global markets through specific agreements dealing
with aspects as varied as tariffs, subsidies and intellectual property.

Nonetheless, the historical developments underpinning globalisation are

more complex that the trends we just discussed. Many worldwide corporations
seem to operate in a dimension that has been called "glocal," where the global
and the local are intermingled to promote localities within the framework
of transnationalism, which on the other hand would seem to indicate an
ongoing reduction of the administrative and legal relevance of nation states.
McDonald's, for instance, relies on local products to assemble dishes that are
the same all over the planet.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 10 The Food of History

Furthermore, as Watson and Caldwell state, globalisation does not indicate Bibliographical
exclusively the diffusion of mass-produced food or the popularity of fast food reference

all over the world. Watson,�James�L.�and

Melissa�L.�Caldwell (2005).
The Cultural Politics of Food
It also refers to the diffusion of cuisines from one country to another, and Eating: A Reader. Malden,
especially in urban environments where immigrant communities are more MA: Blackwell.

numerous. "Ethnic" restaurants have become a fixture in urban landscapes all

over the world, with Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Mexican
Bibliographical
at the forefront, with Thai, Ethiopian, Moroccan and Lebanese following right reference
behind, each of them occupying various segments of a local food scene in
Issenberg,�Sasha (2007). The
terms of prestige and price. Sushi Economy: Globalization
and the Making of a Modern
Delicacy. New York: Gotham
Looking at these transformations of food systems from a historical point Books.

of view, however, we need not only to understand their origins and their
development over time, but also if they are actually new phenomena,
exclusive to our times. In fact, looking at history, we can see how exchanges
and transfers of ingredients, materials, techniques, ideas, values and practices
related to food and eating have been common since the origins of the
human communities. Differences in geographical environments, culture and
technology have always stimulated different productions in different areas,
which in turn are at the base of exchanges and trade.

As anthropologist Richard Wilk states:

There is no way to fit history into a simple evolutionary story from the simple to the
complex. We have not moved in a long trajectory from a world of simple self-sufficient
farmers to a global food system where all food is industrialized and nobody grows what
they eat, or eats what they grow. The real course of events zigs and zags. Globalization
appears in different forms in different places in each period of time.

Richard R. Wilk (2006a). Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food
System. Lamham, MD: AltaMira Press (pp. 1-26).

This approach leads Wilk to underline the need to identify different stages
of globalisation in different areas. In the Caribbean, for instance, he
th
identifies various periods defined as "pirate globalisation" (up to the 17
century), connected to the presence of the first Europeans in the area;
"slave globalisation" (18th and early 19th century), following the arrival of
slaves, uprooted from Africa to work in the local plantations; "high colonial
globalisation" (mid to late 19th century), marked by the transformation
of the plantation system following the abolition of the slavery; "late
colonial globalisation" (most of the 20th century until the beginning of
decolonisation); and "cultural globalisation" of our present days.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 11 The Food of History

Are there no differences between these forms of globalisation? We can

identify the speed and intensity of change, heralded by increasingly
rapid technological changes in food production, transportation and
communication, as the main trait of contemporary phenomena of
globalisation. As historian Jeffrey Pilcher points out:

The emergence of a 'global palate' in the 20th century represented not a radical departure
from the past but rather the intensification of existing cross-cultural connections.

Jeffrey M. Pilcher (2006). Food in World History. New York: Routledge (p. 87).

In the following section of the course, we will explore some of the common
elements that have underpinned the diffusion of food and food-related ideas,
values, and behaviours in human history, in terms of long-term phenomena
like migrations and commerce, and recurrent formations like empires.

Further readings

Caldwell,�Melissa (2004). "Domesticating the French Fry: McDonald's and Consumerism

in Moscow". Journal of Consumer Culture 4(1): 5-26.

Watson,�James (1997). Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.

Wilk,�Richard (2006b). Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers
to Ecotourists. Oxford: Berg.

1.3. Plant domestication and diffusion

As we have mentioned in the introduction to this section of the course,

differences in natural resources, cultural adaptations to the environment and
socio-cultural structures have caused human communities in different areas to
produce different foods in different ways. Also climatic changes over history
have allowed the domestication of certain plants in specific places and at
specific times, and then their diffusion all over the world. Today we have
somehow lost the sense of how plants originally came from specific places,
precisely because we are witness to the results of millennia of various forms
of "globalisation".

When humans began to shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture

around 10,000 years ago, a long-term phenomena that lasted millennia
and was only probably in part planned and organised, different plants
were domesticated according to what wild varieties were available and
how these varieties adapted and responded to cultivation through very
specific interactions between environments and structures of production that
included specialised tools and techniques, and cultures, in a definite period
in time.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 12 The Food of History

A few common elements can be observed throughout the Neolithic

revolution, the process of domestication of plants and animals that led
to agriculture as we know it and sustained the sedentarisation of human
communities all over the world:

• In the areas where domestication led to agriculture practiced by

sedentary communities, it seems that the new crops constituted a diverse
food package including both grains and pulses, sources respectively of
carbohydrates and proteins, often together with textile plants.

• When the package lacked some elements, the domestication did not lead
to sedentary settlements, but the new crops tended rather to be integrated
in a nomadic lifestyle.

• Also the presence of large mammals that were good candidates for
domestication increased the chances of sedentarisation.

However, each agricultural system was the result of dynamics that depended Bibliographical
on different environments and socio-cultural structures. Some processes reference

of domestication were quite limited in extension, while others expanded Diamond,�Jared (1997).
and influenced wide territories, especially in case of similar environmental Guns, Germs, and Steel. New
York: W.W. Norton and
conditions. According to Jared Diamond, this would explain why crops Company.
were adopted faster along the east-west axis (similar day lengths, seasonal
variations, temperatures and habitats) than along the north-south axis, where
plants had to adapt to quite different conditions. Moreover, when agricultural
techniques developed in specific places were adopted by communities that
inhabited environments with different plants and animals, sometimes they
gave origin to secondary centres of domestication.

It seems the first area of domestication can be located, between 10,000 and
9,000 years ago, in the so-called Fertile Crescent, spanning from today's Iraq
through south-eastern Turkey all the way to Syria, Israel and Lebanon. Among
the first crops in this area, we can mention the predecessors of wheat –emmer
(triticum dicoccum) and einkorn (triticum monococcum), rye, barley– and
pulses, like peas, lentils, bitter vetch and chickpeas. The textile that completed
the set of domesticated plants was flax (the source of linen).

Spreading south towards Africa, agriculturalists entered in contact with local Bibliographical
wild plants, giving origin to secondary areas of domestication located north reference

of the Equator. However, many scholars consider these areas in the Sahel and Diamond,�Jared (1997).
tropical West Africa as cradles of independent domestication. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New
York: W.W. Norton and
Company.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 13 The Food of History

Probably the most important contributions of these areas to global agriculture Bibliographical
are the different varieties of sorghum. Among other relevant crops, we can reference

mention oil palms, okra, yams (Dioscorea cayenensis and rotundata, different Carney,�Judith (2001). Black
from the Asian plants), pearl millet, fonio, bambara groundnut, black-eye Rice. Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press.
peas, kola, ackee, watermelons and African rice (oryza glaberrima), which until
recently was believed to be a local adaptation of Asian rice.

The area also saw the domestication of the guinea fowl. Ethiopia saw the
first use of the grain teff, finer millet, Levant cotton (Gossypium herbaceum),
which expanded through Southern Arabia, Persia and Central Asia to China,
where it arrived around 600 AD, and coffee of the arabica variety, which then
spread to Yemen and southern Arabia. In fact, it is likely that coffee of the
robusta variety was domesticated in Western and Central Africa.

The Fertile Crescent agricultural revolution also spread east, towards Persia, Bibliographical
Central Asia and India. Central Asia seems to boast limited domestications, reference

like onion, garlic, camel and yak in the Himalayas. Kiple,�Kenneth�K. (2007).
A Movable Feast. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
On the other hand, the canalisation of the abundant water of the Indus River
allowed the blossoming of urban cultures in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro,
located in today's India, around 3200 BC. They show strong prevalence of
barley and wheat (varieties of Triticum aestivum, with traces of cultivation
dating back to 6000 BC); in fact, some of the most noticeable remains are
sophisticated and imposing grain warehouses. Archaeological findings also
point to the presence of farming communities starting from 4,000 years ago
also in South India, with cultivations of small millets, sesame, the pulses mung
bean and horsegram, tree cotton (Gossypium Arboreum) as textile plant and
other plants including cucumbers and eggplants.

In its expansion east, the Middle-Eastern agricultural complex met the Bibliographical
techniques and the cultivations of Chinese origin in Central Asia. This reference

explains the presence of barley and wheat in China around the second Harlan,�J.R. (1992).
millennium BC, when Chinese culture had expanded to areas with winter Crops and Man. Madison
WI: American Society of
rainfalls and a certain level of moisture all year round. These environments Agronomy.
were quite different from what many scholars consider the cradle of Chinese
agriculture. The first traces of plant domestication, dating to 8,500 years ago,
are in fact found in Northern China, more specifically in the loess terraces
along the middle Yellow River, with crops such as foxtail millet and panic
millet, vegetables like cabbages and the textile plant hemp. Between 8,000
and 6,000 years ago the expansion of the agricultural revolution towards
the northeast gave origin to the domestication of soybean and probably
buckwheat, while the southeast diffusion towards the area of the Yangtze River
saw the beginning of rice production. However, other researchers developed
the hypothesis that rice was domesticated independently.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 14 The Food of History

Farther east, New Guinea was probably the centre of an agricultural revolution
that starting 9,000 years ago gave origin to the domestication of plants
such as lychee, banana, sugarcane, greater and lesser yams (Dioscorea alata
and esculenta) and taro. The cultivation of these plants spread westwards,
reaching South East Asia, where they were integrated with agricultural systems
of Chinese origin, originating local domestications such as mango, jackfruit
and probably lemons and limes, although some argue the latter two were
domesticated in China.

Two very important centres for agricultural domestication were located in the
Americas: the oldest one is probably the area that stretches from the Pacific to
the western limits of the Amazon basin, in today's Peru and Ecuador. Coastal
cultures domesticated squash, beans, the camote tuber (a variety of sweet
potato), the fruits lùcuma, guava, pacay and avocado, and long fibre cotton
(gossypium barbadense), whose production was stimulated by the demand
of fibre for waving nets from the coastal fishermen. In the high altitude
plateaus and the irrigated valleys of the Andes, farmers developed crops such
as peanuts, potatoes, ocas (a small starchy tuber) and the quinoa pseudocereal
(a chenopodium related to the North American goosefoot). On the eastern side
of the mountains, in the Amazon basin and all the way to the Orinoco river
and the lowlands of Central America –it is uncertain if under the influence
of the Andean agriculture– crops like coca, pineapple, papaya, cacao and
vanilla (probably transferred to Mexico via the Caribbean), manioc, a variety
of yam (Dioscorea trifida) and sweet potato were domesticated. The other
major domestication area was located further north. Between 9,000 and 4,000
years ago, Southern Mexico saw the domestication of crops like chili peppers,
tomatoes, tomatillos, avocado, maize (it is debated whether it derived from the
annual teosinte zea parviglumis or from the zea diploperennis), various species
of beans and squashes, amaranth, the jicama tuber, the sapote fruit and a local
variety of cotton, the gossypium hirsutum, which nowadays constitutes the
majority of the cotton grown all over the world.

Less important and relevant only locally, at least until more recent times, were
other domestication areas such as the Middle Mississippi (between 4,000 and
800 years ago). In the area between the Appalachians and the Great Prairies,
sunflower (with its relative topinambur, also known as Jerusalem artichoke
from the Italian name girasole), wild rice, sumpweed and goosefoot were
domesticated to integrate the nutritional needs of populations that still lived
a semi-nomadic life based on gathering, hunting and fishing.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 15 The Food of History

1.4. The impact of migrations

While some of these domestications expanded to other areas through Bibliographical

diffusion and adoption by nearby communities, at times plants and animals, reference

but also agricultural methods, cooking techniques, dishes and food-related Achaya.�K.T. (1994). Indian
customs travelled when a whole community moved to a new place or was Food: A Historical Companion.
Delhi: Oxford University
displaced. We have already mentioned the role that nomadic populations play Press.
in interfacing with sedentary groups. However, at times, mass migrations have
brought sudden and traumatic changes. For example, starting from around
1700 BC, the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa cultures in today's India slid into
decadence, allowing the penetration of nomadic tribes from the northwest,
known as Aryans. These populations, whose religious beliefs were transmitted
in sacred texts such as the Rig-Veda, traditionally consumed meat and milk
products, from curds to butter and ghee. As mentioned by Achaya, they
cultivated barley, while wheat started carrying a stigma as the grain favoured
by the defeated Harappans. Aryans also adopted rice as they migrated south
and east on the Ganges plain, deforesting and ploughing large areas with the
iron tools that they had learnt to use around 1000 BC. The change in the ritual
value of cows might be connected to these population movements.

In other cases, a displaced population was not able to move all together to Bibliographical
a new place, but gave origin to diasporas, that is to say the dispersion in reference

small communities that settle in host environments and civilisations. Many Mintz,�Sidney (2008). "Food
civilisations that engaged in trade or specific types of business often created and Diaspora". Food, Culture
& Society 11(4): 509-523.
very well organised networks of expatriates that facilitated business and often
functioned as banks for the members of their communities. Among these
populations, we can mention the Turkish Uyghurs in Central Asia between the
9th and 12th century, whose services as administrators and merchants were so
appreciated that the Mongol Empire adopted the Uyghur script as its own. The
Armenians in the Mediterranean and the Chinese in Southeast Asia played a
similar role. Diasporas can play a relevant role in diffusing ingredients, dishes
and traditions into new communities and territories. That was the case for the
black slaves from Africa that were forced to steal in the Americas to work in
the plantations; despite their condition, they managed to introduce cooking
techniques and ingredients into their masters' diets, at times creating very
specific culinary traditions, like in the case of the Bahia in Brazil and the
Gullah communities on the coast of Georgia, USA.

Also, the Chinese brought their food with them wherever they created Bibliographical
displaced communities, from Asia to the Americas and the Caribbean; while reference

they maintained the traditions when they produced food for the members Wu,�David�Y.H.�and�Sidney
of the communities, when they entered the restaurant business they often C.H.�Cheung (2002). The
Globalization of Chinese Food.
created domesticated versions of their cuisine in order to make it more Honolulu: University of
palatable and marketable to the host culture. Hawaii Press.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 16 The Food of History

The Jewish civilisation, with its complex and often dramatic history of
displacement, constitutes a particular case in this kind of dynamics. While
small communities were already present all over the Mediterranean before
the Roman Empire, with the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem and the
following turbulence, many Jews decided to move to new places, becoming
tightly integrated in many Mediterranean cultures, also under the Muslim
domination. While Judaism enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity in
the Muslim territories, in Central Europe, Jews were increasingly subject to
persecution, in particular during the Crusades. They started moving East
toward today's Poland, Ukraine and Russia, bringing with them many food
traditions like their taste for soups and substantial food, dumplings and dark
breads, freshwater fish, pickles and also spices, dried fruits and nuts, whose
use they had learnt through their contacts with their Mediterranean brethren.
In Eastern Europe they settled in countryside villages known as shtetl where
they developed dishes that would become mainstays in Ashkenazi cuisine,
such as bagels, bialy and blinis. The Ottoman Empire and some states in the
Italian peninsula became the main destination for the Jews that were forced
to leave Spain and then Portugal due to religious persecutions at the end of
the 14th century. Even when some of them converted, their distaste for pork
meat, the use of olive oil and the practice of long-cooking stews (such as
adafina) to avoid food preparation on Sabbath were all used to accuse them of
crypto-Judaism. Many preferred to escape to large cities like Aleppo, Jerusalem,
Alexandria, Morocco, Istanbul and especially Salonika, which for a period
hosted the largest Jewish community in the Ottoman territory. Their cuisine,
later known as Sephardic, under the influence of the hosting culinary cultures
became very diverse and rich in spices and flavours.

Both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews moved in more recent times towards a Further readings
new destination, the United States, which offer a great example of a culinary
Diner,�Hasia (2001).
culture that developed in constant dialogue with successive waves of migrants. Hungering for America:
At the end of the 19th century, Irish, Jewish and Italian immigrants moved Italian, Irish, and Jewish
Foodways in the Age of
in great numbers to industrial urban centres such as Chicago, New York and Migration. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Philadelphia, while the Chinese settled on the West Coast. Each of these
Roden,�Claudia (1998). The
immigrant groups brought their own traditions and interacted in different Book of Jewish Food. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf.
ways with the new environment. If at first they provided their traditional food
only to members of their own communities, over time some of their specialties
were embraced by the population at large, like Jewish bagels or Italian pizza.
At the same time, their foodways adapted and mutated through the contact
with different food cultures, so that for instance Italian-American cuisine has
become quite different from any Italian cuisine in Italy. At times, however, the
food of immigrants was disparaged, expressing the xenophobic feelings of the
host population. An example of this aspect of food migration is the contempt
for the food of Japanese immigrants working in rural California in the United
States during War World II.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 17 The Food of History

1.5. Commercial and Cultural Exchanges

We have mentioned how differences have often stimulated exchanges of Bibliographical

goods, technologies and know-how among communities. In the Neolithic era, reference

for instance, we have clear traces of diffusion of objects such as millstones and Williams-Thorpe,�Olwen;
grindstones in the Fertile Crescent and the Mediterranean. Richard�S.�Thorpe (1993).
"Geochemistry and Trade
of Eastern Mediterranean
Over the centuries, these connections developed into more stable commercial Millstones from the
Neolithic to Roman Periods".
routes that tended to flourish in periods of peace, also when they were under Journal of Archaeological
Science 20(3): 263-320.
the political and military control of a strong state formation or of an extended
empire.
Bibliographical
At times, the short-distance routes got linked to each other, forming references

long-distance connections that permitted the movement of goods across very Veen,�Marijke�van�der
diverse and far-flung territories. Although the main object of this kind of (2003). "When Is Food a
Luxury?" World Archaeology
commerce, due to the high risks and the expenses involved, mostly focused 34(3): 405-427.
on luxury items, it was inevitable that foods, techniques and customs also McGovern,�Patrick (2009).
Uncorking the Past: The Quest
travelled along the same routes. However, some rare foods were considered for Wine, Beer, and Other
valuable enough to become part of these flows of merchandise. In cultures Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley:
University of California
without very strong social stratification, luxury foods coming from afar Press.
were often consumed in communal events to establish or reinforce social
connections. Instead, Veen says that where status differentiation was more
evident, these rare foods became the object of both private and public
conspicuous consumption aimed at the display of social and economic
disparities. McGovern states that wine sales in the ancient Mediterranean
world offers a good example of this sort of dynamics: large wine jars travelled
for instance from Greece to pre-Roman Celtic France in order to be consumed
by local elites in vessels of foreign origin.

In the Middle Ages, the use of spices in wealthy households turned into a mark Bibliographical
of refinement, nobility and affluence; many spices were used in the same dish, reference

often in noticeable quantities, to the point that the resultant combinations Freedman,�Paul (2009). Out
of flavours would be quite unpalatable by contemporary standards. Moreover, of the East: Spices and the
Medieval Imagination. New
spices were considered to be medicinal substances that could influence the Haven: Yale University Press.
bodily humours and contribute to cure of ailments.

In China, between the 7th and 9th century, almonds, figs and yellow peaches Bibliographical
reference
were imported from Samarkand in Central Asia for the exclusive use of the
imperial court, among other luxury products that show the love for the exotic, Schafer,�Edward (1963). The
common during the Tang dynasty. Golden Peaches of Samarkand:
A Study of T'ang Exotics.
Berkeley: University of
California Press.
A theoretical approach to analysing the cultural, commercial, and political
flows of goods globally was elaborated by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein
(2004) with his analysis of world-systems, a framework he developed to
understand the historical changes involved in the rise of the modern world.
Wallerstein classified different regions interconnected through commercial
and political ties as core, semi-periphery, periphery and external in terms
© FUOC • PID_00168260 18 The Food of History

of their role within the system. The core regions were those benefiting Bibliographical
the most, obtaining raw materials and commodities from other areas to reference

manufacture items that were then redirected to the periphery as added value Wallerstein,�Immanuel
goods, thus extracting further wealth from the periphery. World-systems were (2004). World-Systems
Analysis: an Introduction.
based on dynamics that included capital accumulation as a motor force, Durham, NC: Duke
international divisions of labour (with types of labour conditions within University Press.

each area), alternating periods of competition and hegemony, and economic

cycles of growth and crisis. This analytical approach has been applied to
empires, but its efficacy has been shown also in the examination of trade
networks and other forms of political and economic relationship, including
the more contemporary forms of neo-colonialism, that is to say, dependence
of a country from its former colonial power in terms of indirect political means
and economic ties (see section Colonial empires).

In the following sub-section, we will focus on the analysis of a few cases of Further readings
food-related trade networks, from antiquity to colonial times, to achieve a
Bentley,�Jerry (1998).
better understanding of how commerce shaped food cultures and often found "Hemispheric Integration,
itself at the root of forms of globalisation that, although different from the 500-1500 c.e.". Journal of
World History 9(2): 237-254.
contemporary phenomenon, offer interesting elements of comparison with it.
Berry,�Christopher (1994).
The Idea of Luxury: A
Conceptual and Historical
1.5.1. The seafaring routes: The Mediterranean and the Indian Investigation. Cambridge:
Ocean Cambridge University Press.
Veblen,�Thorstein
(1994/1979). The Theory of
In most of antiquity and until the beginning of the Portuguese exploration the Leisure Class. New York:
Penguin Classics.
of the African Coast in the early 15th century, two water bodies constituted
great spaces of exchange, trade and cultural diffusion of food and foodways:
the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Mediterranean allowed
the productive and commercial networks of the Fertile Crescent to connect
with Northern Africa and Southern Europe. Starting from the 12th century
BC, a league of independent city-state ports, such as Byblos, Tyre and
Sidon, inhabited by a population known as the Phoenicians, developed a
civilisation based on commerce and seafaring. The Phoenicians, who traded
throughout the Mediterranean in ivory, bronze, wood, glass and purple-dyed
textiles founded outposts in Italy (Sardinia and Western Sicily), North Africa
(Carthage) and Spain. It is presumable that these colonies became also
centres of diffusion of agricultural techniques and crops from the Middle
East, including olives, grapes and vegetables such as scallion, whose name
might derive from the Phoenician town of Ashkelon (in today's Israel). The
areas in Northern Africa controlled by Carthage would become in following
centuries one of the wheat baskets of the Roman Empire. It is also likely that
© FUOC • PID_00168260 19 The Food of History

the Phoenicians diffused methods to obtain salt from seawater and salting
techniques for the conservation of fish, initiating the salt ponds on the coast
of Western Sicily and the tradition of tuna fishing in the area.

From the 8th century BC, Greece cities founded colonies all over the
Mediterranean in order to ease their internal demographic pressure. These
colonies, which maintained cultural ties with the cities from which they
originated, played a fundamental role in the diffusion of wheat, grapes,
olives and other crops all over the Mediterranean, but especially in Southern
Italy, Southern France and the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Moreover, they
introduced the mentality that equated the consumption of Mediterranean
products in a structured manner with civilisation, defining all the other
neighbouring populations as barbarians eating uncouth foods. The Romans
will inherit this identification between diet and superior culture, defining
their relationship with the foodways of the populations they conquered,
especially the Germans from Northern Europe who consumed cereals like
barley and rye, used butter and drank beer. The Mediterranean Sea became the
core of the expansion and the administrative structures of the Roman Empire,
to the point that it was often referred to as mare nostrum (our sea). The security
that followed the imperial expansion facilitated the increase of food trade that
focused on staples such as wheat, but included also exotic fruits and spices
th
from the east. When the empire collapsed in the 5 century, the Byzantine
seafarers from today's Istanbul took control of the maritime routes until their
supremacy was defied by the expansion of the Muslim Empire.

From the 7th century, the Mediterranean allowed the Islamic expansion into Bibliographical
references
Northern Africa, Sicily and Spain. Despite recent debates about the actual
role Muslim states played in reviving Western European agriculture through Watson,�Andrew (1983).
the introduction of new crops and technologies, some of which had already Agricultural Innovation in
the Early Islamic World.
been known in the area, there is no doubt that a territory stretching from Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Central Asia to the Atlantic facilitated the movement and adoption of diverse
Decker,�Michael (2009).
agricultural techniques, ingredient, dishes and cooking styles. "Plants and Progress:
Rethinking the Islamic
Agricultural Revolution".
For instance, according to Wright, eggplants, spinach, citrus, pomegranate, Journal of World History 20
(2): 197-206.
almonds, rice, saffron and indigo were introduced into Western Europe
in this period. The cultivation of sugar cane, which the Muslims had
absorbed from India, spread west to Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Sicily and even
Spain. Waines and Zaouali state that Islamic cuisines were the result of the
encounter of various culinary cultures, including the Byzantine, with its use of
Mediterranean products, and the Persian, which left traces in the use of fried
meats, the presence of fruit and nuts (including almonds) in meat dishes and
the relevance of rice consumption. Islamic communities spread these cooking
techniques across the Mediterranean territories they controlled, together with
other culinary elements including the introduction of sweetness in savoury
dishes and the use of sugar in pastry.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 20 The Food of History

Notwithstanding its ethnic and political fragmentation following the 8th Bibliographical
references
century, the Islamic world maintained a strong cultural identity as an
integrated economic space where commerce flourished reaching out to India, Waines,�David (2003).
South East Asia and Eastern Africa, exploiting pre-existing maritime routes "'Luxury Foods' in Medieval
Islamic Societies". World
over the Indian Ocean. Archaeology 34(3): 571-580.
Wright,�Clifford�A. (1999).
A Mediterranean Feast. New
Spices coming from India (pepper), Sri Lanka (cinnamon) and as far as the York: William Morrow.
Moluccas islands (clove and nutmeg) were sold all over the Islamic world Zaouali,�Lilia (2007).
Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic
reaching the Mediterranean and the Christian Kingdoms of Western Europe, World. Berkeley: University of
where they were considered luxury items. Although the Romans already California Press.

maintained indirect contact with the Asian world and the Indian Ocean, as
the use of spices in Roman cuisines indicates, it was the Islamic merchants and Bibliographical
seafarers that directly connected the two great bodies of water. The seafaring reference

routes that crisscrossed the Indian Ocean stretched all the way to the Red
Abu-Lughod,�Janet�L.
Sea, reaching Egypt, the Persian Gulf and the coast of East Africa. Here, (1989). Before European
Hegemony: The World System
the exchange of products between the communities on the shore and those AD 1250-1350. New York and
in the interior –as diverse as hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists (sorghum), Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
pastoralists (sheep and cattle) and fishing people– stimulated the development
of coastal urban centres. Slaves from this area were brought to the area around
Basra in today's Iraq to work in sugar cane plantations. The commercial Bibliographical
reference
towns on the East African coast, where the Swahili culture developed, tightly
integrated in the Indian Ocean maritime routes became areas of introduction Beaujard,�Philippe (2005).
"The Indian Ocean in
for Asian crops such as citrus fruits, rice, tamarind, coconuts, bananas and
Eurasian and African
sugarcane, the latter maybe introduced by the Indonesians who had settled World-Systems before the
Sixteenth Century". Journal of
in Madagascar. The global relevance of these urban centres is proved by World History 16(4): 411-465.
the presence of valuable items such as copper, silver coins and porcelain
vessels from China, mostly for table use. The Indian Ocean also allowed the
establishment of direct connections between India, South East Asia and the
islands in today's Indonesia, China and Japan. As stated by Beaujard, while
most of the commerce focuses on luxury products like spices, staple crops like
rice were also traded between different areas.

The 14th century witnesses an increase of the Chinese presence along

commercial routes both on land and by sea, facilitating the export of Chinese
products (especially sugar) and ensuring the import of spices and other
th
delicacies (like bird nests from South East Asia). However, from the mid 15
century, the Ming dynasty decided to focus on continental matters and to
discontinue its trade in the Indian Ocean. This new policy had momentous
consequences. When in the 15th century, the commerce of spices and other
products towards the Western Mediterranean was drastically limited by the
expansion of the new empire founded in the Middle East by the Ottoman
Turks, Portugal, which had just freed itself from Islamic control, decided
in 1419 to proceed to the exploration of the African coast looking for a
passage towards the east in order to access a direct source of spices. In 1488,
Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and, in 1498, Vasco da
Gama reached India, marking the beginning of the Portuguese penetration
© FUOC • PID_00168260 21 The Food of History

into the Indian Ocean. The newcomers established a series of commercial

outposts in seaports (Socotra at the entrance of the Red Sea, Ormuz in the
Persian Gulf, Goa in India, Macau in China, Malacca in today's Malaysia and
Nagasaki in Japan) that allowed them to encroach on existing trade routes and
to control the flux of spices and other goods.

From the 15th century, both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean became Further reading
part of a new world system that had its core around the Atlantic and originated
Keita,�Maghan (2005).
the Columbian Exchange that will be discussed in a following section. "Africans and Asians:
Historiography and the Long
View of Global Interaction".
1.5.2. The land routes: the Sahara and the Silk Route Journal of World History 16(1):
1-30.

The introduction of camels in the Sahara, probably from the Arabic Peninsula
via Somalia and Egypt between the 2nd and 5th century AD, and the integration
of the area in the Muslim commercial and cultural networks from the 7th
century marked the development of long-distance trans-Saharan trade. These
routes hinged on a series of oases that functioned as exchange locations and
that connected Mediterranean Africa with the Sahel, the Niger basin and the
West African coasts.

While these exchanges focused on high-value goods such as iron, gold and Bibliographical
slaves, they also included diverse food items from the various ecozones of reference

the areas, including salt, dates from the oases, groundnuts and Shea butter Curtin,�Philip�D. (1984).
from the savannah and even tropical crops such as palm oil, palm wine, yams, Cross-Cultural Trade in the
World History. Cambridge:
Malagueta pepper and kola nuts. Cambridge University Press.

Due to the environmental barriers and diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever
or trypanosomes carried by the tsetse fly, most African trade was short-distance
and goods travelled through a system of relay stations and market places that
often constituted the core for the development of kingdoms and, occasionally,
larger empires like Ghana and its successors Takrur on the Senegal river and
Mali along the Niger river. However, also before the contact with Islam,
urban cultures, such as Jenné and Gao, had developed thanks to the surplus
from the cultivation of areas naturally flooded by water and from pastoralist
production, with transportable grains traded all the way to Timbuktu at the
edge of the desert. Further south, the rotational bush-fallow agriculture close
to the rain forest and the domestication of trypanosomiasis-resistant dwarf
cattle had allowed the establishment of power centres such as Ife and Benin.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 22 The Food of History

The Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta and the historian Ibn Khaldun, whose Bibliographical
reflections are now valuable resources, illustrate the period that preceded the references

arrival of the western explorers in the 15th century, which saw the expansion Wilson,�Derek (1975).
of regional empires based on both agriculture and commerce, such as Songhay A History of South and
Central Africa. Cambridge:
in West Africa, Kongo on the coast of Central Africa, Lunda and Luba in Cambridge University Press.
the interior of today's Congo and Mwenemutapa between the Zambesi and Ki-Zerbo,�J.�and�D.T.�Niane
(eds.) (1997). Africa from
Limpopo rivers, where the Bantu populations practiced intensive terraced the Twelfth to the Sixteenth
Century. Paris: Unesco.
farming.

The trans-Saharan caravans were not the only examples of inland

long-distance trading in the Eurasian continent before the arrival of the
Europeans in the Indian Ocean and in the Americas. Other commercial routes
had developed over the centuries. Nomad and hunter traders had given origin
to a flux of merchandise that included furs, ambers and honey in the northern
steppes of today's Russia. Much more relevant in terms of volume and cultural
influence was the set of routes that connected China to the oases along the
Tarim basin and the Takamaklan desert in Central Asia, to continue either
south through the Pamir toward the Indian Ocean or west toward the coastal
ports on the Mediterranean. While these routes also focused mainly on luxury
items, in particular silk, the frequent movements of merchants, soldiers and
migrants played an important role in the diffusion of food and foodways
across the area.

The elites of the Tang dynasty, which ruled china between the 7th and the 9th
century, often had Central Asian ancestors and they frequently maintained
forms of connection with those cultures. The influence of Central Asian
Buddhism, for instance, is evident in the diffusion of dairy products into
China, the decrease in the use of beef and the diffusion of vegetarianism due
to religious reasons (even if large sections of the populations were almost
vegetarian due to the scarcity of meat) and the growing popularity of tea,
which had probably first appeared in China after the Eastern Han dynasty
(25-220 AD). From the west, several new crops were introduced into China,
such as spinach, lettuce, almonds and figs.

The inland trade across Asia intensified during the Mongol domination in Bibliographical
references
the 13th and 14th century, when for a brief period all the territories from
China to Eastern Europe were under a single authority. Already in the 12th Rockhill,�William
Woodville (ed.) (1900). The
century, some European kings, including the pope, had sent Franciscan monks Journey of William of Rubruck
to contact the Mongol rulers in the hope of creating an alliance against the to the Eastern Parts of the
World, 1253-55. Hakluyt
common Muslim enemies. The monks William of Rubruck and Giovanni da Society. Available on Google
books.
Pian del Carpine wrote a very detailed account of the Mongols and their
Whitfield,�Susan (2001). Life
customs, including the use of fermented mare milk (kumiss) and the habits of along the Silk Road. Berkeley:
drying meat in the wind and of curing it under the saddles through the contact University of California
Press.
with the horses' skin and sweat. However, the most famous chronicle of the
© FUOC • PID_00168260 23 The Food of History

period was the one written by the Italian merchant Marco Polo, who provided
European readers with descriptions of the eastern wonders, including details
about food production and consumption.

As we will see in the next section, the maritime and inland trade routes Further readings
that had allowed the diffusion of agricultural invocation, products, cooking
Chaudhuti,�K.N. (1985).
techniques and cultural values for centuries across Europe, Asia and Africa Trade and Civilization in the
were supplanted by a new set of maritime routes that shifted the core of the Indian Ocean. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
international commerce from the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean to the
Wilks,�Ivor (1962). "A
Atlantic Ocean. Medieval Trade Route from
the Niger to the Gulf of
Guinea". The Journal of
1.5.3. The Columbian Exchange African History 3(2): 337-341.

We have already mentioned the relevance of seafaring routes in the diffusion

Bibliographical
and the trade of staple crops and luxury food items. However, nothing reference
compared to the intensity and the extension of food exchanges that followed
Crosby,�Alfred (1972).
the arrival of the Europeans in the Americas at the end of the 15th century. The Columbian Exchange:
Biological and Cultural
The travels of Columbus across the Atlantic looking for alternative access Consequences of 1492.
to the places of origin of spices marked the beginning of one of the largest Westport, CT: Greenwood.

movements of people, plants and animals in the history of humanity,

commonly known as the Columbian Exchange.

Pomeranz and Topik say that the effect of these epochal events was amplified Bibliographical
by the establishment of western colonies that directly controlled cities and references

territories not only in the Americas, but also in Africa and Asia. According Diamond,�Jared (1997).
to Diamond, the arrival of explorers and settlers from the Old World in the Guns, Germs, and Steel: The
Fates of Human Societies. New
western hemisphere also marked the appearance of unknown diseases, such York: W.W. Norton.
as measles, typhus and smallpox, which wiped out a large percentage of the Pomeranz,�Kenneth�and
Steven�Topik (1999). The
natives. World that Trade Created.
Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Food travelled from one corner of the world to the other, while plants and
animals were adopted in places very far from their original environments,
Bibliographical
thanks to the improvement of naval and seafaring technologies. McCann says reference
that corn is probably one of the best examples of these new global crops: in
McCann,�James (2005).
the 16th century, it had already been widely adopted in Western and Eastern Maize and Grace. Harvard
MA: Harvard University
Europe, in Africa and other parts of the Old World. On the other hand, Press.
plants from Eurasia like radishes, cabbages, citrus fruit, banana and sugar cane
thrived in the Caribbean.

Sweet potato, potatoes, beans, tomato, chili peppers, maize, peanuts and
pineapple were introduced in the areas around the Indian Ocean by the
Portuguese and entered China via Macao and Manila, where the Spaniards
had brought them from Mexico. Adaptive to marginal lands, assuring high
yields and often introduced into new areas by local officials, potatoes, maize
© FUOC • PID_00168260 24 The Food of History

and beans allowed for the survival of the poor peasantry and for population
growth in China, where small holdings became more common following the
peasant rebellions at the end of the Mongol domination.

In West Africa, probably through the same short-distance commerce that Bibliographical
allowed the movement of coastal goods like sea salt and fish into the interior, reference

crops from the Americas such as corn, peppers and beans penetrated the Curtin,�Philip�D. (1984).
continent, just as had happened in the past with bananas and other crops Cross-Cultural Trade in the
World History. Cambridge:
from Asia on the East African Coast. According to Curtin, a major role in Cambridge University Press
these dynamics was played by those communities of African traders that acted (pp. 15-59).

as intermediaries between the populations in the interior and the European

representatives on the coasts.

It is likely that the American crops were first grown in the European trading Bibliographical
posts and slave stations along the shore to feed the prisoners during the long references

periods between their capture and the actual transportation to the American Carney,�Judith (2001).
plantations and later during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Once settled in "African Rice in the
Columbian Exchange". The
the New World, when they were allowed to cultivate plots to supplement the Journal of African History 42
rations provided by their owners, African slaves often continued growing the (3): 377-396.
Mintz,�Sidney (1996).
same set of crops that ensured their sustenance in Africa, like okra, black eyed Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom.
peas, rice and corn, which had acclimated so fast that it was often perceived Boston: Beacon Press.
Yentsch,�Anne (2008).
as truly American. "Excavating the South's
African American Food
History". In Anne Bower
1.5.4. Food and political domination (ed.). African American
Foodways: Explorations of
History and Culture. Chicago:
From the 16th century, the establishment of worldwide empires based on the University of Illinois Press.

need of European powers to extract raw materials and agricultural products

from the newly "discovered" American territories made the diffusion of
ingredients, techniques and food habits much faster and extensive than
ever before. However, it was not the first time that vast multicultural
empires controlled large swaths of territories, profiting on diverse natural
environments producing distinctive crops. It was not rare for empires to
conquer lands in order to have access to what they needed for their expansion,
their smooth functioning and, at times, their survival.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 25 The Food of History

The growth of the Roman Empire, for instance, was based on the control Bibliographical
of provinces that specialised in cultivations with different comparative references

advantages and varying commercial values. As mentioned by Erdkamp and Chang,�Kwang-chih (1997).
Garnsey, the production of very lucrative wines and olive oils was mainly Food in Chinese culture:
anthropological and historical
concentrated in Italy, while wheat was grown in provinces located in today's perspectives. New Haven: Yale
North Africa and the Middle East. Chang says that the Chinese Empire University Press.
Erdkamp,�Paul (2005).
concentrated its rice production in the south, while the north maintained The Grain Market in the
its focus on wheat, barley, sorghum and millet, thus ensuring a variety of Roman Empire. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
staples. At the same time, as we noticed when discussing the Mongol Empire, Garnsey,�Peter (1988).
direct control of vast territories allowed the development of trade, thanks to Famine and Food Supply in
the Graeco-Roman World.
safer routes and better infrastructure like roads, ports and exchange stations. Cambrigde: Cambridge
Typical examples are the caravanserais in territories controlled by Muslim University Press.

states: quadrangular constructions developed around a central courtyard

whose main function was to receive travellers and merchandise and to take
care of animals, offering water, warehouses and often also a place of prayer.

As we have already mentioned, the power of empires was shown at the

tables of the elites by the conspicuous display of rare luxury items coming
from faraway lands. However, the capacity of ensuring food for its citizens,
especially in urban environments, was also fundamental to strengthen the
political legitimacy and authority of an imperial formation. For instance, in
the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the Eastern Mediterranean, North
Africa and large sections of the Middle East between the 14th and the
20th century, food embodied fundamental symbolic values in terms of the
effectiveness of the government and the administration. The Ottomans,
a population of Turkish descent from Central Asia, had penetrated the
Byzantine Empire in the 14th century, developing a culinary culture that, while
respecting Islamic principles, borrowed from traditions spanning from Asia
to Europe. It also absorbed elements from the Central Asian elites, which
placed food at the core of political relationships, reflecting the strength of
the connection between subjects and their ruler, who was supposed to ensure
their sustenance (often referred to as "bread and salt").

The logistics of assuring the sustenance of the whole empire, a political

priority and a source of legitimacy for the Ottomans, required requisitions
and transportation of goods through state-controlled supply networks from
the different provinces of the empire. The military always made sure that
the troops, the first professional and permanent army in Europe, were well
fed, especially during campaigns of expansion, although the regulations
protecting the peasants and the production in the lands crossed by the army
were very strict. The Janissaries, members of the most exclusive corps, named
their officers using titles inspired to camp kitchens, such as "soup maker" and
"cook". The corps itself was known as ocak (hearth) and the cauldron in which
their food was cooked was considered as a symbol of solidarity and loyalty
to the sultan.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 26 The Food of History

However, over time, the systems of food provisions, distribution and Bibliographical
market control that had been among the main instruments of the political reference

establishment ensuring legitimacy and avoiding famines became increasingly Murphey,�Rhoads (1988).
inefficient as the empire reached the limits of its geographical expansion and "Provisioning Istanbul: The
State and Subsistence in the
regional authorities acquired greater autonomy from Istanbul. Early Middle East". Food and
Foodways 2: 217-263.

Since lands and titles attributed to the sultan to his followers were not
hereditary, with the lack of central control the local lords took advantage of
their temporary positions to extract as much as they could from their subjects
during their tenure in terms of crops and food products, often causing unrest.
Some of the public kitchens that had ensured food to the poor in the previous
centuries fell in disrepair, while a few stopped functioning altogether.

1.5.5. Colonial empires

The period following the appearance of Western European powers in the

Indian Ocean and in the Americas saw the expansion of empires that were
mostly based on the production, the control and the trade of valuable
commodities: gold from Mexico, silver from Peru and Bolivia, spices from
Eastern Asia, sugar from the Caribbean and a new category of new stimulant
substances that could be smoked, drank or eaten destined to turn into the most
valuable global commodities. However, at least at the beginning, many of
these crops constituted natural monopolies. China, for instance, was the sole
producer of tea, while cocoa originally grew only in Mexico, Central America
and the Amazon basin, coffee in Yemen, coca in the Andes and tobacco in
the Americas.

To avoid the hurdles connected with these natural monopolies, the Bibliographical
burgeoning European empires focused on transferring those cultivations to reference

their own colonies. The new scientific approach to nature that was changing Brockway,�Lucile�H.
European mentalities proved to be the perfect partner of imperial expansion. (2002). Science and Colonial
Expansion. New Haven: Yale
In fact, great efforts were dedicated to studying tropical and exotic crops not University Press.
only in their natural habitats, but also in botanical gardens, where seeds and
young plants were nurtured to be then redistributed across far-flung territories
in the hope they would adapt and expand.

Some of these plants did not require much to prosper in the new Bibliographical
environments. Sugarcane, for instance, introduced by the Spaniards in reference

Caribbean islands, was planted by the Dutch in the Northeast of Brazil, in Mintz,�Sidney (1986).
the short period they controlled those territories at the beginning of the 17th Sweetness and Power: The
Place of Sugar in Modern
century, and then transferred to the French and English islands, in particular History. New York: Penguin.
Jamaica, Trinidad, Martinique and Guadeloupe. While at the beginning
sugarcane was grown by European small-holders and indentured servants,
over time the possibility of enormous revenues favoured the establishment of
large plantations, modelled on the Spanish and Portuguese cultivations in the
© FUOC • PID_00168260 27 The Food of History

Canary and Cape Verde Islands, manned by large numbers of African slaves
in a production system that was highly organised, time-sensitive and required
relevant investment of capital.

As Milton states, traditional spices were introduced in the New World to break Bibliographical
the East Asian monopolies, which had caused excesses like the massacres in reference

the Bandas islands perpetrated by the Dutch VOC (East India Company) to Milton,�Giles (1999).
maintain control over the production of nutmeg. Over time, Grenada became Nathaniel's Nutmeg. London:
Sceptre.
a major producer of clove and nutmeg, while the French introduced pepper
in Mauritius, Réunion and French Guyana. While cacao originally grew only
in Mesoamerica and in the upper Amazon basin, once it became a highly
demanded product, the Spaniards, who had a monopoly on it, expanded
the cultivation to Venezuela, Brazil (under Spanish control in the first half
of the 17th century) and the Philippines. The Dutch then transferred seeds
from Venezuela to Curaçao in 1634, thus breaking the Spanish monopoly.
The French introduced the plant in their Caribbean islands, while the Dutch
brought it to Ceylon and Indonesia. Over time the cultivation spread also to
West and Central Africa.

In this period, tea remained a Chinese monopoly. The Portuguese first got Bibliographical
acquainted with the drink when they encroached on the Indian Ocean trade reference

routes, followed by the British, the French and the Dutch. But it was not until Martin,�Laura�C. (2007).
the 18 th
century that European demand grew to the point that the Chinese Tea: The Drink that Changed
the World. Rutland, VT: Tuttle
monopoly came to be perceived as a hurdle to free commerce that eventually Publishing.

led to a series of devastating wars in the 19th century, known as the Opium
Wars. The first of these conflicts (1839-1842) was ignited by the need of the
British Empire to counterbalance the trade deficit with China caused by the
immense quantities of imports like tea, porcelain and above all tea, which
had become extremely popular in England. The British found the answer in
a crop that grew in many areas of the Raj: poppy and its derivative opium.
They started smuggling huge quantities of the drug into China, which resulted
into an epidemic of drug addiction that undermined social structures in many
areas. When a large delivery of opium was destroyed in the port of Canton,
the British attacked and, with the 1842 treaty, forced China to open its ports
to foreign commerce, to allow other countries to establish extraterritorial
enclaves and to surrender the island of Hong King to Great Britain.

Coffee, in its Arabica variety, had been domesticated in Ethiopia and brought Bibliographical
to Yemen, from where it acquired cultural relevance among increasingly larger reference

strata of the population in Western Asia and, later, in the Ottoman Empire. Wild,�Antony (2005). Coffee:
From the 17th century, the presence of Ottoman diplomats and merchants A Dark History. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company.
made the drink popular also in Europe. As demand grew, the Dutch managed
to introduce some plants to Ceylon and Java, and to bring coffee plants to the
Amsterdam Botanical Gardens in 1706. From there, the French transferred the
© FUOC • PID_00168260 28 The Food of History

crop to Martinique, Haiti and French Guyana, from where it spread to Brazil,
thus eliminating the remnants of the Ottoman monopoly by the end of the
18th century.

Other plants were transferred not because of their commercial value, but Bibliographical
because of their potential as source of nourishment. This is the case for the references

breadfruit, which was famously brought from the recently discovered Tahiti DeLoughrey,�Elizabeth
to the Caribbean by Captain William Bligh in order to feed the local slaves, (2008). "Globalizing the
Routes of Breadfruit and
even though local crops would have provided enough sustenance, had they Other Bounties". Journal of
been taken into consideration by the plantation owners. Colonialism and Colonial
History 8:3.
Spary,�Emma�and�Paul
th White (2004). "Food of
During the 19 century, improvements in communication technologies and Paradise: Tahitian Breadfruit
transportation boosted international trade and the expansion of colonial and the Autocritique of
European Consumption".
empires. Following the growth of consumer markets, urbanisation and the Endeavour 28(2): 75-80.
industrialisation of food production in most Western European countries and
later in the United States and Japan, the demand for commercial crops of
sugar, chocolate and coffee grew exponentially both in extension and in levels
of organisation. However, the abolition of slavery dismantled the production
model based on the plantation system, despite the strong resistance from
colonial landowners. The process –jumpstarted by the Haitian revolution in
1804– ended only in the late 1880s with the elimination of slavery in Cuba
and Brazil. Some Caribbean colonies shifted from sugar to other crops such
as bananas, pineapples, nutmeg and coffee, for which demand was growing
in Europe, while in others, like Jamaica, plantations were divided among
smallholders.

To maintain the plantations that the freed slaves often refused to cultivate, Bibliographical
landowners had to recur to forms of coercions such as contract labour or debt reference

peonage, bringing workers from India to Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, Reunion Mackie,�Christine (1991).
and Natal, while Chinese peasants moved to Jamaica, Cuba, the valleys of the Life and food in the Caribbean.
London: Weidenfeld and
Peruvian coast, Java and Hawaii. These new massive movements influenced Nicholson.
the development of culinary traditions. When the Indians arrived in the
Americas some of their traditional ingredients, such as mangoes and tamarind,
had already been introduced by the British colonial authorities, always eager
to maximise the agricultural potential of their territories. While Chinese food
traditions did not impact much on the local cuisines (with the exception of
maybe pickled vegetables and the use of soy sauce for some meat marinades),
Indian culinary habits and techniques have left a durable trace.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 29 The Food of History

As the imperialist powers ensured cheap and reliable sources, goods that were Bibliographical
previously limited to the upper classes, became available to all walks of society. references

Towards the end of the century, commodity sales were organised in structured Adas,�Michael (1974).
markets, with actual grading of the products and the establishment of The Burma Delta: Economic
Development and Social
international standards. In the first decades of the 20th century, the economic Change on an Asian Rice
Frontier. Madison: University
exploitation of colonies became increasingly systematic. For instance, as of Wisconsin Press.
mentioned by Adas and Schendel, once the French made rice production a Bowman,�Joyce�L. (1987).
"Legitimate Commerce
priority in their Indochina territories and the British did the same in Lower and Peanut Production
Burma, it became more convenient for the neighbouring islands under Dutch in Portuguese Guinea,
1840s-1880s". The Journal of
control, such as Java, to buy rice from those areas to sell it to farmers that could African History 28(1): 87-106.
then switch from traditional cultivations, including rice, to export crops like Schendel,�Willem�van
(1987). "Origins of the Burma
sugar. Bowman says that rice from Indochina was also imported into French Rice Boom, 1850 to 1880".
West Africa, where peanut cultivation expanded, shifting labour away from Journal of Contemporary Asia
17(4): 456-472.
staple production for subsistence and local trade.

Colonial rule also ensured that greater shares of the peasants' production went
to the foreign authorities, who were often more efficient and better organised
in collecting taxes than their pre-colonial predecessors; as a consequence,
life conditions worsened for farmers and unrest and riots increased, even
though the occupants had recourse to modern weaponry to repress them,
often affecting production negatively.

After the worldwide economic recession that followed the 1929 crisis, World Bibliographical
War II was a period of food scarcity and hardship in many areas of Africa, reference

Asia and Latin America. The first years of war brought requisitions of cash Mazrui,�A.�Ali (1993). Africa
crops by the colonial powers, together with difficulties in transportation since 1935. Paris: UNESCO.

and distribution that caused shortages of imported goods, both essential and
luxury items, leading to rationing in urban areas. The consequences of the
conflict were less evident in areas that had traditionally practiced subsistence
agriculture and local barter.

The years following the end of the war witnessed a worldwide effort to
jumpstart reconstruction and development, together with calls for political
self-determination that eventually gave way to dynamics of decolonisation,
as former territories that were part of global empires acquired independence,
more or less peacefully. However, many new nations, especially in Africa,
felt that the former colonial powers still controlled them through indirect
political means and economic dependency, exploiting them under a new set
of relationships that came to be known as neo-colonialism.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 30 The Food of History

2. Sharing tables

In the previous section, we looked at how food diffusion, exchange and

trade among human communities all over the world has determined or,
at least, affected many historical phenomena and, more in general, the
development of their material life. In this section, we will turn our attention
to the communities themselves, to analyse how the role of food production,
distribution and consumption can interact with cultural, social, political and
economic structures and how they have at times influenced them.

The emotional and cultural relevance of food cannot be ignored. Ingestion

and incorporation constitute a paramount component of our connection
with reality and the world outside our body. Food is pervasive and has been
found at the centre of frequent and significant communicative interactions
that have influenced various aspects of individual and communal identities,
functioning as a relevant signifier of power, cultural capital, class status,
gender, ethnicity, race and religion. As in the previous section, we will not try
to provide an exhaustive history of all the anthropological and sociological
aspects of food in history, but we will rather concentrate on limited cases
and examples to outline common dynamics that can help us achieve a better
understanding of phenomena and events in different times and places.

2.1. Body and soul: Food and religions

Religion and spirituality have often played a fundamental role in determining Bibliographical
the relationship of human communities and their food sources, not only reference

in determining what is legitimate, just and allowed to eat, but also in Feeley-Harnik,�Gillian
understanding aspects of production and distribution of food. Societies (1995). "Religion and
Food: An Anthropological
and cultures have often marked specific foods as taboo, defining them as Perspective". Journal of the
defiling or impure. Conversely, other foods were considered sacred and their American Academy of Religion
63(3): 565-582.
consumption was limited to special occasions or prohibited to all members of
the community except the religious leaders in charge with the relationships
with the gods. In many civilisations, great emphasis was given to food
offerings to divine beings or to facilitate the afterlife; the preparation of
these foods was frequently carried out by dedicated staff that was paid and
entitled to some of the sacrificial goods when they were redistributed after
the ceremony. Food and cooking were also relevant in organised religions to
reflect beliefs and the structure of the community of believers.

In this section, we will limit ourselves to analysing the role food played in
the three monotheist religions that shaped the history of the Mediterranean
cultural area. These examples will help us achieve a better understanding
of how eating and cooking have influenced human cultures. Similar
observations could be provided for Buddhism and its complex relationship
© FUOC • PID_00168260 31 The Food of History

with vegetarianism, Jainism and its refuse to kill any living creature, Taoism
and its theories about the inner landscape of men as a reflection of external
universe, Aztec religion and the relevance of sacrifice.

Food references abound in the Bible. Dietary rules constituted a very Bibliographical
important element in the Old Testament culture and religion. Kashrut, the reference

complex set of rules determining what can be eaten, how it should be eaten, Soler,�Jean (1979). "The
and when has constantly played a fundamental role in the history of Jews. Semiotics of Food in the
Bible". In Food and Drink in
The whole system is dependent on a number of prohibitions that were already History (ed. Robert Forster
dictated in Leviticus XI and Deuteronomy XIV. The religious law prohibited and Orest Ranum, pp.
126-38). Baltimore: Johns
eating animals that are not ruminant and are not hoofed, including pigs, Hopkins University.
horses, rabbits, and camels. Among the birds, waterfowl, nocturnal birds of
prey and those who do not fly could not be consumed, together with insects,
rodents and animals that crawl on the ground on their belly, such as snakes.
To be consumed, fish must have fins and scales, thus excluding eels, rays,
crustaceans and molluscs. In addition to foods to avoid, there were a few rules
for cooking: for instance, Jews are not supposed to cook meat in milk because
the Torah does not to allow eating the meat of an animal cooked in its mother's
milk.

Special rules governed the slaughtering and preparation of the pure animals. Bibliographical
Ritual slaughtering consisted of killing the animal with one cut of a sharp reference

knife, so as to cause immediate death and complete bleeding. This probably Kraemer,�David�Charles
stemmed from the fact that only God could take and give life. Meat (2007). Jewish eating and
identity through the ages. New
consumption could only happen with a sacrifice (hence the need for the ritual) York: Routledge.
and after the removal of blood, as the vital principle, and it must be offered
to God. The ritual butcher also had to make sure that the animal was not
ill or imperfect; otherwise it could not be consumed, and then took care to
eliminate the sciatic nerve. The prohibition against eating the sciatic nerve
came from the Genesis account of Jacob's struggle with the angel, during
which the patriarch was lamed. The meat had then to be well rinsed and put
in salt for no less than twenty minutes and one hour. After salting, the meat
had to be washed in running water two or three times to completely remove
the blood.

As mentioned by Feely-Harnik (1994), the New Testament, particularly the Bibliographical

Acts of the Apostles, relates how food issues became urgent when the first reference

community of the followers of Jesus spread across the Mediterranean. New Feeley-Harnik,�Gillian
converts from cultures outside Judaism could not understand all the fuss (1994). The Lord's Table:
The Meaning of Food in Early
about what and how to eat. A full-blown crisis was avoided when Peter, in Judaism and Christianity.
a trance-like state, dreamed of a large sheet coming down from the sky, on Washington and London:
Smithsonian Institution
which fell all kinds of food, regardless of their purity and impurity according Press.
to the kashrut rules (Acts 10:10-16). Peter interpreted the vision as a sign
from God that Christians were not necessarily required to follow the Jewish
dietary rules. However, Paul reminded the members of the community that it
© FUOC • PID_00168260 32 The Food of History

would have been better to avoid those foods that could have scandalised the
Jewish members out of consideration from them and not because any intrinsic
quality attributed to the foods themselves (1 Cor. 8.1-11.1).

As Jesus himself pointed out, impurity and sin did not depend of what entered
the body, but on what came out of it in terms of words, thoughts and actions
(Mt 15:10-19). Personal responsibility put Jesus' followers in the position to
make independent food choices. Despite the desire to actually obey God's
will, anxiety ensued, as the long debates on predestination and free will in
Christianity demonstrate: who decides whether the faithful are saved? How
do they know they are on the right path? Does any authority on earth possess
the power to determine what God wants from the faithful?

In Christianity, the body is often described as the temple of the Spirit. Bibliographical
Christians have long known that. Paul states this in his first letter to the references

community in Corinth. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Fagan,�Brian�M. (2006). Fish
Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not on Friday: feasting, fasting,
and the discovery of the New
your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body" World. New York: Basic
(1 Cor. 6:19-20). Paul's admonition can be interpreted both at the individual Books.
Grimm,�Veronika (1996).
and at the communal level. After all, the Church is the body of Christ. At From feasting to fasting, the
the same time, the body can become the occasion for temptation and sin. evolution of a sin: attitudes
to food in late antiquity. New
Gluttony has been listed as one of the seven capital sins. For this reason, as York: Routledge.
pointed out by Grimm, fast has historically been embraced as a way to mortify
the body and to get closer to God, imposing a discipline that is supposed to
build character and faith. Fagan says that the demands of the Catholic Church
about the avoidance of meat during specific days or whole liturgical periods,
such as the Lent preceding Easter, had enormous influence in shaping the
food habits in Catholic countries and were the object of harsh criticism during
Protestant reform.

Islam also presents relevant food-related aspects. As mentioned by Hoffman, Bibliographical

whatever the differences due to status or local traditions, some food-related reference

principles were –and still are– common to the whole Muslim world, dictated Hoffman,�Valerie (1995).
by the Holy Book, the Qur'an; one of the five pillars of Islam was in fact the fast "Eating and Fasting for God
in Sufi Tradition". Journal
to be kept during the month of Ramadan to commemorate the revelation of of the American Academy of
the book to Muhammad. All Muslims older than ten years of age were required Religion 63(3): 465-484.

to abstain from food, drink and sex from dawn to dusk; pregnant women,
sick people and travellers were excused, but they were expected to fast later
for a number of days equal to those during which they had not respected
the fast. Festive meals were prepared every evening after sunset, culminating
with the celebration of the 'Aid al Fitr, where lavish banquets were organised
in every family according to their economic means. On that day, no Muslim
was supposed to go hungry, so that the better off would take care of the less
fortunate. The custom was a reflection of another pillar or Islam, the zakat
(alimony), which was considered an expression of the spirit of sharing uniting
all Muslims in the Umma, the community of the faithful. The Qur'an also
warns against the excesses caused by alcoholic drinks, often connected to
© FUOC • PID_00168260 33 The Food of History

gambling and disturbance; however, wine will flow in Paradise together with
honey. Other prohibitions regarded the consumption of pork and all animals
sacrificed to gods other than Allah. Complex rules about ritual butchering
(dhabihah), similar to the Jewish kashrut, were also imposed, as was a taboo
about the ingestion of blood and animals found already dead. This set of rules
defined the food that according to Islamic law (shari'a) can be considered halal
(lawful and licit), as opposed to the sphere of the haram, which includes the
foods and the practices considered impure and forbidden.

2.2. Body, health, and science

Often in connection with religious beliefs, human communities have Bibliographical

developed complex systems of interpretation about the functioning of the reference

body, its relation to health and the role that food plays in maintaining, Anderson,�E.�N. (1988).
enhancing or endangering wellbeing from the material point of view. Of "Traditional Medical Values
of Food". In The Food of
course, each culture determined the frontier between body and spirit in China (pp. 229-243). New
different ways and some did not even consider this dichotomy as relevant. Haven: Yale University Press.

We will limit ourselves at a better understanding of the western concepts

about diet and health, but other important traditions developed in India
and in China, often based on similar dynamics although embracing different
principles.

Until the 17th century, the populations living in Western Europe based their Bibliographical
references
health and diet beliefs on the theories elaborated by famous doctors from the
past. The most influential were Hippocrates of Cos (between the 5th and the Dehart,�Scott�M. (1999).
"Hippocratic Medicine and
4th century BC), Celsus (1st century AD) and, above all, Galen (2nd century AD). the Greek Body Image".
Perspectives on Science 7(3):
According to their assumptions, a healthy human body was the result of the 349-382.
balance of four fluids, also known as "humours": blood, choler (yellow bile), Galen (2003). On the
Properties of Foodstuff. Trans.
phlegm and melancholy (black bile). Each of these fluids manifested different
Owen Powell. Cambridge:
physical qualities: heat, coldness, moisture and dryness. In this theoretical Cambridge University Press.
system, blood was considered hot and moist, choler was hot and dry, phlegm
was cold and moist and melancholy was cold and dry. The predominance of
any of the four humours conditioned the health and the character of each
individual, their "complexion", in the language of the time. A prevalence
of blood determined a sanguine disposition, an excess of choler provoked
outburst of anger and so on. Different foods were also supposed to have their
own complexions, which were assimilated by the bodies that ate them. In
this framework, sickness was considered an unbalance of humours, due to
the excess of a certain fluid. The naturally healthy balance differed for each
individual and was ensured by the ingestion and the digestion of elements
that presented opposite qualities to the surplus fluid. For instance, if a person
suffered from melancholy, losing weight and showing sunken eyes, the excess
of the cold and dry humour was to be counterbalanced by the consumption
of hot and moist ingredients, such as onions. As a consequence, there were no
general cures that worked for everybody: doctors were supposed to determine
the natural complexion of their patients and to interpret all symptoms in
© FUOC • PID_00168260 34 The Food of History

terms of surplus of certain fluids. Based on the resulting diagnosis, they

would advice the consumption of specific foods or substances. Furthermore,
digestion was considered as a form of cooking that took place in the stomach
and the intestine, where food was the fuel providing energy to the body.

With the fall of the Roman Empire and the arrival of Germanic tribes from the Bibliographical
north, this medical wisdom was basically lost, maintained only vaguely in the reference

monasteries, which continued to cultivate the Greek and Roman traditions. Hamarneh,�Sami (1972).
Galen's approach to diet survived in the Byzantine Empire, later translated by "Development of Arabic
Medical Therapy in the
Nestorian refugees into Syria, and then brought into Persia, where it was made Tenth Century". Journal of
available to the local scholars and became part of Islamic sciences. the History of Medicine 27(1):
65-79.

The ancient texts were translated back into Latin only from the 12th century,
in the Salerno School of Medicine and in the scholarly circles of Toledo.
Ibn Sinna, also known as Avicenna, who lived between the 10th and the
11th century, reorganised the theories received from Celsus and Galen in
his Canon (Qanun), which for centuries became the authority in the field.
This medical wisdom reached Italy when the Arabs conquered Sicily and
it was successively adopted in the Norman reigns of Southern Italy. In the
11th century, a medical school was founded in Salerno, near Naples, where
scholars translated a landslide of texts and compiled a famous dietary known
as Regimen Sanitati, which upheld humoural physiology and made it popular
all over Italy. The establishment of the University of Naples by Frederick II, an
emperor who gave protection to Muslim science, in 1224 and the proximity
of Amalfi, a seaport open to Arab drug dealers and whose ships traded in
all kind of Oriental products, had an unfavourable influence on the school
in Salerno. The rise of universities in Montpellier, Padua and Bologna, the
latter particularly renowned for the studies in human anatomy, determined
the decadence of Salerno.

In the second half of the 14th century, many scholars fought against the Bibliographical
reference
influence of religion and scholastic philosophy over medicine and other
sciences, using their knowledge of Greek to access the original texts from Albala,�Ken (2002). Eating
th Right in the Renaissance.
antiquity. From the 1470s to the first half of the 17 century, a great number of Berkeley: University of
dietary volumes were published, stimulated by the invention of the printing California Press.

press.

From the end of the 16th century, scientific endeavours were characterised by Bibliographical
reference
the intense activity of translators, by the critical treatment of sources from the
Greek-Roman antiquity and by independent investigations that introduced Laudan,�Rachel (2000).
enormous changes in the way Europeans understood their body and the "Birth of the Modern Diet".
Scientific American 283(2):
connections between food and health. Scholars such as Andreas Vesalius 62-67.
and Gabriele Falloppio, who taught in Padua, demonstrated the weakness
of the anatomical concepts in the Galenic theory by dissecting corpses.
Numerous authors, including Gerolamo Cardano, Alessandro Petronio and
Giovanni Domenico Sala, opposed widespread nutritional concepts basing
© FUOC • PID_00168260 35 The Food of History

their critique on local habits and traditions and on personal observation. A

German travelling doctor, Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim, known
as Paracelsus, elaborated a new theory of the causes of disease (etiology),
introducing chemical therapeutics. Furthermore, he strongly upheld the
usefulness of mineral waters and native botanical drugs from which he
distilled "essences" and "tinctures" that were meant to replace folk remedies.
Developing the theories put forth by Paracelsus, some chemists and alchemists
noted that many natural substances, when heated, separated in a volatile fluid,
which they equated to mercury; an oily substance, or sulphur; and a solid
residue; or salt. While mercury determined smells, sulphur induced sweetness
and moistness and salt controlled the taste and texture of foods.

While the theory of fluids was attacked by the developments of chemistry,

the idea that digestion was similar to cooking slowly also became obsolete.
The discovery of blood circulation by the English physician William Harvey of
Folkestone (1578-1657), published in 1628, and research by Marcello Malpighi
on blood corpuscles using the microscope, gave the final blow to Galen's
theories. These findings were at the base of the efforts by many scientists,
called iatrophysicists, to explain all physiological processes according to the
laws of physics. Opposing their views, other doctors, known as ierochemists,
maintained that chemistry was sufficient to account for all medical facts.
Among these, the Belgian Jan Baptista van Helmont (1577-1644), famous for
his studies on gas, conjectured that many processes of the living body, like
digestion, nutrition and even movement were due to ferments that converted
dead substances, such as food, into living flesh. Franz Sylvius (1614-72)
also sought to explain physiological processes by suggesting fermentation
(molecular motion of matter) and "vital spirits" as moving forces. A few years
before, the Croatian Santorio Santorio (1561-1636), born from a nobleman
from Friuli in the service of the Venetian republic, had studied the human
body by weighing its solid and liquid intakes and excretions.

These theories remained prevalent until the 19th century, when scientists like Bibliographical
reference
Jakob Moleschott (1822-93) and Justus Freiherr von Liebig (1803-73), who also
had the first intuition to divide nutrients in carbohydrates, proteins and fats, Gratzer,�Walter (2005).
developed the modern concept of metabolism. Terrors of the Table: The
curious History of Nutrition.
Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
2.3. Distinctions: Food and social dynamics

Food has constantly been used as a marker of social status by human

communities. We are not sure about food-related dynamics in cultures
of hunters and gatherers and in the first sedentary communities of
agriculturalists. However, we have clear evidence of this kind of phenomena
since visual representations and written texts became available with the first
urban civilisation in the third millennium BC: the Sumerians, in today's Iraq.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 36 The Food of History

Sumer agriculture ensured unprecedented yields and part of the wealth was Bibliographical
transferred to the upper classes, the courtesans and the priests, who offer us references

the first evidence of the use of food to create or underline social distinctions. Bottéro,�Jean (1985).
The Cuisine of Ancient
Mesopotamia. The Biblical
These dynamics would be visible also in many other civilisations in history, Archaeologist 48(1): 36-47.
making them into a constant cultural element. Limet,�Henri (1987). "The
Cuisine of Ancient Sumer".
The Biblical Archaeologist
• Food production as a duty of the lower classes 50(3): 132-147.

• Differences in food availability and accessibility among social strata in

terms of consumption and difference

• Upper classes' selection of strange, unusual, or out of season foods, often

expensive and sometimes imported from distant places

• Availability of vessels and table implements with high monetary value and
specific styles for the upper classes

• Development of rules of conduct and etiquette, familiar only to initiates;

refinement and taste used to create social distinction

• Use of banquets to celebrate major events such agreements, alliances,

visits of foreign delegations and even foundations (buildings or major
cities). Elaborated preparations and intended to surprise, which required
professional cooks.

Due to the scope of this course, it is not possible to analyse all the
manifestations of food-related distinctions dynamics in human history. The
rest of this section will focus rather on the development of haute French
cuisine, which constitutes an interesting case study for its enduring influence
all over the world.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 37 The Food of History

Until the 17th century, the food of the French court did not particularly Bibliographical
references
distinguish itself from that of other European courts. As pointed out by
Mennell, since the late Middle Ages, noblemen who wanted to stand out Albala,�Ken (2007). The
developed table manners, so that elegance and refinement took over pure Banquet: Dining in the Great
Courts of Late Renaissance
displays of greed and physical power expressed as capacity of inordinate Europe. Chicago: University
of Illinois Press.
ingestion. Upper classes desired the finest dishes, using expensive spices as
Mennell,�Stephen (1996).
a sign social distinction, and embraced a taste for luxury and ostentation. All manners of food: eating and
taste in England and France
Banquets were spectacular and courses were often brought to the table just from the Middle Ages to the
to awe the guests rather than for consumption. In the late 13th century, present. Chicago: University
of Illinois Press.
cookbooks began to appear, addressed to an audience of professional chefs
who served the nobility, both in their palaces and in the taverns. As mentioned
by Albala, the Renaissance banquets did not change in terms of spectacle and
excess and, from the culinary point of view, continued to propose mediaeval
cuisine.

The development of a true haute cuisine from the middle of the 17th century Bibliographical
reference
is a phenomenon particularly visible in Paris and initially limited to the court,
which was asserting its role at the heart of the nation state and therefore Pinkard,�Susan (2008). A
appreciated anything that emphasised power by differentiating itself in terms Revolution in Taste: The Rise
of French Cuisine, 1650-1800.
of luxury and refinement. Haute cuisine was developed quite independently Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
of the local and regional cuisine, considered low class and suited only to
the provincial gentry, constantly ridiculed in the court of Paris. The new
cooking style, which required the work of highly trained chefs, differentiated
itself also in terms of actual ingredients, dishes, and techniques. Courses
became more varied, with more complex recipes that highlighted the single
ingredients, their freshness and their quality. While fresh vegetables became
more popular, since they reflected the ability of the nobles to have access to
highly seasonal and perishable food, the use of spices became sparser since,
with the development of global empires, spices were no longer so exclusive
and hard to get.

In the 18th century, the hegemony of French haute cuisine began to

consolidate in Europe. In many countries, the upper classes adopted French
style food in order to increase their distance from the local and popular
cuisines. French cooking, at the same time, did not stand still but constantly
stimulated originality and innovation, also determined by competition
among members of the upper classes to be ahead of the culinary curve.
These dynamics triggered various subsequent cycles of growth, consolidation,
decline and renewal of cooking styles until the present day.

While the upper classes embraced the model of conspicuous consumption

offered by the banquet, the lower classes developed their own ways of using
food to mark themselves as members of specific communities. Popular feats,
often connected to the liturgical calendar, often became occasion to reinforce
cultural and social bonds around the consumption of foods that underlined
© FUOC • PID_00168260 38 The Food of History

the uniqueness of the occasion in terms of abundance (especially when

scarcity and famine were a constant worry) and difference from the everyday
fare.

At times, the upper classes love for ostentatious luxury engendered resentment Bibliographical
that was dangerous for social stability. For that reasons, authorities often references

introduced sumptuary laws that dictated specific limits to consumption. In Li,�Lillian�M.�and�Alison

many cases, authorities also tried to mitigate food scarcity for the lower classes, Dray-Novey (1999).
"Guarding Beijing's Food
especially in urban centres and particularly in the capital by distributing grains Security in the Qing
and foods. Public banquets in the ancient Greek cities had this function, Dynasty: State, Market, and
Police". The Journal of Asian
ensuring some form of redistribution while underlining the belonging to the Studies 58(4): 992-1032.
same political community. The Romans had founded a special administration, Singer,�Amy (2002).
Constructing Ottoman
called annona, in charge with dispensing grains and bread to the populace of Beneficence: An Imperial Soup
Kitchen in Jerusalem. Albany:
Rome in order to avoid any kind of turmoil. There lies the origin of the Latin
State University of New York
expression panes et circences, bread and circus games, the two free propaganda Press.
tools favoured by emperors to ingratiate themselves to their subjects. At the Will,�Pierre-Étienne�and�R.
Bin�Wong (1991). Nourish
height of the Ottoman Empire, in the 16th and 17th centuries, officials were in the People: The State Civilian
Granary System in China
charge of ensuring stocks (especially grains), of provisioning the city markets 1650-1850. Ann Arbor:
(in particular the capital Istanbul), of fixing and controlling the prices for University of Michigan
Center for Chinese Studies.
most staples and of fighting illegal food imports and exports. Pilgrims on their
way to Mecca had their caravans protected and their supplies ensured once
in the holy sites. Through religious endowments, imperial elites stimulated
the establishment of soup kitchens to feed the poor (usually providing bread
and soup with rice or bulgur), thus following the Islamic precept of charity.
Singer says that the first recorded soup kitchen was founded in 1336 and by
the middle of the 16th century there were more than eighty in the empire
with only twenty in Istanbul. In the 18th century, as mentioned by Li and
Dray-Novey, in China, the Qing dynasty established a system of granaries run
by civil functionaries to avoid scarcity and turmoil in areas where the market
alone was not able to guarantee sufficient provisioning. Thanks to this system,
which remained efficient during the whole 18th century, farmers could borrow
grain and then give it back at the time of the harvest. Furthermore, as Will
and Wong state, emergency grain could be sent to areas struck by famine.

The last few examples show the relevance of food not only as a social marker
in terms of status or class, but also as an important element in political
negotiations that constituted the core of human communities in history.

2.4. Sexing the plate: Food and gender

Gender identifications are also closely connected to food. Some ingredients,

dishes or ways of consumption are sexualised, being considered either
masculine or feminine. In many cultures women are still in charge of shopping
and preparation of meals, of growing vegetables and raising animals. At times,
food-related work was divided along gender lines and the roles did not always
correspond to those we perceive as normal in our cultures. For instance, when
© FUOC • PID_00168260 39 The Food of History

the first European explorers got into direct contact with North American
native tribes in the 17th century, the newcomers would often describe the
native males as shifty and lazy, only busy with hunting, fishing and fighting
while the women toiled to produce, gather and cook food. However, this
negative perception was probably connected to the fact that, in the Old World,
hunting was mostly a leisurely activity for the upper classes and did not
constitute a way of living.

From a methodological point of view, until the 1950s, issues of gender Bibliographical
were not discussed too often. Relying mostly on written texts and official references

documents, historians were frequently unable to look into the daily lives Bentley,�Amy (1998). Eating
of the society they were examining and, at any rate, material culture was for Victory: Food Rationing
and the Politics of Domesticity.
not high on their priorities. Following the second wave of feminism that Chicago: University of
started in the 1960s, many female scholars started asking questions about Illinois Press.
Cwiertka,�Katarzyna�J.
what role women played in the civilisations of the past. Food became of (2006). Modern Japanese
course a focus of interest, but mostly in a negative place. The kitchen was the Cuisine: Food, power, and
National Identity. London:
place where women were exploited and the goal of history was to unveil the Reaktion Books.
sufferance related to daily chores imposed by men. While it is impossible to Stearns,�Peter (2002). Fat
history: bodies and beauty in
deny those aspects, more recently women have approached these issues in a the modern West. New York:
more nuanced way pointing out how food, eating and cooking were often the NYU Press.
Theophano,�Janet (2003).
only spaces available to women to express themselves as individuals and in Eat My Words: Reading
their social ties. The kitchen at times became an arena of female affirmation Women's Lives Through the
Cookbooks They Wrote. New
and autonomy in male dominated societies. Theophano says that cookbooks York: Palgrave McMillan.
and recipes suddenly turned into precious historical sources that allowed a Walker�Bynum,�Caroline
(1988). Holy feast and holy
new approach to material culture and female lives. As mentioned by Bentley fast: the religious significance
and Cwiertka, authors have explored the role women played during war of food to medieval women.
Berkeley: University of
efforts through food preparation and food-related propaganda. Furthermore, California Press.
according to Walker Bynum and Stearns, the relationship between women,
food and the body became the centre of particular interest with research
looking at mediaeval female saints and at the development of body images
in history.

This field of historical research is burgeoning, providing depth and new

approaches to analyse events and phenomena that had already been studied,
but only from the male point of view.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 40 The Food of History

3. Food and local identities

Meals unite and divide. They connect those who share them, reinforcing their
mutual bonds and confirming their identities as individuals and as members
of a community. At the same time, meals exclude those who do not participate
in them, threatening and negating their very humanity. Food has always been
one of the defining aspects of social groups, whose members acknowledge
each other as such by the way they eat, by what they eat and by what they
abhor.

Food is not only central to social identities, but also to the formation of
ethnic consciousness. The ancient Greeks used to accuse the neighbouring
populations they considered "barbarians" of eating raw meat, of being unable
to share food with their own kind in an orderly way and even of devouring
whatever they had at hand whenever they felt the urge without waiting for
the right time of the day. Centuries later, when their empire was threatened
from waves of Germanic populations, the Romans sustained their position of
self-proclaimed inheritors of the Mediterranean civilisation by upholding the
nutritional model centred on wine, olive oil and wheat against the Germanic
preference for beer, butter and other cereals.

In this section, we will analyse the elements that have defined food's identity
in history, with its connection to specific communities and their political life.

3.1. Relational identities, exchanges and networks

First of all, it is necessary to understand how certain ingredients, dishes or

customs come to be perceived as "typical", "local" or "traditional" by specific
communities. Very often history is invoked to point out how a food-related
element has been part of the cultural identity for a long time, acquiring
over time the characteristics of "originality" and "authenticity". At the same
time, these foods are often considered as the reflection of the "essence" of a
place and the people who inhabit them. However, when historical analysis is
applied to these products, it becomes clear that they acquired their specificity
precisely because they became part of trade, exchange and extended market
networks. The crucial and "unique" qualities of these products are inherently
relational, rather than uniquely the expression of the "spirit" of a community.
If a product was consumed only in the place where it was produced, it was
not perceived as special in any way or specific to that particular place. It
was just food. But when it travelled or was purchased by outsiders, its local
and traditional specific traits became visible, with the consequences that also
the producers themselves acknowledged the different elements that defined
it against the background of other similar products. For instance, Italian
Parmigiano Reggiano acquired its renown during the Renaissance, when the
© FUOC • PID_00168260 41 The Food of History

renewed activity of urban centres like Reggio and Parma allowed neighbouring
farmers to bring their products to the nearby urban markets, where these
products were recognised by travellers and merchants as unique and "typical"
of that city.

Similar dynamics can shape a whole culinary tradition. For instance, until the Bibliographical
1960s Belizeans did not necessarily identify their food as a national cuisine or reference

as a unique expression of their culture. When immigrants moved to foreign Wilk,�Richard (2006).
countries, they realised that their food was actually specific and different Home Cooking in the Global
Village: Caribbean Food from
and it could constitute a culinary attraction in the new places where they Buccaneers to Ecotourists.
had settled. At the same time, as tourism became more frequent, foreigners Oxford: Berg.

travelling to Belize would indentify certain dishes or techniques as local and

typical, helping to precipitate the formation of a "national" cuisine that is now
offered as part of the tourist attractions.

The notion of identity moves thus from production to exchange, from Bibliographical
point to network. Communities have acknowledged certain elements of their reference

culinary traditions as specific and reinforced their identity only when exposed Parasecoli,�Fabio (2005).
to other communities that produced different kinds of food. If this is the case, "Identity, Diversity, and
Dialogue". In: Culinary
it is obviously important to understand how these networks have functioned Cultures of Europe: Identity,
in different periods in history, to avoid generalisations about globalisation Diversity, and Dialogue (Darra
Goldstein and Kathrin
that might risk hiding divergent cultural, social and economic dynamics. Merkle eds., pp. 11-37).
Strasbourg: Council of
Since both locality and the global are socially produced, it is necessary to Europe.
abandon the naïve point of view that considers the local as "natural", original,
connected to biodiversity and heterogeneity, as the last defence against the
homogenising, unnatural forces of globalisation.

However, while the international exposure can bring new life, or even save,
a disappearing ingredient or dish, the participation in the global flows
of people, money, goods and information can also bring disruption and
tensions. For instance, it is increasingly harder for non-sedentary populations
to maintain their food customs. Pastoralists such as the Maasai of Kenya see
the territories related to their traditional productions shrinking because of
expansion of farming, urban growth and even the presence of natural parks.
In Inner Mongolia, the collectivisation during the Maoist era and the recent
privatisation of lands have worsened the pastoralists' life standards, reduced
their mobility and damaged the pastures; similar dynamics are taking place
in other areas of Central Asia.

3.2. Colonialism, creolisation, hybridization

When talking about contemporary identities, there is a sense that Bibliographical

globalisation is inevitably influencing all local identities and even that the reference

renewed relevance of local identities might be a by-product of those trends in Sheller,�Mimi (2003).
globalisation that at first glance would seem to erase any difference. At times, Consuming the Caribbean.
New York: Routledge.
contemporary identities are defined as inevitably hybrid and "creole," referring
to the processes of miscegenation and cultural mixing that took place in
© FUOC • PID_00168260 42 The Food of History

the Caribbean during the dominance of colonial empires. Hybridisation and

creolisation are embraced and heralded as signs of time. As we will see in the
following subsection, these processes play a relevant role in the development
of modern cuisines. However, when applied to high-end food or to trends in
post-industrial societies, these concepts are often emptied of their historical
and cultural significance. Sheller (2003) says that all the power relations and
inequality that have shaped these dynamics in history are ignored or, worse,
erased. For this reason, it is useful to look back to explore the origin of these
phenomena during the establishment of the European empires in the newly
"discovered" Americas.

At the beginning of the colonisation, the arrival of the Spaniards and the Bibliographical
Portuguese to what is now known as America led to the development of references

cuisines that adopted and appropriated ingredients and techniques from the Bauer,�Arnold�J. (2001).
local cultures, but also maintained many features of the Old World foodways. Goods, Power, History: Latin
America's Material Culture.
In fact, European crops like wheat thrived in Northern Mexico, although New York: Cambridge
adopted sceptically by local populations, while olive trees and vineyards University Press.
Laudan,�Rachel�and�Jeffrey
did better in Peru and California. Furthermore, culinary customs connected M.�Pilcher (1999). "Chiles,
with Christianity and its ceremonies, considered inherently superior, were Chocolate, and Race in New
Spain: Glancing Backward to
imposed as a way for the natives to reach salvation. According to Bauer, Spain or Looking Forward to
Mexico?" Eighteenth-Century
European foodways and ingredients also penetrated the areas with higher
Life 23 (2): 59-70.
concentrations of native people, signifying prestige and a superior social
status. As mentioned by Laudan and Pilcher, as much as they wanted to
distance themselves from the natives by displaying conspicuous consumption
and by sticking to bread and wine, for instance, instead of maize, potatoes,
pulque and chica, the new creole upper-classes, born and raised in the colonies
and often the fruit of racial miscegenation, adopted a hybrid material culture
that expressed itself in dishes like mole. At the same time, the African slaves
developed their own distinctive cuisines, with specialties that still survive,
like the Peruvians antichucos (beef heart skewers), the Caribbean callalloos
(soups with taro leaves and other greens) and the Brazilian moquecas (coconut
milk stews seasoned with palm oil). Similar developments were evident in
the south of the United States, where the plantation economy required the
presence of slaves who were often in charge with growing and preparing
food for their masters. In the north of the United States, the hybridisation
took place along different lines, with the colonists slowly chasing the natives
from their territory while adopting and adapting some of their foodways and
ingredients. In all the New World colonies, food creolisation was based on
dynamics of exploitation and appropriation, but also resistance.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 43 The Food of History

As western empires penetrated Asia and Africa in the 19th century, European Bibliographical
reference
ingredients and culinary traditions acquired worldwide prestige, often
proposed to or imposed on foreign populations as a tangible aspect of the Pilcher,�Jeffrey�M. (1998).
western cultural and moral superiority. All over the colonial world, from Que vivan los tamales!: Food
and the Making of Mexican
India to Mexico, foods of European origin were preferred to local ones by Identity. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico
the ruling classes, to the point that, at times, products were exported to the Press.
motherland and then re-imported as high status delicacies. The French model
of culinary excellence in terms of dishes, organisation of the service, décor
and service acquired particular high status, also in other European countries.
In Indochina, wheat baguette, pastries, sausages and even asparagus became
quite popular in urban centres, mixed by the locals with their traditional
dishes and ingredients. French haute cuisine was also all the rage all over Latin
America, from Mexico to Argentina, where the new creole elites were trying
to acquire global visibility and to increase their distance from the Indian and
Mestizo populations. Traditional foods like Mexican tortillas were considered
with a certain suspicion, as a symbol of backwardness and at times even of
racial inferiority.

These dynamics were visible also in Japan, where from the second half of the Bibliographical
reference
19th century the local elites were engaged in a process of total renewal of the
material aspects of society. Western food was embraced as modern, efficient Cwiertka,�Katarzyna�J.
and nutritious. The emperor made a point at showing that he consumed (2006). Modern Japanese
Cuisine: Food, power, and
beef, against the widespread Buddhist vegetarian customs. In the 20th century, National Identity. London:
Reaktion Books.
when Japan became itself a colonial power by seizing large areas of East
Asia, promoted its own food traditions as superior to those of the occupied
population, all while absorbing elements of Chinese and Korean cuisines.

However, despite the aspects of domination and exploitation that marked the Bibliographical
relationships between western powers, their colonies and other independent reference

but less developed areas of the world, elements of the subjugated cultures Collinghman,�Lizzie (2006).
managed to affirm themselves and to be eventually adopted by the hegemonic Curry: A Tale of Cooks and
Conquerors. New York:
culture, through processes of filtration, adaptation and often appropriation. Oxford University Press.
For instance, the British colonists in India tended to adopt elements from
different local cuisines, integrating them in a gastronomic vocabulary that
tended to be the same from south to north. Curries, at first indicating only
spiced relishes that accompanied rice, came to mean all sorts of liquid or
stew-like concoctions based on spice mixes, often accompanying meats. Only
later the name was used for a specific Anglo-Indian dish, which became so
popular that the British returning after their service in India made it also well
known at home. Over time, productions of curry powders for domestic use,
Indian-inspired pickles and chutneys developed, catering first to Raj colonists
and veterans, but soon embraced by the general population.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 44 The Food of History

Elements of the exotic culture of the colonised were often taken out of their Bibliographical
context and integrated in the productive processes that were shifting towards reference

growing levels of industrialisation. It was, for instance, the case with Nestle, Yavuz,�Koese (2008). "Nestle'
that in its effort to establish a dominant position in the powdered milk in the Ottoman Empire:
Global Marketing with Local
market in the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century, experimented Flavor 1870-1927". Enterprise
& Society 9(4): 724-761.
with many advertising techniques that were then adopted internationally
and discovered a product, yogurt, that would become later on an important
component of its portfolio.

At the beginning of the 21st century, according to Appadurai, while traditional Bibliographical
references
lifestyles and foodways are disappearing, the populations of post-colonial
countries are showing growing interest in food and cooking as constitutive Appadurai,�Arjun (1988).
elements of their national identities, often used to overcome class and regional "How to Make a National
Cuisine: Cookbooks in
tensions. As mentioned by Cusack, national governments in Africa and the Contemporary India".
Comparative Studies in Society
Caribbean, increasingly aware the relevance of food for their tourist industry, and History 30 (1): 3-24.
are trying to create a marketable national cuisine almost by bureaucratic Bélisle,�François�J.
(1983). "Tourism and
decree. This approach is just one aspect of the approach of developing food production in the
countries towards tourism, which is often considered as one of the most Caribbean". Annals of Tourism
Research 10(4): 497-513.
important sources of revenue and local growth: on one hands, it has the
Cusack,�Igor (2000).
potential to ensure jobs and to valorise local culinary traditions, on the other "African Cuisines: Recipes for
Nation-Building?" Journal of
hand, it can succumb to commercial interests. For instance, Bélisle says that African Cultural Studies 13(2):
in resort hotels in some Caribbean locations, it was difficult to find local 207-225.
Yaw,�Fitzgerald (2005).
food, while ingredients as well as staff, were brought from abroad to satisfy "Cleaner technologies
international patrons. Yaw states that while the growing interests of tourists for sustainable tourism:
Caribbean case studies".
for local food tradition is changing this approach, there is a growing interest Journal of Cleaner Production
for sustainable tourism, which intrinsically requires a larger involvement of 13(2): 117-134.

the local populations and the consumption of local food.

Further readings
3.3. The History of terroir
Hannerz,�Ulf (1987). "The
World in Creolization". Africa
The interest in wine and food, and especially in culinary traditions, local 57(4): 546-559.
products and artisanal delicacies is reaching new heights in Western Europe, Hannerz,�Ulf (1990).
"Cosmopolitans and Locals
Japan and more recently in the US. Other countries are trailing right behind, in World Culture". Theory,
Culture, and Society 7:
like Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica, where limited but growing upper classes
237-251.
with disposable incomes have recently shown shifting sensitivity about the
cultural relevance of food traditions. In developing countries, until a few
years ago, many local and traditional ingredients and dishes would have been
considered embarrassing and uncouth, being uncomfortably close to the rural
realities and the ethnic groups that had often been at the margin of national
projects.

This global trend, quite visible in supermarkets, restaurants, but also green
markets, is also promoted and exploited by media, marketers and politicians.
These transformations in the consumer perceptions are also having an impact
on production and distributions. The sectors of trade dedicated to specialty
products are acquiring increased relevance, with clear efforts to breakdown
© FUOC • PID_00168260 45 The Food of History

bulk commodities into smaller categories of more expensive foodstuffs. A

central concept in the development and the success of these products is
terroir, according to which agricultural products are supposed to acquire
their specific qualities from unique interactions between climate, geographic
characteristics, earth composition and the presence of communities with their
historical interactions with the physical environment. Sometimes experts
affirm that the actual taste of certain ingredients is a direct consequence of the
territory where they were produced, especially in the case of cheese, whose
flavour depends also on the grass the cows have grazed, and grapes, which can
absorb certain mineral elements from the land.

Historian Rachel Laudan points out how the concept acquired relevance in Bibliographical
the French wine industry after the phylloxera, a pest of grapevines, almost reference

destroyed the European vineyards in the second half of the 19th century. It Laudan,�Rachel (2004).
was necessary to import plants from the Americas, which were resistant to the "Slow Food: The French
Terroir Strategy, and Culinary
disease, and graft the autochthonous varieties on them to ensure the survival Modernism: An Essay
Review". Food, Culture &
of the European wine industry. At that point, the uniqueness of French wines Society 7(2): 133-144.
could not be attributed any longer solely to the quality of the grapes, since
they grew out of imported roots. Attention turned then to the territory itself,
promoting the concept of terroir.

At this time, Western European countries were bringing to completion Bibliographical

their national projects under the guidance of a bourgeoisie that had reference

built its economic and political power on industry, production, trade and Phillips,�Rod (2002). A Short
international expansion. The ideologies behind this growth were, on one History of Wine. New York:
Ecco.
side, the belief in scientific progress as positive and inevitable, and on the
other, faith in the civilising mission of the white man, identified as the
Western male bourgeois. It is precisely in 1855, on the occasion of an
international event, the Exposition Universelle on the Champs de Mars, that
the former French president and presently Emperor Napoleon III (recently
restored by referendum on 2 December 1852) requested a classification system
of the Bordeaux wines presented at the event. The 1855 Classement ratified
a classification of properties informally used among traders that had already
become public in 1816 with the publication of André Jullien's Topography and
had reached some form of consensus in 1846 with Charles Cocks and Michel
Féret's Bordeaux, its Wines and the Claret Country, in English. However, the 1855
classification of the 60 wine makers (or châteaux) in the Bordeaux region in 5
crus was not only on their wine quality but also on the prices they commended
on the British market, the most important at the time for French producers.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 46 The Food of History

Although the French government first attempted a formal system for the Bibliographical
definition of appellation d'origine in 1919, the Controlled Appellation of Origin reference

(AOC, Appélation d'Origine Controlée) was officially established in the 1930s Guy,�Kolleen (2003). When
and the National Institute for the Appellations of Origin (INAO), the body Champagne Became French:
Wine and the Making of a
in charge with regulating the appellations, was established only in 1935. The National Identity. Baltimore:
first AOC was "Côtes du Rhône", approved in 1937, for the Rhône wine region. Johns Hopkins University
Press.
According to the new system, each wine-producing area was entitled to create
rules to discipline its viticulture, within general guidelines given by the central
authorities. Wine makers had to meet specific requirements in order to receive
the coveted denomination, which was perceived as a sign of higher quality
and had become, since the beginning, a very effective marketing device.
Regulations were enforced defining the grape varieties that could be used, their
proportion in the mix, the aging methods and so on. The new legal framework
allowed producers to connect their products with terroir and traditions in the
mind of their consumers, thus building a reputation as a unique commodity.

The system paid off, with consumers ready to pay more for wines that Bibliographical
had received some sort of recognition from the state and a form of quality reference

guarantee. As mentioned by Atkins, Lummel and Oddy, the concepts of Atkins�J.�Peter,�Peter

terroir and AOC were particularly important at a time when consumers, Lummel,�Derek�J.�Oddy
(eds.) (2007). Food and the
increasingly urban, were removed from the production of food and became City in Europe since 1800.
victims of frequent frauds. The necessity of food safety was translated into Aldershot: Ashgate.

a system based not on the direct and personal connection with producers,
distributors, and vendors, but rather on the reassuring and modern anonymity
of science, technology and the law. While favouring change and progress,
urban consumers felt the need to be reassured about their ties with the rural
world, whose customs and timeless traditions constituted important elements
of the cultural heritage of a nation.

Other countries followed the French example, adopting the concept of terroir Bibliographical
and eventually creating the system of geographical indications that is the references

object of another course in this programme. For instance, according to Bassett, Bassett,�Thomas�J.,
Blanc-Pamard and Boutrais, from the 1990s in West Africa, some village Chantal�Blanc-Pamard
and�Jean�Boutrais (2007).
land-management initiatives highlighted the diversity of each area with its "Constructing locality: The
agricultural tradition and its specific crops. Parasecoli says that in Morocco, Terroir Approach in West
Africa". Africa 77(1): 104-129.
the production of argan oil has recently been covered by a geographical Cafferada,�Julio�Paz�and
indication, following the adoption of legislation on the matter. As mentioned Carlos�Pomareda (2009).
Indicaciones geográficas y
by Cafferada and Pomareda, various countries in Central America are also denominaciones de origen en
Centroamérica: situación y
examining the economic and social advantages of embracing the geographical
perspectivas. Geneva: ICTSD.
indication system. Parasecoli,�Fabio (2010).
"The Gender of Geographical
Indications: Women,
3.4. Fusion, nouvelle cuisine and other trends Place, and the Marketing
of Identities". Cultural
Studies/Critical Methodologies
While terroir has become a central concept to understand consumption in 10:5 (forthcoming).

post-industrial cultures, at the same time different trends point to other

dynamics that highlight the modernity and creativity of culinary cultures in
© FUOC • PID_00168260 47 The Food of History

ways that would seem to transcend or even ignore the relevance of place. This
section will analyse these trends from the historical point of view, trying to
identify their origin, their processes of development and their cultural impact.

Since the late 1960s, a new generation of French chefs, typically owners of
their restaurants, often small and located in the province, began to question
the approach of classical haute cuisine. Among the first were Fernand Point
at the Pyramide in Vienne, Michel Guerard in the Landes, Paul Bocuse in
Collonges and Jean and Pierre Troisgros in Roanne. The fact that they were
also owners of their restaurants allowed these chefs to focus on their technical
skills and creativity, each trying to find a way to affirm their own uniqueness
and gain visibility on the national food scene. The kitchen took over the front
of the house. Chefs took to preparing food portions in the kitchen, with great
attention to presentation. Moreover, the dishes were often brought to the
table covered with metal bells to keep the heat (service à l'assiette). Despite
their differences, these chefs were classified under the common definition
of nouvelle cuisine, a definition that, as we will see in the following section,
is not new in the history of French cuisine, used since the 18th century
to indicate innovation and critique of the past. Among its fundamental
principles, as highlighted by food critics Gault and Millau, who played an
important role in shaping the new trend, we can mention the refusal of
excessively complicated dishes; decrease of cooking times to keep the flavours
of the ingredients; attention to new technologies; use of fresh and seasonal
ingredients; simplified menus with less dishes; abandonment of marinades
that were too long and strong; elimination of heavy sauces; attention to local
cuisines, which could nonetheless be reinterpreted freely and creatively; and
sensibility toward dietary issues.

These dynamics were not limited to France. In the early eighties, American
chefs exploited the concept of the American melting pot and created a cuisine
that reflected its multiculturality. The informed attitude of American chefs
was a result of a more aggressive interest in other cultures. Cultural boundaries
were crossed, techniques and ingredients were collected and experimented
with to create something new and distinctly American. For example, when
a European-style braised ox tail used wasabi instead of horseradish, the
traditional dish was integrated by an untraditional ingredient and therefore
became a new fusion dish.

Fusion cuisine infused the concept of a melting pot with speed. In contrast
to the slow, inevitable, melding of the melting pot, fusion cuisine happened
quickly and consciously. Fusion cuisine was not the blending of ideas,
techniques and ingredients that is behind the evolution of any lining cuisine,
but it was a deliberate act of creation that integrated elements and ingredients
from different cultures. In Seattle, the Americanisation of foods evolved into a
local cuisine, known as the Pacific Northwest cuisine. Chefs in the northwest
incorporated ideas from Europe with influences from their neighbours around
the Pacific Rim and applied them to local produce, thus creating a cuisine
© FUOC • PID_00168260 48 The Food of History

particular to their region. The northwest cuisine utilised the abundance of

local produce such as morels, mussels, crabs, salmon, berries, apples, lamb,
pears and lettuce and featured them at the peak of their growing season. The
creators of this cuisine were all young Seattle chefs who embraced the concept
of fusion cuisine as a quick integration of cultures that was highly stylised.

The flavours of Asia were especially appealing to a variety of people because

it was viewed as a healthful alternative. Some qualities of Asian food fit
neatly into the health obsessed atmosphere of the nineties. A variety of Asian
cooking methods such as steaming, blanching and lightly stir-frying foods
were adopted as low calorie preparations. Some elements of certain Asian
cuisines used small amounts of animal protein and emphasised vegetables and
tofu, therefore adhering to the contemporary consensus of a "healthier" diet.
This reduction of protein and the absence of heavy fats also made the Asian
diet low in cholesterol. In addition to these health benefits, the cuisines of
Asia were highly spiced. Thus, one could eat healthful meals that were full
of flavour.

As Asian flavours became more accessible in restaurants, home cooks became

increasingly interested in re-creating these dishes at home. This interest in
Asian foods created a consumer demand for Asian products. In reaction to this
trend, retailers increased the availability of Asian products and spices. Besides
the accessibility of Asian ingredients, Asian foods were appealing to the home
cook because of their rapid preparation methods, such as stir-frying. Thus,
Asian foods were viewed as a convenience food for the busy working person.

The transformation of high-end cuisine and its influence of home cooking in

post-industrial society continue, amplified by media that are always looking
for news. The last trend that has received worldwide attention is the so-called
molecular gastronomy, which creates new dishes and techniques by applying
chemistry, physics and technology to cooking methods.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 49 The Food of History

4. Methods, signs and ideas

4.1. The transfer of knowledge

Food constitutes a vast repository of practices, values, knowledge, techniques,

methods and information. In a previous section, we have already seen how
eating and ingestion have been regulated by religious principles and by
notions about the body and nutrition that constituted a scientific tradition
and that was codified in written texts. We have then focused on the
functions food plays in reinforcing or questioning social dynamics and
its role in determining individual and collective identities, with important
consequences on the fields of economics and politics. In this section, we
will examine how the recipes, dishes and traditions we have previously
discussed in their cultural, social and political aspects have been codified and
transmitted throughout history. This section will focus mostly on western
countries due to greater abundance of bibliographic material in English.
However, we need to keep in mind that other civilisations have long traditions
of culinary transmission and written recipes.

4.1.1. Recipes and traditions

In western patriarchal societies, until a few decades ago, women –especially

in lower social strata where they could not count on help– were in charge of
transmitting their knowledge and experiences in all culinary matters to the
women of the following generations. Especially in rural environments, there
was no interest for new recipes; women's main task was frequently limited to
making the best out of the limited resources available. Before the processes of
urbanisation that invested Western Europe and the USA starting from the 19th
century, food and dishes were connected with the flow of time and the cycle of
life: through them, communities were able to participate and to mark changes
in the seasons, the succession of crops, the main moments in a liturgical year
or the various phases in a person's life. These ceremonies and customs played
a very important role in the construction of the identity of both individuals
and societies.

In the domestic realm, recipes and techniques were mostly transmitted orally Bibliographical
and by practical example. In many cultures, not learning to read or write reference

does not constitute a barrier to social engagement, due to the prevalence Shapiro,�Laura (2001).
of oral traditions and languages. In Western Europe, instead, where reading Perfection Salad: Women and
Cooking at the Turn of the
and writing defined class and cultural capital, the direct diffusion of skills, Century. New York: Modern
values and practices through contact and shared work was not a choice for Library.

many women, who until a few decades ago were not taught to read and write.
An exception was often constituted by upper-class women who, at any rate,
© FUOC • PID_00168260 50 The Food of History

were unlikely to be directly involved in the kitchen work unless they were
supposed to give orders. Young girls were asked to help their mothers with the
kitchen chores, starting from the easiest and least dangerous ones, and going
onto more complex tasks. Not only culinary relevant know-how, techniques,
behaviours and values were transmitted, but also the inherited distinction
of roles that sustained the patriarchal society was confirmed. Women were
supposed to be able to prepare and cook food by the time they were ready
for marriage. A woman with scarce culinary abilities was pitied and frowned
upon. Even when women learnt how to read and write, traditional dishes
and procedures were mostly transmitted orally, also because there were no
quantities, no weights, no measurements: everything was prepared following
the cook's eyes, nose, hands and taste. Because these practices were part of
the feminine experience, they were often considered as cultural irrelevant and
so we have few documents on the subjects. Archaeology, iconography and
th
ethnohistory help us understand these dynamics. Only at the end of the 19
century, starting in the USA but quickly spreading all over the world, also
thanks to direct intervention of national governments, the home economics
movement introduced a scientific approach to cooking that paralleled the
success of packing, sanitation, convenience and novelty in the industrial
production of food. Recipes had to be nutritionally sound, efficient in terms
of time and inputs, easily replicable and framed into a communication form
that included both precisely measured ingredients and detailed procedures.

Cookbooks have been among the most important methods of transmission Bibliographical
of culinary knowledge through history. Already in antiquity, as mentioned references

by Apicius, we have examples of texts aiming at explaining recipes in Apicius (1977). Cookery and
terms of ingredients and methods, such as the Latin collection known as Dining in Imperial Rome.
Trans. Joseph Dommers
De re coquinaria, attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius, who lived under the Vehling. New York: Dover.
Roman emperor Trajan (1st century AD), but probably compiled between Zaouali,�Lilia (2007).
Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic
the 2nd and 4th century. Cookbooks flourished again in the Mediterranean World. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
during the expansion of the Muslim Empire. Dining constituted a culturally
relevant aspect for the Muslim elites, and great attention was paid to cooking.
According to Zaouali, for this reason, professional chefs, especially in the
courts, organised and transmitted their knowledge in written texts that could
travel to every corner of the empire.

In Western Europe, cookbooks started reappearing at the end of the Middle

Ages with the rebirth of urban life and the development of urban elites, both
noble and bourgeois. The first cookbooks, diffused both as parchment scrolls
and bound books, listed recipes either by ingredient (vegetables, meat and so
on) or by class of dishes. These early cookbooks were written either in Latin
or in the various languages derived from it. The former were clearly meant
for well-educated readers, probably the lords who could use them to choose
dishes and give orders to their domestic staff. One of the first known examples,
th
Liber de Coquina (The kitchen book) dates to the end of the 13 century,
probably written in the area of Naples. However, there also existed books in
© FUOC • PID_00168260 51 The Food of History

vulgar for the upper bourgeoisie, such as the XII gentili homini giotissimi (The
12 very glutton noble men), which included recipes that could be made at
home. Cooks would mostly use the books in vulgar: recipes would include
practical directions about ingredients, cost, preparation time or necessary
tools. Nevertheless, these cooks were at least able to read, which indicates
their upward status. In France, Le Viandier, generally attributed to Guillaume
Tirel known as Taillevent, probably written between 1373 and 1380 for King
Charles VI, was largely a collection of recipes gathered from existing sources
and Le Ménagier de Paris, composed between 1392 and 1394, was written by
a bourgeois of Paris for his fifteen year old bride as a guide to her duties in
the kitchen. Around 1390, The Forme of Cury was compiled by the chefs of the
court of Richard II of England containing recipes of Italian and French courts.

Probably the most famous chef in the early Renaissance was Mastro Martino, Bibliographical
whose Liber de arte coquinaria (Book on the art of cooking, ca. 1465) became reference

a classic. Born in what today is Italian speaking Switzerland, in the middle Ballerini,�Luigi (2005).
of the 15th century, he worked in Milan as the cook of the lords of the city, The Art of Cooking: The First
Modern Cookery Book. Jeremy
the Sforza family, and then in Rome, a position that put him in contact Parzen, trans. Berkeley:
University of California
with very stimulating cultural milieus. Here he met another important writer, Press.
Bartolomeo Sacchi, also known as Platina, a food connoisseur and a librarian
at the Vatican. In his 1474 De honesta voluptate et valetudine (Honest pleasure
and health), Platina, trained in the study of classic literature, stressed the
cultural aspects of dishes and products, giving cuisine a new status. Later, with
the diffusion of printing, cookbooks proliferated all over Europe.

Until the mid 17th century, most cookbooks lacked originality, reflecting the
common cooking style that was prevalent in European courts, very much
influenced by the mediaeval and Renaissance traditions. The first work to
show real innovation was Le Cuisinier François by Pierre La Varenne, published
in 1651, a volume that focused on technical aspects ignoring diet and
nutrition, which hitherto had occupied an important place in the concerns
of the authors of culinary treatises.

Certain elements found in the book of La Varenne would become fundamental

in the evolution of haute cuisine that we discussed in a previous section. In
1733 The Modern Cook was published first in English then in French by Vincent
la Chapelle. Although many recipes are taken from previous texts, the author
introduces some innovations that prove to be lasting, including the bouquet
garni, the little bunch of mixed herbs that is often added to stocks to add
flavour.

For the first time, towards the middle of the 18th century, the idea of nouvelle
cuisine, in the sense of a modern sense clearly perceived as different from
the traditions of the past, became popular. This concept, which has been
used cyclically in the debates within French cuisine –with the last example
being the 1970's nouvelle cuisine– first appeared in Les Dons de Comus (1739)
© FUOC • PID_00168260 52 The Food of History

by François Marin and in the Nouveau Traité de la Cuisine written by Menon

in 1739, who became famous with the Cuisinière bourgeoise (1746), a book
that shows the penetration of the new style, although simplified, also in
the bourgeois milieus. The introduction to Marin's book, attributed to the
Jesuits Brumoy Pierre and Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant, supported the
superiority of nouvelle cuisine compared to that of the past, causing reactions
summarised in a pamphlet, Lettre d'un Patissier Anglois, attributed to Count
Desalleurs, where proponents of nouvelle cuisine were satirised as pretentious
and really not very original.

A thorough reorganisation of French cuisine was operated by Antonin

Carême. Born in 1784 into a poor family, he was abandoned as a child,
which forced him to find work in a bakery. As a pastry chef, he entered the
service of Prince Talleyrand, where he remained for 12 years. This position
enabled him to acquire international fame, leading him to organise banquets
for Alexander I of Russia, the Prince of Wales and, later on, King Louis
XVIII and Napoleon. But eventually he settled with the Rothschilds, who for
seven years gave him carte blanche to express his creativity. Self-taught and
addicted to writing, Carême published many volumes, drawing ideas for his
dishes from architecture and archeology. Among his works we can mention
Le Maître d'Hôtel Parisien (1822), Le Cuisinier Parisien (1828), and L'art de la
cuisine française au XIX siècle (1833), his first true systematic treatise. The
innovations introduced by Carême and his followers were systematised by
Auguste Escoffier, whose work Guide Culinaire (1903) remains a cornerstone in
the training of chefs in French haute cuisine.

At the same time, the 19th century saw the diffusion of cookbooks geared
towards home cooks, which despite the influence of haute cuisine very often
included local and popular recipes, allowing housewives to maintain a sense
of respectability and refinement without being excessively complicated or
expensive. Furthermore, with the development of nation states, cookbooks
started organising recipes, techniques and ingredients around the concept
of the national cuisine as an expression of the culture and the tradition
of a specific people. In this period, we also see the diffusion of magazines
that fell under two basic categories: for the industry and professional chefs
and for housewives. If during World Wars I and II cookbooks reflected the
penuries of the time, teaching housewives how to be frugal without giving up
their expectations as good home makers with the economic growth and the
urbanisation following the end of the wars and with more and more women
joining the workforce, cookbooks emerged as a tool to get acquainted with
recipes and techniques that were not transmitted any longer in the family or
with traditions that otherwise risked to be lost.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 53 The Food of History

4.1.2. The cooks

Despite the popularity of cookbooks authored by chefs and their diffusion Bibliographical
since the Middle Ages, chefs and cooks remained invisible. However, it is reference

plausible that many of the innovations in terms of ingredient use, techniques Symons,�Michael (2004). A
and kitchen work originated precisely among those occupied with the manual History of Cooks and Cooking.
Champaign: University of
work of preparing food. Illinois Press.

During the Italian Renaissance, labourers in the noble and courtly kitchens
were classified according to their specific functions. Besides cooks proper,
the bottigliere (bottler) was in charge of choosing, buying and pairing wines
with the various dishes, while a coppiere (cup bearer) would serve them. The
trincianti (cutters) were in charge of cutting meat in front of the guest with
spectacular moves, usually directly from the spit, under the control the scalchi,
sort of maître d'hôtel who would actually plan the sequence of the meal and
every single dish. Scalchi, usually more educated than the cooks and in charge
of interfacing between the kitchen and the desires of their employers, were
often the authors of the cookbooks that dominated in the period.

The organisation of high-end kitchens remained the same until the end of
19th century. We will focus mostly on the French kitchen, because we have
more available information and because of the influence that French cuisine
had all over the world until the end of the 20th century. Until the 19th
century, the cook's training usually began between thirteen and sixteen years
of age, under the guidance of an instructor in a kitchen and often without
pay. Once they became adults, cooks were considered as simple labour, so
much so they were called ouvrier (factory worker) and they were subject
to high mobility, especially in larger restaurants, with risky jobs, without
unemployment benefits and health care. The kitchens were also unhealthy
and poorly ventilated. Moreover, the cooks were not visible but relegated to
the kitchen: all contacts with the public were handled by the maître d'hôtel or
directly by the owner. To help each other, the cooks gave rise to spontaneous
associations, at times secret, called compagnonnages. To remedy this situation,
professional associations were formed; the first was the Société des Mutualite
Cuisiniers de Paris, founded in 1840. In 1884, the French state recognised the
unions and, in 1885, the Chambre Syndicale des Cuisiners, which aimed at
obtaining better working conditions for cooks of every level, was founded.

Since the Renaissance, the kitchens were organised into independent sections, Bibliographical
each under a chef in charge of certain dishes and courses, with the result reference

that the same sauce could be produced in various sections, each for their own Trubek,�Amy (2000).
purposes, with frequent duplications that caused waste of time and money. Haute Cuisine: how the
French Invented the Culinary
This situation was changed by August Escoffier, who at the turn of the 20th Profession. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania
century created the so-called brigade de cuisine; the kitchens are structured into Press.
five parts assigned to as many chefs: garde-manger (supplies and cold plates),
entremettier (vegetables, soups, eggs), rôtisseur (roasting, grilling, frying), saucier
© FUOC • PID_00168260 54 The Food of History

(sauces), and patissier (confectionery and pastry). This new organisation

allowed a more efficient division of labour, shortening the time needed
to prepare dishes. The increasing specialisation and professionalisation of
the cooks took place at the very time in history when many traditional
guilds were seeing their power attacked by the new labour relations and the
products introduced with industrialisation. Somehow it is a transposition of
the gastronomic field processes adopted in industrial production.

The new model of kitchen organisation was adopted all over the world, also
because when cooking schools were finally founded, they adopted French
cuisine as their model in terms of dishes, techniques and logistics. Kitchen
employment as a respectable and even prestigious professional choice is a very
recent development, fuelled by the growing relevance of celebrity chefs in
the media and increasing numbers of chefs who are also restaurant owners.
However, women as career professional chefs are still relatively rare.

4.2. Gastronomy and the standards of taste

Beside the texts dedicated to cooking and recipes, those consecrated to diet
and health and those focused on manners since antiquity, we can identify
a genre of works that concentrate rather on taste and connoisseurship,
discussing the merits of different kinds of cuisines, the value of ingredients
and even the skills of chefs from the point of view of the final consumer.

One of the first texts of this kind is surely the dialogue titled Deipnosophistai
(The philosophers at dinner) by the Greek-Egyptian Athenaeus, in Roman
Imperial times, which in turn attributed the first gastronomy text, the
humorous didactic poem Hedypatheia (The life of luxury) to the Sicilian
Archestratus, who lived in Gela, Southern Sicily, around the time of Alexander
the Great's conquests.

The very word gastronomy was made popular in 1801 by Joseph Berchoux Bibliographical
(1765-1839), who titled one of his poems La Gastronomie, ou l'homme des references

champs à table (Gastronomy, or the man from the fields at the table). The term Parkhurst�Ferguson,
was successful and was soon used to describe the art of good eating, a leisure Priscilla (2004). Accounting
for Taste: The Triumph of
activity about which the emerging middle class seemed to be passionate. It is French Cuisine. Chicago:
no coincidence that food criticism and food writing as literary genres began University of Chicago Press.
Pitte,�Jean-Robert (2002).
just after the French Revolution. With the growth of the bourgeois public French Gastronomy: The
able to attend high-quality shops and restaurants, especially in cities, where History and Geography of a
Passion. New York: Columbia
such establishments multiplied, an attitude of sophistication and careful University Press.
research and codification not only of customs and manners, but also of
taste itself, became common. Some proclaimed themselves and then were
recognised as experts and judges, exerting an influence on the transformation
of the bourgeois public culinary sensibility. Although they referred in part to
the taste and the cooking styles previously developed by the upper classes,
these new critics played a democratising function, as they spread knowledge
previously limited to the elite in the broader population. Like the dandies
© FUOC • PID_00168260 55 The Food of History

in England in regard to fashion and clothing, with their attitudes at times

eccentric and extreme, the new French restaurant critics established new
rules and parameters in a historical moment when old social structures were
undermined by political and economic changes.

Grimod de la Reynière (1758-1838) is considered the founder of food criticism.

From 1803 to 1812, he published the Almanach des gourmands, which reported
the views expressed by a committee (called Jury des dégustateurs) on dishes
and delicacies offered by caterers, restaurants, delis and pastry chefs of Paris.
The concept of impartial and objective critic came only later: in fact, de la
Reynière and his colleagues expected to be rewarded for positive reviews. The
Almanac also contained Parisian itineraries that signalled the most interesting
gastronomic places.

One of the most important works in gastronomic literature is undoubtedly the Bibliographical
Physiologie du Goût (1826) by Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826). This reference

text, published a few months before the author's death, adopted a rational, Schehr,�Lawrence�and�Allen
scientific and philosophical approach to the pleasures of the table. A series Weiss (2001). French Food:
On the Page, on the Table, and
of 10 famous aphorisms was followed by 148 "gastronomic meditations" in French Culture. New York:
that combine physiological and nutritional knowledge of the time to events Routledge.

and reflections of various kinds. The book ended with an idiosyncratic and
speculative "Philosophical history of cuisine", which symbolised the new
attitude toward food. With Brillat-Savarin gastronomy becomes a proper
literary genre, different from food criticism.

Also in France, Alexandre Dumas authored the Grand dictionnaire de la cuisine

(1873). The famous writer, a well-known gourmet and bon vivant, collected
comments, recipes and stories that he arranged alphabetically in brilliant
and often humorous style. France was also the place of origin of another
food-related class of texts: the gastronomic tourist guides. Right before War
World I, the French Touring Club published La géographie des gourmets au pays
de France (French Gourmet Geography) which became the model for similar
guidebooks in other parts of the world and inspired books about local and
regional cuisines. The increasing use of cars to organise leisure trips influenced
this kind of texts. In 1920, the tyre manufacturer Michelin started adding
restaurant addresses to its list of tyre and body shops in France. In 1926, a star
was introduced to signal the best restaurants in each province and the 1931
edition of the guidebook developed the three stars system, extended also to
restaurants in Paris. Since Michelin, many guidebooks have been published all
over the world. Some adopted the same system, where teams of experts give
points; others, like the American Zagat, preferred to convey the evaluations
sent by normal restaurant-goers. For good and bad, restaurant guides have
become a fixture in the world of food.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 56 The Food of History

4.3. Food in the arts

We cannot end this module on food history without pointing out the
relevance of food and eating in the arts. Besides the genres we have already
examined, food has played important roles also in literature. It would take a
whole course just to follow the development of the literary use of food and
eating, so we'll limit ourselves to examine some cases that exemplify recurrent
elements.

Already in Homer, food is present to describe warrior celebrations and the Bibliographical
sacrifices to the gods in the Mediterranean. In the texts of Greek historians, reference

food was often used as part of the description of foreign populations, to Wilkins,�John (2000). The
underline the differences with the civilised Hellenic cities. Philosophers talked Boastful Chef: The Discourse of
Chef in Ancient Greek Comedy.
about it more in terms of ethics and politics, since food sharing was important Oxford: Oxford University
in the ideological negotiations between the Greek elites and the lower classes. Press.

Food, which appeared in stories and fables, for instance in the animal-themed
stories by Aesop, was also featured prominently in comedy, especially in
connection with the material aspects of the body life, often in terms of social
critique and to poke fun at the local customs and elites.

The same comical approach to food was also present in Latin comedy, but
also in the work of the satirical poet Catullus. In the Roman world, frugality
was considered a virtue, even if the generosity of a host to his guests was
appreciated. However, with the Republic, the expansion in the Mediterranean
and the beginning of the empire, the quality and quantity of consumption
increases considerably. Nevertheless, moral and political corruption was often
portrayed in terms of food through gluttony and extreme luxury. There was a
contradiction between the admiration for frugality and actual behaviours. The
poet Horace addressed this issue in the second book of Satires with the story
of country mouse and city mouse, which opposed virtuous diet in rural areas
to opulent urban ostentation. Obviously, in his description of the diet of the
countryside, Horace referred to the lifestyle of aristocratic country houses, not
that of labourers. The grand and extreme banquets common among the upper
classes, and exotic foods featured at dinner parties in some of the wealthier
st
Roman homes were captured by the 1 century AD writer Petronius Arbiter
in his novel Satyricon, and more specifically in his description of the feast
organised by the former slave Trimalchio. In Roman times, we also see the
development of technical texts focusing on food production and agriculture,
such as De re rustica by Varro, the Natural history by Plinius, and De agricultura
by Columella; in these texts, the information was often framed within a
critique of the excesses of the modern times.

The life of of rural world is also very visible in the first literary text in Chinese
literature, the collection of ancient poems known as Shi Jing (Book of odes),
part of which might have been written at the turn of the first millennium BC.
However, these texts are the reflection of popular songs, so they often refer
to the actual life on the fields and to rural traditions, even if filtered through
© FUOC • PID_00168260 57 The Food of History

the culture of the elite. This collection was considered one of the five classical
texts in the philosophical school that started from the reflection of Kungzi (or
Confucius) in the turn of the 5th century BC. Food appears also in some of the
Analects (Lun Yu), the aphoristic fragments of his teachings compiled by his
disciples many years after his death. Kungzi used food to describe the morals
and the customs of the ethical man, who avoids stuffing himself, who does
not desire refined foods and who provides for his parents.

On the other hand, alcohol was featured prominently in Chinese poetry since Bibliographical
the Shi Jing. In the following centuries, drinking will become very relevant reference

as one of the behaviours embraced by the poet who distances himself from Lee,�Julia (1986). "Alcohol in
society and honours, and lives in isolation and meditation in the countryside. Chinese Poems: References
to Drunkenness, Flushing,
Even getting drunk in company of friends is represented in poetry. We have and Drinking". Contemporary
direct references to drunkenness in lines from the work of some of the most Drug Problems 13: 303-338.

famous poets from the Tang dynasty, such as Du Fu ("A Hundred years I can
pass with ease if I can only keep drunk") and Li Bo ("Drunk for months at end,
in our eyes, no king, no Lord").

Drinking and eating in excess became the themes of a whole genre of literature
that developed in the European Middle Ages and turned very popular in the
Renaissance, which features fantasies about food abundance and imaginary
places where eating has no limits, like in the Land of Cockaigne, the fantasy
country described in many piece of folk traditions where cheese rains from
the sky over slopes of pasta of rice, where sausages roll down towards whoever
might feel like eating. These texts appear connected with the tradition of
Carnival, the time of the year before Lent where the lower classes could let
go, enjoy food and wine, and even poke fun at the elites. A masterpiece that
is somehow connected with this genre is the 16th century novel The Life of
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais, the story of two giants with an
enormous appetite.

Food remained very visible in 19th century novels, which often tried to Bibliographical
reference
represent characters and environments in a realistic fashion. In the literary
narratives, scenes involving production, cooking and eating were used with Biasin,�Gian�Paolo (1993).
different goals: they might provide some information about the characters or The Flavors of Modernity: Food
and the Novel. Princeton:
describe situations, places or points in time, often as part of the background Princeton University Press.
for the main action. Sometimes discussions at the table allow characters to
interact and push the storyline forward, constituting at times crucial nodes
where something important for the development of the plot happens.

In the case of the novels of the French author Emile Zola, such as Le ventre de
Paris (1873) and L'assommoir (1877), food is also used to describe the moral
and material poverty of the lower classes and the insensitivity and egoism of
© FUOC • PID_00168260 58 The Food of History

the upper ones in France at this time. Food used to create a literary exposé is
also exemplified in Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle (1906), which denounced
the corruption and danger of the American meatpacking industry.

As Malaguzzi (2008) points out, food appears prominently also in the Bibliographical
visual arts. Since antiquity, scenes describing production, preparation and reference

consumption are common in palaces and tombs. The burial chambers of the Malaguzzi,�Silvia (2008).
Egyptians, for instance, offered representations of hunting, fishing, wine and Food and Feasting in Art. Los
Angeles: The J. Paul Getty
bread making and other rural activities, probably to metaphorically provide Museum.
sustenance to the deceased, but also to underline their wealth and status.
The Greeks painted food related scenes on their vases, dishes and drinking
vessels, frequently as part of mythological stories with symbolic overtones.
The Etruscans in Italy expressed their love for good eating and banqueting in
tombs and sarcophagi, which often are realistic portraits of couples reclining
together during a meal. The Roman elite decorated the walls of their homes,
especially the rooms where meals and celebrations took place, with paintings
of banquets and food; at times, the mosaics on the floors of those rooms also
represented food or food-related themes.

Food played a crucial role in Christian iconography: the fish and the lamb, for
instance, are metaphors for Christ himself; bread and wine are the symbol of
communion; oil represents sanctity. The Last Supper became a very prevalent
scene in painting, which allows us to get some ideas about how the elites ate at
the time when the paintings were produced, since the artists tended to set the
sacred event in their contemporary environment in terms of places, manners,
vessels and food.

Food-related religious scenes, also including the wedding at Cana and, less
frequently, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, became frequent in
the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Representation of food
production and agricultural activities often appeared in the background of the
religious scenes and as illustrations of books (for example, the famous Book
of Hours of the Duke of Berry from 1405). Food gave a sense of realism to the
artistic work and this aspect became more relevant as time went by. However,
food also had moral overtones, like in the still life genre that became popular
in the 17th century: especially in the Dutch culture, fruits, game and other
ingredients were often symbols for the impermanence of material things,
while the value and refinement of other objects represented, such as vessels
and containers, on the other hand, was meant to convey the status of the
artist's client.
© FUOC • PID_00168260 59 The Food of History

In the 19th century, paralleling the trend in literature, painting also got its Further reading
inspiration from everyday life and food was featured in many compositions.
Richlin,�Amy (1988).
As arts moved toward avant-garde, eating, dishes and food-related items "Systems of Food Imagery
did not disappear, but rather acquired different meanings, often ironic, in in Catullus". Classical World
81(5): 355-363.
movements as diverse as surrealism, cubism or Andy Warhol's pop art.

Summary

We started this course on food in history by highlighting the difficulties that lay ahead
of our endeavour. Despite food production, distribution, preparation, consumption and
even disposal play such an important role in our lives as individuals and as members of
different societies, its apparent naturalness and normality turned it into a trivial matter
for many intellectuals, including historians. For centuries, most scholars preferred to
focus on the deeds on famous dead white men, on diplomatic complexities, on the
changes of borders and frontiers, rather than getting involved with the little things of
everyday life. Yet, every white dead man who has ever lead an army knew very well
how important it is to feed the soldiers, which meant training experts in logistic matters
that covered production (or more often appropriation), transportation, preparation and
distribution in mind-boggling quantities and numbers. The defeat of Napoleon at the
beginning of the 19th century by the Russians was caused by the winter and by the lack
of food. Similarly, the downfall of Hitler's war machine were caused again the wide plains
of Russia, where provisioning proved impossible during the harsh winter.

Lack of food stumped more than a revolutionary attempt. For example, when in 1958
Mao Zedong launched the policy of the "Great Leap Forward" aimed at collectivising
agriculture and at using China's growing population to industrialise the country, the
ideological fervour ended up clashing with the harsh realities of one of the worst famines
in the history of humanity, when millions of Chinese died because of insufficient crops
caused by the misguided political attempt.

As a matter of fact, hunger has been one of the most important protagonists in human
history. It is impossible to count how many mass migrations were caused by the lack
of food caused by changes in climate, invasions, wars, draughts or diseases. The blight
that struck Ireland in the middle of the 19th century and destroyed the potato harvest
for years depriving the local population of their sustenance was the immediate cause of
the resettlements of so many Irish in the United States. Famines changed the path of
history and the distribution of the population in whole continents, like in the ones that
followed the diffusion of the plagues known as Black Death in Europe in the 14th century
and then the ones caused by the Hundred Years' War in the 16th century.

The relevance of food is evident not only when it causes havoc and desolation. Changes
connected to agriculture and production are behind many of the great advances of
humanity, starting from the Neolithic revolution. The diffusion of Eastern crops and
technologies operated by the Muslim Empire allowed production of unheard of plants
in many areas of the Mediterranean. The adoption of rice varieties from the southern
kingdom of Champa (in today's southern Vietnam), which permitted multiple harvests
during the year, allowed the Song dynasty to multiply its agricultural production and
create a vibrant culinary culture. The introduction of crops from the Americas into many
marginal areas in Europe, Asia and Africa, which until then had not been exploited for
production, stimulated population growth and, as a consequence, economic and political
transformations.

The examination of fundamental events from the past with the goal of unpacking
their immediate and remote causes, their dynamics, their lines of development and
their solution (or lack thereof) can offer elements of reflection when dealing with
contemporary issues. It is not for antiquary curiosity or to have curious trivia to spice
up a paper or an article that it is necessary to examine the role of food in history. The
goal is to achieve a better understanding of who we are as individuals, as cultures and as
societies in the hope of a more fruitful participation in the present and in the future.