Focus on the elite tables, following the (luxury) food chain and the networks of the eaters, and study the dramaturgy of commensal micro-politics in order to understand how soft power via feasts and gastronomy, distinction strategies and elite cultures functioned in Europe in the past five centuries (and continue to do so). All this is important in the study of the processes of convergence and divergence as well as trajectories of continuity in eras of rapid change. Actor-network analysis, performance studies and sensitized comparative historical research offer promising tools to demonstrate and explain the relationships between corporeal performances, conviviality and micro-political work, as well as macro-processes outside the black box of elite table culture. The reign of Louis XIV, the Napoleonic era (see Cambacérés, Talleyrand, Carême), or the gastronomy politics in present-day France provide eye-opening examples of yielding and wielding power via tables, discourses and food.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 49-68
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102959
- Authors
This paper introduces the special issue of Food & History, which is the product of a two-day colloquium that was organised in December 2010, aiming at closing a large-scale research project. This investigation questions whether food (and if so, to what extent) serves as a reliable proxy for measuring rough and more subtle social hierarchies. Three themes have been considered, which this paper presents and situates in a broader context: elite cuisine, middle-class shopping for food, and bourgeois eating out.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 3-12
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102957
- Authors
Front Matter („Title Page“, „Editorial Board“, „Copyright Page“, „Table of Contents“)
Content Type Journal ArticleCategory OriginalPages i-viii
Journal Food and HistoryPrint ISSN 1780-3187
Journal Volume Volume 10
Journal Issue Volume 10,…
This article discusses the main arguments of the so-called modernization paradigm in food history, according to which the industrialization and urbanization process would enhance the passage from quantity to quality concerns in individual perceptions a…
India, which has to provide food to a large population of 1.21
billion, faces many issues : an ecological milieu which has been
seriously degraded ; an insufficient yield of agricultural products ;
and the increasing development of food-related diseases. The
Green Revolution, which has promoted chemical inputs and
commercial crops at the expense of the diversity of food products,
is partly responsible for this situation. However, organic and
ecological systems of agriculture, which are relatively similar
in their cultivation methods, but different in perspectives, may
provide solutions to protect the environment and to diversify food
patterns. One solution is to reintroduce millet in cultivation and
consumption. Unappreciated by consumers today, these cereals
thanks to their cultural and nutritional qualities are appropriate
for the development of sustainable agriculture and food.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 239-259
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102701
- Authors
Daniëlle DE VOOGHT (ed.), Royal taste : food, power and status at the
European courts after 1789 (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2011), 246 pag. ISBN
9780754668374 (hbk) ; price : £ 65.00 ; ISBN 9780754694786 (ebk). / Christine OTT, Feinschmecker und Bücherfresser. Esskultur und
literarische Einverleibung als Mythen der Moderne (München, Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 2011), 520 pages. ISBN 9783770551279 ; price : € 59,00. / Richard HOSKING (ed.), Food and Language. Proceedings of the Oxford
Symposium on Food and Cookery 2009 (Totnes, Prospect Book, 2010),
390 pages, 17 illustrations. ISBN 9781903018798 ; price £ 28,50 / € 35,99
/ $ 47,75.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Review
- Pages 309-319
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102851
Back Matter („Upcoming issues“, „Food history – a bibliographic database“, „Submission of articles“)
Content Type Journal ArticleCategory OriginalPages 321-327
Journal Food and HistoryPrint ISSN 1780-3187
Journal Volume Volume 9
Journal I…
The aim of this article is not to sketch out a history of food
practices in Senegal. However, in order to understand today
the construction of a national food identity through food
literature, it seemed necessary to take into account the colonial
context because it still has a tremendous influence on the
representation of food among our contemporary Senegalese
informants. Inventorying a corpus of so-called “Senegalese”
food books both in Senegal and Europe highlights the slipperiness
of identity markers through food according to contexts
and authors. And it questions the criteria for acceptance of
such dishes. The notion of “authenticity”, which is often used
to ensure the legitimacy of a dish, will also be questioned.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 261-305
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102702
- Authors
The Inventory of Swiss Culinary Heritage (2005-2008)
made it possible to advance knowledge in this field in a unique
way. However, most of the questions relating to the maintenance
of this inventory, and further scientific research into
culinary heritage and the socio-economic effects of this project
remain, up to now, without clear answers. This situation
may be explained by a confusion between the inventory as an
object, and the inventory as a project, in a context of heritage
policy that has undergone profound change over three decades.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 173-198
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102698
- Authors
- Erik Thévenod-Mottet
- Carine Cornaz Bays
This contribution aims to examine the influence of political
institutions on typical food products. It provides a
meta-analysis
of the data collected in the Inventory of Swiss
Culinary Heritage. We show that two of those institutions,
political territoriality and sectoral public policies, are likely to
decisively shape such products. Thus, we propose a new extension,
from a neo-institutionalist perspective, for a constructive
analysis of typical food products.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 199-219
- DOI 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.102699
- Authors