Lay the table! Food and Dining in the Urban Households of Habsburg‘s Temeswar and Banat (original) (raw)
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IANSA 2014.1., 2014
The South Bohemian town of Český Krumlov, a UNESCO world heritage site, the former residence of the noble family of the Rosenbergs, is a unique mirror of the Bohemian Renaissance and Baroque. Extremely rich archives, maintained by both the town and the nobility, were for a long time the only sources providing evidence about the everyday life during the period of the town’s highest prosperity. Thanks to developing post-medieval archaeology and rescue field research conducted in South Bohemia over the last three decades, the original collection of archive documents was substantially enriched by a wide range of archaeological resources – artefacts and ecofacts. The archaeological research at a filled up well at house no. 55 in the area known as Latrán was the subject of interdisciplinary interest from the very beginning. The result of the joint research has become a probe into a burgher household, the rich inventory of which demonstrates that the early modern lifestyle was established in a wide range of both dish-ware (artefacts from glass and pottery) and meals (osteological materials and plant macro remains). The answers to the questions as to what and from what the townspeople ate and drank from on the threshold of modern times reflects the origins of modern consumer society in southern Bohemia.
This article advocates a holistic approach to consumption studies in the urban centers of the Middle Danube region during the Ottoman period (16-17th century) using the example of Iznik Ware from the Belgrade Fortress. Combined results of archaeological and scientific research provide insight into regional consumption patterns, which is important for the understanding of cultural variability across the Ottoman Empire. This work emphasizes the importance of contextualized studies of archaeological ceramics in the development of post-medieval archaeology.
'Man is a Dining Animal': The Archaeology of the English at Table, c.1750-1900
This study investigates the role of gender and, within that, class in changing English dining styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The period c.1750-1900 has been chosen to cover a major period for dining change, as it is during this time that service à la Russe superseded service à la Française as the dominant formal dining style. This change has been much discussed by food historians and sociologists, but the materiality of change has not hitherto been placed within an archaeologically-informed framework. Equally, while the artefacts of dining are among the most frequently recorded finds in domestic contexts in the historical period, archaeologists have rarely considered them in the context of long-term dining development. Drawing on data from country houses, collections, and published material on middle class and elite settings, this thesis investigates the hypothesis that dining change was driven by women, specifically middle class wives; and that dining-related ephemera must therefore be understood in its relationship with women. It also proposes a narrative of stylistic change using historical archaeological paradigms, introducing the concept of a third, clearly identifiable stage between à la Française and à la Russe. After introducing the data sets and giving a background to dining in the historical period, the first part of the study uses table plans and etiquette, together with depictions of dishes, food moulds and experimental archaeology in the form of historic cookery, to demonstrate the way in which the process of change was driven by middle class women. It argues that à la Russe suited gender and class-specific needs and that, far from being emulative, as has hitherto been assumed, the adaption of à la Russe broke with aristocratic habits. It proposes that a transitional stage in dining style should be recognised, and interprets food design and serving style in the light of this intermediate phase. The setting of dining is explored next, with data on dining décor, plates and physical location interpreted to support the conclusions of the previous section. Following this, the impact of change on food preparation will be used to demonstrate that à la Russe was the result of changes in underlying mentalities which also affected household structure and organisation. The ways women used the materiality of food, including cookbooks, to negotiate status will be demonstrated. A final section will broaden the discussion of gender, class and food. Tea has been chosen as a case study for the further testing of the conclusions drawn from the study of dinner for two reasons: firstly it was, from its introduction, immediately associated with women; and, secondly, tea-related artefacts are among the commonest of archaeological finds, but are rarely understood as engendered and active objects in a domestic context.