Twenty-five Years of Studying un Phénomène Social Total: Food History Writing on Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries (original) (raw)
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In 2007 I published a survey dealing with research about Europe's foodways in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 1 Rather than being interested in the conclusions of this research, I wished to examine how scholars study food history, which offered an opportunity for testing the application and relevance of interdisciplinarity. Luckily, not only historians but also scholars who were not trained as historians investigate foodways of the past. Studying food in the modern era has indeed attracted a large number of disciplines, ranging from anthropology and sociology to communication sciences and geography. I wished to learn whether and how these approaches, methods, and insights inspired historians. My conclusions confi rmed the extraordinarily thriving interest in Europe's past foodways by an ever-growing number of disciplines, the total lack of common ground of these studies, and their hesitant interest in interdisciplinary approaches. In this chapter I want to expand this inquiry by using recent literature and asking additional questions. I am, fi rst and foremost, interested in the way historians have dealt with the overwhelming attention from other disciplines since the early 2000s. Would they welcome it and explore new themes, methods, and insights, or resist and ignore the loud knock on their door? Also, I consider the question of how amateur historians (i.e., nontrained historians as well as nonacademics) set off with historical questions and debates, apply historical concepts, search for historical sources, and refer to adequate historical literature. This chapter has three sections: the fi rst two form a chronological survey with the year 2005 as a caesura (in order not to replicate my 2007 survey and to emphasize recent developments), while the third section is a lengthy conclusion. Separate Rooms in a Cozy Hut (1960s–1980s) and Accessible Rooms in a Welcoming House (1990s–2005) Broadly speaking, two intellectual loci in food studies existed between 1900 and 1960: that of economic history and that of folklore. 2 The two neglected each other. Economic historians dealt with the food supply, hunger, and prices, while folklorists studied
In projects developed in the area of food history and in the different symposia organised by ICREFH in the past 30 years, the history of the senses has remained in the background. However, the senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing, and taste are appealed to when we deal with the production of foods for consumption. The use of the senses, which is quotidian, but equally ephemeral, seems to be outside of the written scholarship produced by historians. The creation, by elites, of taste, of fashion, of " bon gout " , are familiar areas of discussion today. This symposium, which will be presented for the 30th anniversary of ICREFH, proposes moving forward in our analysis of this area by drawing on recent research. Each sense can be a separate topic of historical research. However, separating each sense activated by food presents a somewhat impoverished image. In fact, all the senses are at work when we are eating. Thus, let us take them as a whole so as to seize a " balance of the senses " (Corbin), a rapport among them which can appear in the form of a hierarchy or of a balance. This ensemble is produced, it grows, it transforms, and then it sometimes disappears. Actually, the enhancement of taste indicates a constructed and deliberate hierarchical organization. In the same way, a crunch activates our sense of hearing initially, with the other senses staying in the background. All of this remains to be explored in order to evaluate and historicise the place accorded to the senses vis-à-vis food by 19th and 20th century society. We shall approach the history of food and the senses by means of an event, a product, a particular source (a family journal, a cookery book...), prohibitions, speeches… On the basis of already familiar archives or by utilising lesser known sources is it possible to generate new avenues of research or to reinterpret previous research? Three main themes have been adopted, but the organizing committee is open to other proposals: 1 – An analysis of the hierarchy of the senses in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their transformations: these can be produced in various ways: • By vocabulary: In this time period how was specific vocabulary constructed (e.g., for wine), how were words for food and the senses created? Some words disappear or change their meaning. • Can we observe geographical food distinctions that arose from the senses? Did the combination of the senses and food play a part in the creation of nations or of nationalism (national dishes and the senses that are particularly connected to them). Can we distinguish between the senses developed at home, and those developed outside of the home? Do there exist places of intensity for the senses (the kitchen, for example)? Seasons? • Is the appeal of the senses a function of social group, stages in life, type, body type (fat or thin, small or large, healthy?). The analogy between body odours or social position and certain dishes and their odours should perhaps be explored: foot odour/ cheese; poverty/cabbage smell; wealth/gameyness. • The industrialization of the senses: a new hierarchy? 2 – Production and construction of norms Are there rules, and how are they applied when it is a question of combining colours, forms, tastes, and odours? We can envisage the roles of regulations, European or national, of specific trades (doctors, cooks…), hygiene and the senses, the media: the press, radio, books, religion…
Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food 2019
Registration open: ASHF 2019, 2019
Symposium fee: €90 (until 15 September €75) Reduced fee: €45 (students, Friends of the Special Collections UvA). url: http://bijzonderecollectiesuva.nl/foodhistory/amsterdam-symposium-on-the-history-of-food/ registration: https://www.ashf.nl/subscribe (Post)colonial foodways: creating, negotiating, and resisting transnational food systems Because of its manifold effects on individuals, cultures, and countries, from the 15th century onwards the colonial era had far-reaching impacts on existing foodways. Colonial rulers often imposed exploitative food systems upon the colonized, resulting in relationships that have been perpetuated, mediated, and resisted to this day. Because of their troubling and complex legacy, colonial foodways have become an essential theme in recent histories of transnational food production, consumption and trade practices from early modern mercantilism to the present. By shifting the focus from two-way colonizer-colonized relationships towards (post)colonial networks and their various nexuses, truly transnational histories are emerging that decenter Europe and go beyond traditional narratives. Food history and (post)colonial history intersect in various ways. Theories about exploration and exploitation offer insights into (proto)capitalism and the consumption of commodities, the agency of populations in the Global South, the transfer of food technologies, and the ecological impact of restructuring and repurposing vast areas of land. Studying material culture and (post)colonial food customs, furthermore, advances an in-depth understanding of the historical negotiation of identities and ideologies. The hybridization of national and migrant cuisines, culinary (neo)colonialism, and shifting perceptions of gastronomic 'authenticity' all underwrite the continuing influence of the colonial era on how we speak about food and, subsequently, about ourselves.
Food is universal, popular and familiar. Despite these adjectives, food remains an isolated topic in academic scholarship. However, in 2012, The Public Historian (the leading public history journal) had a whole issue on food and public history. The public history focus stems from both the rich food’s potential to connect historians and the public as well as the fantastic sets of sources and questions – diets, culinary instruments, agricultural and industrial production, and behavior – that can be studied. I posit that food, in its complexity, can, not only be a source for historians, but is actually very much symbolic of the development of public history. Public history of food encompasses new interests in everyday life, family history, local memories, participatory model, and visitors’ wish to experience the past.