History of the Senses Research Papers (original) (raw)

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…