History Of Food Consumption

is awarded each year to an engaging, original piece of writing that delivers new research and/or new insights into any aspect of food history relating to any period, place, people or culture. We welcome innovative, well written entries of up to 10,000 words in length in the English language only. The Prize is £1,500 for the winning essay, article or book chapter. Authors may submit one entry only each, and they must be delivered to us by this year's closing date of Friday 22 nd April 2022.

Chapter 4 of Eiríks saga rauða has long drawn the attention of scholars due to its detailed description of a seiðr, a rare occurrence in Íslendinga sǫgur as well as in sagas of other genres. The protagonist of the scene, a Greenlandic seiðkona named Þorbjǫrg, is depicted as a social functionary who creates a relationship with the supernatural world and acquires a deeper knowledge and foreknowledge concerning the surrounding area, for the benefit of the local community. The performance takes place during a great famine at the beginning of the eleventh century, and the semi-public ritual had the purpose of predicting when the dearth would come to an end. It consisted – among other things-of a ritual meal: a porridge of kid's milk and of the cooked hearts of all the living creatures that inhabited the area. The present paper aims at casting light on this specific aspect of Þorbjǫrg's seiðr, and at contextualizing it within a wider literary and historical landscape. The intention is to integrate traditional interpretations with observations on the importance of sympathetic magic in ancient and medieval Europe, and particularly in medieval Scandinavia.

“Bir kişinin çalışmadan yiyebilmesi için çok sayıda insanın yemeden çalışması gerekir.”
Zaven Biberyan

İlerlemeci bilim uzun yıllar insanın tarihsel yolculuğunun karnını doyurmakta güçlük çeken, akılsız hayvandan modern, akıllı, tok bir varlığa doğru olduğu öyküsünü anlattı. Avcı-toplayıcı ataları tüm gün karınlarını doyurma peşindeki yarı-aç ilkeller olarak betimleyen bu bilimsel söylem, elde edilen arkeolojik veriler ışığında nihayet terk edilmeye başlandı. Yiyecek bulmak için özel bir zamana dahi gereksinim duymayan, günlük hareketliliği içerisinde karşısına çıkan yiyeceklerle karnını doyuran avcı-toplayıcı insana kıyasla modern insanın yaşamı, yemek üzerine kuruludur. Bu “yemek” uygarlaşma süreci boyunca öylesine bir dönüşüm geçirir ki insanı doğadan ve birlikte evrimleştiği diğer tüm canlılardan ayırır. Evcilleşip kentcilleşmiş insanın midesi bedeninden taşar. Yemek artık sınıfsal bir ayraçtır ve bu yolda iştah da uygarlaşmıştır.

Atalarımız ne yiyordu? Besinlerini ilk kez ne zaman pişirdiler? Et yemek ile ataerkil şiddet arasında bir ilişki var mı? GDO tarımla birlikte mi başladı? İçinde bulunduğumuz uygarlık bir buğday ve ekmek uygarlığı mı? Yaşam ne zamandan bu yana ekmek kavgasına dönüştü? Antikçağın sofralarında neler vardı? Ne yiyorsan o musun yoksa neysen onu mu yiyorsun? Zenginin şöleninden, fakirin ekmeğine kadar sınıfsal sofra savaşları…

İsmail Gezgin’in milyonlarca yıllık insan-besin ilişkisi üzerine düşündüğü bu çalışmada, atalarımızın ne yediğinden başlayarak buğday uygarlığına, ilk ehli tohumlardan hayvan yemeye, antikçağın ataerkil şölenlerinden lezzet tüccarlarına, yemeğin iktidarla doğrudan bağına, farklı çağlardan geçerek ve türlü türlü sofralara konuk olarak tanıklık ediyoruz.

Les cinq textes que voici furent rédigés à la demande de la chaîne de télévision européenne ARTE pour être mis en ligne sur son site internet au moment de la première diffusion de la série documentaire L'histoire en cuisine (Michèle Barrière / Philippe Allante, BM Production) en octobre 2005. Ils demeurèrent longtemps accessibles par ce lien, aujourd'hui désactivé : http://www.arte-tv.com/fr/connaissance-decouverte/L_27histoire_20en_20cuisine/2000_20ans_20d_27histoire_20en_20cuisine/975390.html.
Leur thématique fut dictée par celle des épisodes de la série télévisuelle:
Cuisines antiques, Cuisines médiévales, Cuisines de la Renaissance, Cuisines des Lumières et Cuisines de l'ère des révolutions. Chaque texte évoque des aspects majeurs de la cuisine d'une époque. Contient une bibliographie d'orientation pour chaque période.

Актуальні питання суспільних наук та історії медицини. Спільний українсько-румунський науковий журнал. (АПСНІМ), 2020, № 2 (26), P. 74-78

The paper aims to analize hand-written and printed cookery books published in Ukraine from the mid- 18 to the early 20 centuries as a source for studying gastronomic traditions, methods of preparation and consumption of dishes, rations, festive and everyday food as well as interrelations of different European gastronomic practices. Research methods. The research is based on the cultural- historical approach. It involves the descriptive method for identifying pecul- iarities of each cookery book that is analized. Comparative method and content analyses were used to reveal both continuity of tradition and innov- ations in nutrition practices of the Ukraine’s population. Systematization method allowed to classify cookery editions according to some strict crite- ria. Scientific novelty. By analising the cookery books the author demon- strates the continuity of the Ukraine’s population nutrition practices. The paper reveals how different gastronomic cultures, religious beliefes, econo- my and medical science influenced on the cookery books’ content. Concl- usions. It is stated that the mid-18 – early 20 centuries cookery books are reflecting the tendency of modernization and globalization of the nutrition practices. Cookery books influenced significantly shaping of the gastr- onomic practices of the Ukraine’s population. Among the various types of cookery editions there were guides and companions for young women that were not enough experienced in preparing food, examples of dinner menue- s, works on vegetarianism, childhood nutrition, healthy eating etc. Such books were based on the up-to-date achievements in the fields of physiolog- y and dietology. By the end of the 19th century the quantity of cookbooks rised noticeably. One of the popular types of the cookbooks were editions aimed at young housewives. At the same time, a lot of cookbooks, espec- ially those involving medical aspects of nutrition, were unable to pass thr- ough the censorship institutions in the Russian empire.

What is a truffle? Is it the über-shroom, the highest order of fungal foods? Does it arrive, as some cultures feel, in the moment of a thunderclap? One thing is for sure: despite its unappetizing appearance, the truffle is without a doubt one of the most prized ingredients in the world’s pantry. In this book, Zachary Nowak digs deep into the history and fame of this unlikeliest of luxury items, exploring the truffle’s intoxicating hold on our senses how its distinctive flavor has become an instant indication of haute cuisine.
           
Nowak traces the truffle’s journey from the kitchens of East Asia to those of Europe and the Americas. Balancing cultural, historical, and scientific perspectives, he offers a thorough and complete portrait of this many-sided mushroom. By comparing the truffle’s history in the Old World with its growing prominence in the New World, he tells a larger story of the growth and dynamism of modern Western cuisine and food cultures. Featuring many instructive and surprising illustrations, and numerous recipes both historical and contemporary, this unique and fascinating book is a must-read for chefs, food historians, and anyone ever drawn by the truffle’s mysterious, rich, and savory allure.

Coffee: A Global History was published in 2019 by Reaktion Books and is distributed in the United States by University of Chicago Press.  It's widely available for purchase on the internet.  Reviews include:

for the coffee nerd in your life . . . it's jam-packed with information. I don't think I have read a book this information dense and yet still incredibly readable possibly ever. A great little book that I recommend highly. If you want a tonne of history, a tonne of information, a tonne of background on coffee, this is a great gift'. 
James Hoffman, the You Tube coffee influencer and former World Barista Champion

The book that I wished had been published when I was working on the origins of coffee drinking in early modern Britain. It is very short and succinct and as such, it’s the obvious introduction to this fascinating topic. If you want a quick and reliable guide to the history of coffee, this is the book you need.
Dr Brian Cowan, Author of The Social Life of Coffee. The Emergence of the British Coffee House

"Rarely does religious history figure so prominently in a study of commodity culture as it does in Marcy Norton’s Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures. The very title of the book points to the central paradox at the heart of this book: tobacco and chocolate were used in Amerindian societies for primarily religious purposes before their contact with the Spanish and other European empires, but over the course of the three centuries after the first Columbian contact between the old world and the new, tobacco and chocolate came to be understood as commodities which could be consumed as secularised luxury products. Norton’s book traces the odd journey from ‘sacred gifts’ to ‘profane pleasures’ taken by tobacco and chocolate in the early modern Iberian Atlantic world. In so doing, she offers not just a ‘revisionist account of how Europeans assimilated tobacco and chocolate,’ (p. 7) but also a new perspective on the nature of cross-cultural exchange and the cultures of empire in the early modern Atlantic.

Norton argues that the pre-Columbian meanings attached to tobacco and chocolate were not entirely effaced by their Iberian appropriators in the post-Columbian centuries. She places great significance on anxieties exhibited by the Roman Catholic Church about the appropriateness of consuming tobacco or chocolate during religious fasts, by priests, or in churches, and she notes that tobacco retained diabolical associations for centuries after it was introduced to Europeans, just as chocolate continued to be thought of as a divine drink. Even as they were commodified and ‘secularised’ as goods which could be bought, sold and consumed without any obvious religious significance, tobacco and chocolate remained distinctive due to the ways in which consuming them took on the characteristics of religious ritual and thus served to ‘consecrate’ “bonds of caste, trust, and intimacy, surpassing even food and drink as objects of commensality.” (p. 174)

This analysis works well for understanding the ways in which tobacco and chocolate were received in the counter-reformation religious cultures of the Iberian Atlantic empires, where these new exotic commodities were encountered by Europeans for the first time, and where sacred ritual and priestly intercession with the divine (particularly through the doctrine of Real Presence in the Eucharist) played a much more prominent role than they did in the largely Protestant cultures of northern Europeans, especially the Dutch and the British.

Norton’s deeply researched and insightful work offers a salutary reminder that the Spanish and Portuguese empires were the first to encounter and assimilate exotic commodities such as tobacco and chocolate into their consumption repertoires, and it should provoke scholars of the Protestant Atlantic world to consider and compare the ways in which these new goods were assimilated into the very different mercantile and religious cultures of the Dutch and British empires. Studies of this sort might complicate the author’s suggestion that chocolate served as a ‘gateway’ drug which laid the framework for the later development of a taste for coffee and tea (pp. 259-62), and they could shed further light on the remarkable worldwide spread of tobacco consumption well beyond the Iberian Atlantic in the seventeenth century."

Artisanal, a term used to describe production systems that are relatively small-scale and where hand-working and the skilled, intuitive judgment of the maker takes precedence over mechanized and automated methods. Common synonyms include: ‘craft’, ‘handmade’, and ‘traditional’. Artisanal cheese is often made on-farm with milk from the farmer’s own herd (in North America, these varieties are usually known as farmstead cheese).

The nutritional, economic and politícal importance of hunting in medieval Aragón is revealed by the development of a legal framework to legislate this activity and its survival until the middle of the 20th century. Our research on hunting in the kingdom of Aragón in the lih-15th centuries is based on the information provided by two groups of legal texts: those for local or regional areas (local charters, town letters, royal privileges, municipal statutes) and those that were applied to all the kingdom after the 13ili centory (general charters passed in the Courts). Comparative studies and the information provided by iconography, archaeology, notarial documentation and literature have permitted us to contrast, clarify and complete the development of our analysis, based on various points: 1) hunting as a natural resource whose exploitation is regulated and controlled by local and state powers; 2) hunting as an activity done from very different perspectives and with plural purposes, methods and valuations, closely related to the position of each person in the hierarchised medieval society; 3) hunting as a method of social control for sorne and of rebelliousness against the established order for poachers; and 4) the supplying and consumption of game as an indicator of diverse food cultures and systems that coexist in the same chronological and spatial framework.

Jelen tanulmányban azt mutatom be, hogy az élelmiszerellátás 1945-ös állapota szempontjából a beszolgáltatási rendszer közösségre gyakorolt hatása, a kormányzás technológiája, a vidék-város kapcsolat, valamint az ember-állat viszony voltak a legfontosabb tényezők. Ebből a kérdésfelvetésből következik, hogy a  front átvonulása és 1946 nyara, vagyis a forint bevezetésének időpontja, közötti élelmiszerhiány kapcsán számos szereplő döntéseit kell figyelembe vennünk. Az egyes szereplőknek igen eltérő elképzelései voltak az igazságos és kívánatos élelmiszer elosztás mibenlétéről.

This article presents an overview of the long term trends in the trading patterns for salted herring in the area of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and their hinterlands in the period of c. 1600-1850. The market is defined as ‘the interaction between supply and demand to determine the market price and corresponding quantity bought and sold.’  In this period the north European herring market underwent several changes. This is analysed from four different points of view:
The first main section examines the main trading routes for herring in Northern Europe by use of records from the Sound toll registers as well as from accounts of herring imports in the German North Sea and Baltic cities. Then a number of price series for various parts of northern Europe give indications for the long term development of prices of herring. Following this an analysis of the consumption patterns of salted herring is carried out, and finally the influence of mercantilist policies is evaluated.

Although there is keen interest in the military history of many conflicts, the Great Northern War (1700–1721) is relatively uncharted in terms of food history, despite its ability to make visible the limits of the possible logistics of supply for early warfare in a European context. The images that emerge from current research typically focus on the leadership and military strategies of Charles XII of Sweden and Peter I of Russia and the aftermath of the war,1 which toppled Sweden from its position of power and established Russia as the dominant force in the Baltic. In this paper, soldiers’ diaries, letters, and other historical accounts show that in the early part of the war, Sweden set a high standard for feeding its troops, which in part led them to awe inspiring victories against their enemies. In the later years of the conflict, food shortages and destruction of the land were key strategies in Russia’s effort to wrest the upper hand from an enemy which seemed unbeatable.

This study will frame these elements in terms of contemporary European mentalities toward food and warfare. Analysis of these materials will demonstrate the reality of food, famine, and superiority in what food anthropologist Sidney Mintz termed “the single most powerful instrument of dietary change in human experience”: war (1996, p. 25). In Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom (1996), Sidney Mintz outlines the processes by which a society learns to “consume food differently,” (p. 17); that is, how to integrate different foods, how to prepare them differently, how the contexts in which we eat may change, and how the purposes for which we eat can be changed. War, Mintz notes, greatly changes the eating habits of a community or nation.

The purpose of this work is to explore the historical significance of soldier rations and mentalities about food as it pertains to feeding and supplying an armed force.2 This is an exploratory paper using a few carefully selected examples to suggest connections to current scholarly thinking about foodways which can be enriched through closer study.

Three main elements of military food supply will be examined: 1) what food was deemed acceptable by each force, as determined by the generals or heads of military; 2) how the ability to supply such food worked; and 3) what effects these choices and methods of distribution may have had upon soldiers and their ways of thinking about the food they ate. The intention is to use these matters to illustrate how food, in wartime, is power.

This article demonstrates how massive allotments of food allowed lumber workers to fight the limitations of their bodies for the sake of industrial production. I argue that, as machines were quickening the speed of work and increasing production in America, workers had to adjust their metabolism to keep pace. The process whereby food is turned into energy for work is an important place where nature and labor met, yet it has scarcely been examined by historians. This article will address that lacuna.

Loggers provide a excellent example of how the body coped with the stresses of industrial modernity. To produce wood for the mills, they ate as much as 8,000 calories, or 6 lbs. of food a day. This article begins with an explanation of the obstacles companies overcome to bring large quantities of food into wilderness lands. It then shows why remuneration in food remained an important part of woods labor into the twentieth century even as other aspects of wage earning changed. Finally, a close examination of a 1904 government study of loggers' diets demonstrates exactly how food wages created industrial bodies and allowed for unparalleled feats of work in the woods.

Mrs W.E. Kinsey's "The 'Mems' Own Cookery Book" published in 1920 gives insights to the conditions of colonial cooking in Malaya, explores the state of colonial meals and the skills of local cooks, and provides insights to adaptations of colonial meals and recipes of Malayan food consumed by expatriate families. A brief profile of this talented housewife, her a civil-servant husband based in Malaya and his family is included