Food history

Food history is an interdisciplinary field that examines the history of food, and the cultural, economic, environmental, and sociological impacts of food. Food history is considered distinct from the more traditional field of culinary history, which focuses on the origin and recreation of specific recipes.

The first journal in the field, Petits Propos Culinaires was launched in 1979 and the first conference on the subject was the 1981 Oxford Food Symposium.

Middle Ages (500–1500)

Main article: Medieval cuisine

A medieval baker with his apprentice. As seen in the illustration, round loaves were among the most common.

In the European Middle Ages, breakfast was not usually considered a necessary and important meal, and was practically nonexistent during the earlier medieval period. Monarchs and their entourages would spend lots of time around a table for meals. Only two formal meals were eaten per day—one at mid-day and one in the evening. The exact times varied by period and region, but this two-meal system remained consistent throughout the Middle Ages. The literal definition of breakfast is ‘breaking the fast’ of nighttime slumber, and many written accounts in the medieval period seem to reprimand eating in the morning.

Breakfast in some times and places was solely granted to children, the elderly, the sick, and to working men. Anyone else did not speak of or partake in eating in the morning. Eating breakfast meant that one was poor, was a low-status farmer or laborer who truly needed the energy to sustain his morning’s labor, or was too weak to make it to the large, midday dinner. Because medieval people saw gluttony as a sin and a sign of weakness, men were often ashamed of eating breakfast.

Noble travelers were an exception, as they were also permitted to eat breakfast while they were away from home. For instance, in March 1255 about 1512 gallons of wine were delivered to the English King Henry III at the abbey church at St. Albans for his breakfast throughout his trip. If a king were on religious pilgrimage, the ban on breakfast was completely lifted and enough supplies were compensated for the erratic quality of meals at the local cook shops during the trip.

In the 13th century, breakfast when eaten sometimes consisted of a piece of rye bread and a bit of cheese. Morning meals would not include any meat, and would likely include ¼ gallon (1.1 L; 0.30 US gal) of low alcohol-content beers. Uncertain quantities of bread and ale could have been consumed in between meals.

By the 15th century breakfast often included meat. By this time, noble men were seen to indulge in breakfast, making it more of a common practice, and by the early 16th century, recorded expenses for breakfast became customary. The 16th-century introduction of caffeinated beverages into the European diet was part of the consideration to allow breakfast. It was believed that coffee and tea aid the body in “evacuation of superfluities,” and was consumed in the morning.

Potato

Main article: History of the potato

The potato was first domesticated in the region of modern-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia It has since spread around the world and become a staple crop in many countries.

Global production of potatoes in 2008

According to conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato was responsible for a quarter of the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900. Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century, part of the Columbian exchange. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. The potato was slow to be adopted by distrustful European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland as well as parts of the Scottish Highlands, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.

Rice

Muslims brought rice to Sicily with cultivation starting in the 9th century. After the 15th century, rice spread throughout Italy and then France, later propagating to all the continents during the age of European exploration.

Today, the majority of all rice produced comes from China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Korea and Japan. Asia accounts for 87% of the world's total rice production.<ref>Anthony John Heaton Latham, "From competition to constraint: The international rice trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." Business and economic history (1988): 91-102. in JSTOR

See also

• Combined Food Board in World War II
• Food faddism
• Food studies
• History of breakfast
• List of ancient dishes
• List of food and beverage museums
• List of historical cuisines
• Ovelgönne bread roll
• Timeline of food

Further reading

• Anderson, Heather Arndt. Breakfast: A History (2014) 238pp
• Claflin, Kyri and Scholliers, Peter (eds), Writing Food History, a Global Perspective (Berg Publishers, 2012)
• Collingham, Lizzie. Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (2013)
• Gremillion, Kristen J. Ancestral Appetites: Food in Prehistory (Cambridge University Press; 2011) 188 pages; explores the processes of dietary adaptation in prehistory that contributed to the diversity of global foodways.
• Elias, Megan. Lunch: A History (2014) 204pp
• Grew, Raymond. Food in Global History, Westview Press, 2000
• Haber, Barbara. "Culinary History Vs. Food History" in:The Oxford companion to American food and drink, ed. by Andrew F. Smith, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 179–180
• Hardy, Anne, (2016). 'Food Poisoning: An On-going Saga'. History & Policy. http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/food-poisoning-an-on-going-saga
• Heiser Charles B. Seed to civilisation. The story of food (Harvard University Press, 1990)
• Kiple, Kenneth F. and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas,eds. The Cambridge World History of Food, (2 vol, Cambridge UP, 2000)
• Levy, Walter. The picnic: A History (2014) 208pp
• Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (Penguin 1986), ISBN 0-14-009233-1
• Mintz, Sidney. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Power, and the Past, Beacon Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8070-4629-9
• Katz, Solomon ed. The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (Scribner, 2003)
• Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, revised and expanded edition (Berkeley, University Presses of California, 2007).
• Parasecoli, Fabio & Scholliers, Peter (gen. eds), A Cultural History of Food, 6 volumes (Berg Publishers, 2012)
• Reader, John. Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History (2008), 315pp a standard scholarly history
• Roll, Eric. The Combined Food Board. A study in wartime international planning (1956), on World War II

Great Britain

• Addyman, Mary; Wood, Laura; Yiannitsaros, Christopher (eds). Food, Drink, and the Written Word in Britain, 1820–1945 (Taylor & Francis, 2017).
• Brears, P. Cooking and Dining in Medieval England (2008)
• Burnett, John. Plenty and want: a social history of diet in England from 1815 to the present day (2nd ed. 1979). A standard scholarly history.
• Burnett, John. England eats out: a social history of eating out in England from 1830 to the present (Routledge, 2016).
• Collins, E.J.T. "Dietary change and cereal consumption in Britain in the nineteenth century." Agricultural History Review (1975) 23#2, 97-115.
• Floud, R., Wachter, K. and Gregory, A. ';Height, health and history: nutritional status in the United Kingdom 1750-1980 (Cambridge UP, 1990)
• Gazeley, I. and Newell, A. "Urban working-class food consumption and nutrition in Britain in 1904" Economic History Review. (2014). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ehr.12065/pdf.
• Harris, Bernard, Roderick Floud, and Sok Chul Hong. "How many calories? Food availability in England and Wales in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries". Research in economic history. (2015). 111-191.
• Hartley, Dorothy. Food In England: A complete guide to the food that makes us who we are (Hachette UK, 2014).
• Komlos, J. "The secular trend in the biological standard of living in the United Kingdom, 1730-1860. " Economic History Review (1993). 46(1), 115-44.
• Meredith, David, and Deborah Oxley. "Nutrition and health, 1700–1870." in The Cambridge economic history of modern Britain 1 (2014): covers 1700-1870.
• Meredith, D. and Oxley, D. "Food and fodder: feeding England, 1700-1900." Past and Present (2014). (2014). 222:163-214.
• Oddy, D. " Food, drink and nutrition" in F.M.L. Thompson, ed., The Cambridge social history of Britain, 1750-1950. Volume 2. People and their environment (1990). pp. 2:251-78.
• Otter, Chris. "The British Nutrition Transition and its Histories", History Compass 10#11 (2012): pp. 812-825, [DOI]: 10.1111/hic3.12001
• Salaman, R.N. The history and social influence of the potato (1949)
• Woolgar. C.N. The Culture of Food in England, 1200–1500 (2016). 260 pp.,

United States

• Pendergrast, Mark. For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It (2013)
• Shapiro, Laura. Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, Viking Adult 2004, ISBN 0-670-87154-0
• Shapiro, Laura. What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories, Viking 2017 ISBN 978-0525427643
• Veit, Helen Zoe, ed. Food in the Civil War Era: The North (Michigan State University Press, 2014)
• Veit, Helen Zoe. Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2013)
• Wallach, Jennifer Jensen. How America Eats: A social history of U.S. food and culture (2014) 256256pp
• Williams, Elizabeth M. New Orleans: A Food Biography (AltaMira Press, 2012).

Journals

• Food and Foodways. Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment
• Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
• Food & History, multilingual scientific journal about the history and culture of food published by the (IEHCA)

Other languages

• Montanari, Massimo, Il mondo in cucina (The world in the kitchen). Laterza, 2002 ASIN: B0055J686G
• Mintalová - Zubercová, Zora: Všetko okolo stola I.(All around the table I.), Vydavateľstvo Matice slovenskej, 2009, ISBN 978-80-89208-94-4

External links

• Getting Started in Food History
• University of Houston Digital Library: 1850-1860's Hotel and Restaurant Menu Collection images
• [1]: FOST: Social & Cultural Food Studies (VUB's research unit in food history)
• Italian Food History Blog
• Spanish Food History Articles: 27 most relevant products and Timeline by Enrique García Ballesteros
• "Culinary History". NYPL Recommendations: Best of the Web. USA: New York Public Library.
• Explained With Maps - History of World Food (Documentary Video)