WRITING FOOD HISTORY

Food Historiography

Main problem: position of history in the field of history writing and food studies

Why? Investigating the relevance of multi-disciplinarity and the way sociologists,

ethnologists, geographers et cetera incorporate(d) historical perspectives, methods and results

Particular interest: the way historians deal with attention from other disciplines (welcome / reject / ignore ?) since 1960s

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Food Historiography

Four parts:

1.  Size and impact 2.  Emergence and development 1960 - 1980s

3.  Cultural turn, 1990s – 2005

4.  Common ground, 2005 – today

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Food Historiography

Bibliography:

Scholliers, Peter, “Twenty-five years of studying un phénomène social total. Food history writing on Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries”, Food, Culture & Society, 10: 3, 2007,449-471.

Claflin, Kyri & Scholliers, Peter (eds), Writing Food History. A Global Perspective, London & New York, 2012.

“References” in Murcott, Anne, Belasco, Warren & Jackson, Peter (eds), The Handbook of Food Research, London & New York, 2013, 485-596.

Becker, Karin (ed), “ A Decade of Research”, Food & History, 10:2, 2012

Freedman, Paul, Chaplin, Joyce & Albala, Ken (eds), Food in time and place, Oakland, 2014.

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Food Historiography 1.Size & Impact

Big success: public and (multidisciplinary) academic interest Signs ?

-TV programmes, major exhibitions, coffee table books, …. -Academic books, such as:

Freedman (ed), Food, the History of Taste (2007) Pilcher (ed), Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012) Parasecoli & Scholliers (eds), Cultural History of Food (2012) Murcott, Belasco & Jackson (eds) Handbook of Food Research (2013) Albala (ed), Food History Reader: Primary Sources (2014)

[all genuine ventures of publishing!]

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Big success: public and (multidisciplinary) academic interest

Why? 1990s: cultural turn in history writing

[will be dealt with later]

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Why? 1990s: cultural turn in history writing

Huge changes in food chain => distrust, alienation and insecurity

(food scares); response from consumers: search for trust in familiar food (“terroir”, authentic, traditional, grandmother’s cooking,...)

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Why?

1990s: cultural turn in history writing

Huge changes in food chain: [from Scholliers, “Post-‐1945 Global Food Developments”, in Albala, Chaplin & Freedman (eds). Teaching Food

History (2014)]

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1) R&D Farms, laboratories Farmers, scientists

2) Producing (farming, fishing, hunting, gardening, gathering)

Farms, gardens, woods, seas, rivers Farmers, gardeners, fishermen, landowners, speculators

3) Preserving (salting, drying, heating, cooling)

Farms, storages, cellars Farmers, gardeners, fishermen, housewives

4) Trading (import, export, wholesale) Warehouses, packaging, transport systems, harbors

Merchants, truckers, harbor workers

5) Manufacturing (transforming, upgrading)

Factories, shops (bakeries, butchers), packaging

Workers, entrepreneurs, self-employed

6) Preserving (canning, freezing) Factories Workers, entrepreneurs, self-employed

7) Distributing (retailing) Shops, (super)markets, street vending Retailers

8) Mediating (advertisements, recommendations, education)

Public space (schools, streets, radio and TV, …)

Marketers, teachers, scientists

9) Preparing (cleaning, cooking) Kitchens Cooks, waiters; housewives

10) Eating (time, places, company) Private and public space (kitchens, dining rooms, restaurants, cafeterias, stalls, take away)

Diners

11) Wasting (leftovers, fodder, losses) Kitchens, bins Diners, dishwashers


Food chain is not going to shorten

Food crises (e.g., Irish pork crisis, early December 2008) are not going to disappear

==> Hence : bright future for food history (writing)

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Food Historiography 2.Emergence & Development

1920 - 1960: Two totally separate fields -economic history (food supply; hunger; prices)

-folklore studies (regional food; utensils; manners)

1960s: launching of social history (“history from below”)

Alltagsgeschichte: lived experience of common people; attention to cultural dimension of diet; some ethnological influence

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Annales: structure of everyday life, long-term development; inspiration from economists, sociologists, linguists and biologists

- attenton to per capita consumption, caloric intake, inequality (quantitative reconstruction)

- large influence throughout Europe / USA

- large influence in food history writing (e.g., meeting of International Commission for Research into European Food History on food historiography in Europe, 1989)

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Annales: 1970s and‘80s very marginal interest in ethnology (“too anecdotal”) or anthropology (“subjective, arbitrary, ethnocentric, and reaching only very poor ideas”) (dixit Jean-Louis Flandrin)

==> triumph of social history (= challenging, new, critical, and emancipating)

No influence from authors like Gunther Wiegelmann, Jean-Paul Aron, Theodore Zeldin, Stephen Mennell, Jack Goody or Sydney Mintz (= no historians)

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Food Historiography 3.Cultural turn, 1990s-‐2005

1980s: some openings : Journal Food & Foodways (round table discussion about Mennell’s and Mintz’s books)

H.-J. Teuteberg: collaboration with Wiegelmann J.-L. Flandrin: incorporation of ethnology into food history; new sources, new methodology, new questions and topics

M. Montanari: careful text analysis (representation, construction)

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1980s: some openings : Journal Food & Foodways (round table discussion about Mennell’s and Mintz’s books)

H.-J. Teuteberg: collaboration with Wiegelmann J.-L. Flandrin: incorporation of ethnology into food history; new sources, new methodology, new questions and topics

M. Montanari: careful text analysis (representation, construction)

Recipes, cookbooks, restaurant reviews, advertisements; close reading, thick description, discourse analysis; restaurants, cooking, representations, …

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Flandrin & Montanari, Histoire de l’alimentation , 1996 [Italian, 1997, English, 1999, and Spanish, 2004]

- benchmark (launching of culinary history as new field)

- 44 authors (all historians, safe 3), 47 chapters, 915 pages; reference community includes familiar history (on hunger, e.g.), C.Lévi-Strauss, Annalistes, very recent work

- value: long-term approach, clear cultural interest, huge attention to sources (= historical skill) as opposed to stereotypes

- critique: Eurocentric, loose essays, sterile myth deconstruction

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Flandrin & Montanari, Histoire de l’alimentation , 1996 [Italian, 1997, English, 1999, and Spanish, 2004]

- benchmark (launching of culinary history as new field)

- 44 authors (all historians, safe 3), 47 chapters, 915 pages; reference community includes familiar history (on hunger, e.g.), C.Lévi-Strauss, Annalistes, very recent work

- value: long-term approach, clear cultural interest, huge attention to sources (= historical skill) as opposed to stereotypes

- critique: Eurocentric, loose essays, sterile myth deconstruction

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Impact of “cultural turn” measured by ICREFH- meetings (since 1989):

1991, 1993: socioeconomic history prevails 1995: appearance of new concepts (“meaning”, “code”, “representation”, “identification”, “discourse”, “representation”); references to Mennell, Goody, Mintz, Simmel, Wiegelmann

1997: appearance of “linguistic turn”

1999; 2001 and 2003: four approaches: 1) traditional ethnology, 2) post-structural ethnology, 3) traditional socioeconomic history, 4) cultural socioeconomic history (some reciprocal inspiration, some strong opposition)

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Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005-‐2015

State of the art in 2005- today: - successful

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- new food history ? (redefining field: incorporation of material and symbolic aspects of food history => excludes some fields:

less interest in production, trade, prices…

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- new food history ? (redefining field: incorporation of material and symbolic aspects of food history => excludes some fields!)

- multidisciplinary approach is overwhelming (and positively received)

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- multidisciplinary approach is overwhelming (and positively received)

- multidisciplinarity: lack of common method, theory, approach, aim, definition, reliable literature

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State of the art in 2005- today: Survey of 10 years of Food & History

to discover topics, fields & interests (2012)

F&H, since 2003, editor: Montanari Multidisciplinary board

Twice per year (3 x in 2015)

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Authors: 58 % men, 42 % women

Five languages (English: 52%, French: 40%, Italian: 6%, Spanish and German: 1 %); two languages in 2015 (French, English)

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Academic affiliation: France: 29% Italy: 11 % USA: 11% UK: 7% Belgium: 5,5 % Germany: 5% Netherlands: 1,4 % Denmark: 0.5% …

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Disciplines:

History: 82.5%

Ethnology: 3,6 Anthropology; Literature: 2.1%

Archaeology; Economics: 1.5% …

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Topics F&H (according to key words):

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0

5

10

15

%


Topics F&H (according to key words): Top-seven of topics (= 21% of total)

1.  Meat [11 times]

2.  Sacrifice [10]

3.  Identity / Health [9]

4.  Nutrition / Migration / Rituals / Taste [8] 5.  Market [7]

6.  Alcohol / Chocolate / Colonialism / Cuisine / Industry / Literature / Restaurant [6]

7.  Art / Banquet / Potato / Religion [5]

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Topics F&H (according to key words): wide coverage of topics

E.g., Economics (15.3 % of total):

agriculture, yield ratios, land use

industry, manufacturing, producers

canning, food preservation advertising, quality

markets, prices

labour, labour relations

trade, retailing

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Topics F&H : importance of colloquia:

Food and drink excesses in Europe (4,2) Food and beliefs (6,2) Food exchanges: people, products and ideas (7,1) The slaughterhouse and the city (3,2) Meat in the Roman Empire (5,1) Nutrition and health (6,1) Public eating, public drinking (7,2) Food and Empire (8,1) Tastes and industries (8,2) Alcohol in art (9,1) Inventorier le patrimoine alimentaire (9,2) Labour & Labour relations (11.2) 30




- multidisciplinary approach is overwhelming (and positively seen)

- multidisciplinarity is, yet, seen as problematic: lack of common method, theoretical perspective, approach, aim, definition; lack of reliable secondary literature ==> lack of common ground

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Question: Does food history actually need a common ground? This depends on its use. Two possibilities:

a) food history serves social, political, economic, cultural, medical, intellectual and other history [= no common ground]

b) food history spans social, political, economic, cultural, medical, intellectual (and other) history [= common ground]

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Question: which common ground ? Four suggestions in recent literature

1. Commodity biography Example: S. Mintz’s Sweetness and power Two variations:

a) culturally inspired (Albala on beans, Kaplan on bread, Horowitz on meat)

b) economic-inspired (“food chain”: Sarasua, Scholliers & Van Molle; Belasco & Horowitz)

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2. Surveys of food history of the world (leading lines since prehistory to tomorrow)

=> provides solid secondary literature e.g. A.Rowley, Histoire mondiale de la table (2006); P.Freedman, Food. A history of taste (2007); C.Civitello, Cuisine and culture (20082); F. Fernandez-Armesto, Near a thousand tables (2003), …

=> leads to risky, incomplete and Eurocentric history writing

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3. Global history e.g. J.Pilcher, Food in world history (2006); A.Nützenadel & F.Trentmann, Food and globalization (2008), R. Laudan, Cooking in world history (2013)

==> puts “Europe” within global view ==> addresses “new” topics (food diffusion, migrants, state, empires, ethics [cf. hunger], colonialism, Europeanization; identity is often core issue)

==> yet, difficulty: define “globalization” ! If not well defined, more fragmentation...

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4. History of health e.g., Stanziani, Histoire de la qualité alimentaire (2005), Ferrières, Histoire des peurs alimentaires (2002; in English, 2006); Atkins, Lummel & Oddy, Food and the city, 2007, Huijnen, Voedingsonderzoek, 2011,…

=> food fraud, food scares, food crises are studied in cultural terms

=> poses problem of food quality (= not “given” but constructed)

=> interest in “negotiation”, “networks”, “relationships”, ... => increasing attention from natural sciences (cf. Galen)

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Food Historiography 5.Conclusion

Metaphor of a house with multiple rooms

Basement, two rooms: economic history (output, prices, hunger) // ethnology (regional diversity)

Ground floor, two big rooms: social history (Annales, caloric intake) // sociology, ethnology, anthropology (symbolic meaning, objects, communication)

Ground floor, two smaller rooms: post-structural historians // ditto ethnologists (representation, significance, construction, linguistic turn)

First floor, two small rooms: literary and communication scientists (films, novels) // natural scientists (nutrition, diets, discoveries)

First floor, tiny room: journalists, chefs, artists... (popular history writing)

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Food Historiography

Remaining questions:

1.  Actual impact of food history on general history writing?

2.  Use of hanging on to multi-disciplinarity: not been enough?

3.  Common features between Europe and US, rest of world?

4.  Which “Europe”? Only core of continent, what about the rest of Europe?

5.  Relevance of food history for other disciplines than history? 6.  Role of Low Countries in future development?

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