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 2 Food Historiography Four parts: 1. 2. 3. 4. Size and impact Emergence and development 1960 - 1980s Cultural turn, 1990s – 2005 Common ground, 2005 – today 3 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. 4 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!] 5 Food Historiography 1.Size & Impact Big success: public and (multidisciplinary) academic interest Why? 1990s: cultural turn in history writing [will be dealt with later] 6 Food Historiography 1.Size & Impact Big success: public and (multidisciplinary) academic interest 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 (䇾terroir䇿, authentic, traditional, grandmother’s cooking,...) 7 Food Historiography 1.Size & Impact Big success: public and (multidisciplinary) academic interest 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)] 8 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 9 Food Historiography 1.Size & Impact 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) 10 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 (䇾history from below䇿) Alltagsgeschichte: lived experience of common people; attention to cultural dimension of diet; some ethnological influence 11 Food Historiography 2.Emergence & Development 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) 12 Food Historiography 2.Emergence & Development Annales: 1970s and䇺80s very marginal interest in ethnology (䇾too anecdotal䇿) or anthropology (䇾subjective, arbitrary, ethnocentric, and reaching only very poor ideas䇿) (dixit JeanLouis Flandrin) ==> triumph of social history (= challenging, new, critical, and emancipating) No influence from authors like Gunther Wiegelmann, JeanPaul Aron, Theodore Zeldin, Stephen Mennell, Jack Goody or Sydney Mintz (= no historians) 13 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) 14 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) Recipes, cookbooks, restaurant reviews, advertisements; close reading, thick description, discourse analysis; restaurants, cooking, representations, … 15 Food Historiography 3.Cultural turn, 1990s‐2005 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 16 Food Historiography 3.Cultural turn, 1990s‐2005 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 17 Food Historiography 3.Cultural turn, 1990s‐2005 Impact of 䇾cultural turn䇿 measured by ICREFH- meetings (since 1989): 1991, 1993: socioeconomic history prevails 1995: appearance of new concepts (䇾meaning䇿, 䇾code䇿, 䇾representation䇿, 䇾identification䇿, 䇾discourse䇿, 䇾representation䇿); references to Mennell, Goody, Mintz, Simmel, Wiegelmann 1997: appearance of 䇾linguistic turn䇿 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) 18 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: - successful 19 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: - successful - new food history ? (redefining field: incorporation of material and symbolic aspects of food history => excludes some fields: less interest in production, trade, prices… 20 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: - successful - new food history ? (redefining field: incorporation of material and symbolic aspects of food history => excludes some fields!) - multidisciplinary approach is overwhelming (and positively received) 21 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: - successful - new food history ? (redefining field: incorporation of material and symbolic aspects of food history => excludes some fields!) - multidisciplinary approach is overwhelming (and positively received) - multidisciplinarity: lack of common method, theory, approach, aim, definition, reliable literature 22 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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) 23 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: Survey of 10 years of Food & History Authors: 58 % men, 42 % women Five languages (English: 52%, French: 40%, Italian: 6%, Spanish and German: 1 %); two languages in 2015 (French, English) 24 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: Survey of 10 years of Food & History Academic affiliation: France: 29% Italy: 11 % USA: 11% UK: 7% Belgium: 5,5 % Germany: 5% Netherlands: 1,4 % Denmark: 0.5% … 25 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: Survey of 10 years of Food & History Disciplines: History: 82.5% Ethnology: 3,6 Anthropology; Literature: 2.1% Archaeology; Economics: 1.5% … 26 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 Topics F&H (according to key words): 15 10 % 5 0 27 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 Topics F&H (according to key words): Top-seven of topics (= 21% of total) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Meat [11 times] Sacrifice [10] Identity / Health [9] Nutrition / Migration / Rituals / Taste [8] Market [7] Alcohol / Chocolate / Colonialism / Cuisine / Industry / Literature / Restaurant [6] Art / Banquet / Potato / Religion [5] 28 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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 29 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 State of the art in 2005- today: - successful - new food history ? (redefining field: incorporation of material and symbolic aspects of food history => excludes some fields!) - 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 31 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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] 32 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 Question: which common ground ? Four suggestions in recent literature 1. Commodity biography Example: S. Mintz䇻s Sweetness and power Two variations: a) culturally inspired (Albala on beans, Kaplan on bread, Horowitz on meat) b) economic-inspired (䇾food chain䇿: Sarasua, Scholliers & Van Molle; Belasco & Horowitz) 33 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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 34 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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... 35 Food Historiography 4.Common ground, 2005‐2015 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 䇾given䇿 but constructed) => interest in 䇾negotiation䇿, 䇾networks䇿, 䇾relationships䇿, ... => increasing attention from natural sciences (cf. Galen) 36 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) 37 Food Historiography Remaining questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Actual impact of food history on general history writing? Use of hanging on to multi-disciplinarity: not been enough? Common features between Europe and US, rest of world? Which 䇾Europe䇿? Only core of continent, what about the rest of Europe? Relevance of food history for other disciplines than history? Role of Low Countries in future development? 38