A Cultural History of Food in the Age of Empire

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The nineteenth-century West saw extraordinary economic growth and cultural change. This volume explores and explains the birth of the modern world through the food it produced and consumed. Food security vastly improved though malnutrition and famines persisted. Scientific research radically altered the ways in which food and its relation to the body were conceived: efficiency became the watchword, norms the measure, and standardized goods the rule. At the same time, the art of food became a luxury pursuit as interest in gastronomy soared. A Cultural History of Food in the Age of Empire presents an overview of the period with essays on food production, food systems, food security, safety and crises, food and politics, eating out, professional cooking, kitchens and service work, family and domesticity, body and soul, representations of food, and developments in food production and consumption globally.

Reviews

[T]he six volumes of A Cultural History of Food provide an enlightening and fascinating insight into the history of food and its development throughout history in an authoritative and accessible style. -- Louise Ellis-Barrett * Social Sciences *

Author Bio

Martin Bruegel is a historian at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, France and is author of Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley 17801860.