Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500-1800

(Paperback)

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UK Winner of the Entertaining category of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2020 Food defines us as individuals, communities, and nations we are what we eat and, equally, what we dont eat. When, where, why, how and with whom we eat are crucial to our identity. Feast and Fast presents novel approaches to understanding the history and culture of food and eating in early modern Europe. This richly illustrated book will showcase hidden and newly-conserved treasures from the Fitzwilliam Museum and other collections in and around Cambridge. It will tease out many contemporary and controversial issues such as the origins of food and food security, overconsumption in times of austerity, and our relationship with animals and nature through short research-led entries by some of the worlds leading cultural and food historians. Feast and Fast explores food-related objects, images, and texts from the past in innovative ways and encourages us to rethink our evolving relationship with food.

Author Bio

Victoria Avery is Keeper of Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum. She has researched, lectured and published extensively on many aspects of European sculpture and the decorative arts. Her publications include Vulcans Forge in Venus City: The Story of Bronze in Venice, 1350-1650 (OUP, 2011; awarded Premio Salimbeni, 2012); Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (PWP, 2015; co-edited with Melissa Calaresu and Mary Laven) and Michelangelo Sculptor in Bronze (PWP, 2018; editor and contributing author). Melissa Calaresu is the Neil McKendrick Lecturer in History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She has written on the cultural history of the Grand Tour, urban space, ice cream, and street-vending in early modern Italy, with a particular focus on Naples. She is co-editor of Exploring Cultural History: Essays in Honour of Peter Burke (2010), New Approaches to Naples c.1500c.1800: The Power of Place (2013), and Food Hawkers: Selling in the Street from Antiquity to the Present Day (2015). With Victoria Avery and Mary Laven, she also co-edited Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (PWP, 2015), which accompanied the Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition.