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The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe
Ken Albala
A history of cooking and fine dining in Western Europe from 1520 to 1660
The importance of the banquet in the late Renaissance is impossible to overlook. Banquets showcased a host’s wealth and power, provided an occasion for nobles from distant places to gather together, and even served as a form of political propaganda. But what was it really like to cater to the tastes and habits of high society at the banquets of nobles, royalty, and popes? What did they eat and how did they eat it?
In The Banquet, Ken Albala covers the transitional period between the heavily spiced and colored cuisine of the Middle Ages and classical French haute cuisine. This development involved increasing use of dairy products, a move toward lighter meats such as veal and chicken, increasing identification of national food customs, more sweetness and aromatics, and a refined aesthetic sense, surprisingly in line with the late-Renaissance styles found in other arts.
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The Practice of Culinary History as Research Methodology
Ken Albala
As with the study of all fine arts, deep understanding of the daily experience of producers and consumers of the past proceeds partly from the analysis of written sources both theoretical and practical, but this rarely yields complete comprehension without a measure of hands-on experience. Arguably, mixing colors from original ingredients may be necessary for a grasp of the technical difficulties which painters have faced; using historic instruments is equally important for understanding not only composers’ original intentions but to gain insight into the experience of the audience. Modern tools and techniques often yield results entirely different than those produced in the past. It is no different with culinary history, and while complete authenticity is impossible given that ingredients and technologies have changed over time, actually cooking historic recipes is a valuable, and indispensable part of any research project in culinary history. The prejudice against practice as a research tool is of course deeply imbedded in Western culture, where value is attached to disembodied and presumably objective analysis. Subjects like food and cooking are normally studied, if at all, as a means of revealing patterns of trade or commerce, nutrition and health, the history of publishing or other topics ultimately disconnected from food itself. But if a great proportion of most people’s daily experience involved procuring and processing food, then cookery must be an integral part of any history of daily life, material culture and of the body itself. And what better way to investigate this topic than by following the instructions laid out in historic recipes as closely as possible, using authentic fuel sources and implements, to discover out exactly what values and preferences informed culinary decisions made years ago and exactly what people in the past tasted. This paper will focus on Renaissance culinary literature and my own experience in its reconstruction. Contrary to many culinary historians’ assumptions, directions in the past were not imprecise or haphazard, nor always intended for well-seasoned professionals. They are often remarkably lucid and exacting. It is only when trying to interpret historic recipes through the lens of modern preferences and with the prejudice of modern culinary conveniences, that researchers are lead astray, or recipes apparently make no sense. My research reveals that what often appears to be bizarre or incomprehensible, works when one follows instructions literally, without shortcuts and without any so-called adaptation. Renaissance cuisine thereafter becomes remarkably accessible, with its own internal logic, but no less fascinating than any other art form of the period, and equally resplendent. Moreover, to gain a full understanding of the physical experience and esthetic reception of food in the past, one must be willing to both cook and taste recipes in exactly the same way we are willing to observe objects of art. Comprehending historic sources and in particular how the meaning of good taste has changed over time is impossible without the direct physical sensation of eating. Using several concrete examples of 16th century dishes drawn from Italian cookbooks by authors such as Scappi and Messisbugo as well as lesser known works in France, England and Spain, I will describe the practice of following period recipes, using visual sources for clues, and ultimately I will advocate cookery as an important research tool. I will also relate the practical difficulties of using archaic fuel sources and technologies such as turnspits and earthenware vessels, as well as procuring now obscure ingredients, all of which I argue are a necessary for understanding and properly reconstructing the daily experience of our forbears.
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The Use and Abuse of Chocolate in 17th Century Medical Theory
Ken Albala
Cacao and chocolate were first introduced to Europe both as food and medicine. However, physicians had difficulty classifying them within the dominant system of humoral physiology and their arguments eventually undermined the authority of this system, especially as new scientific methods of analysis gained popularity. Authors in the late 16th and early 17th centuries attempted to restrict the use of chocolate to specific pathological states, but later, particularly in Northern Europe, and in competition with other purveyors, the therapeutic applications of chocolate were extended so broadly as to ultimately make any real medical use seem obsolete. This aided the transformation of chocolate from a medicinal food to a purely recreational drink in subsequent centuries. The case of chocolate provides an excellent example of how products once considered medicinal gain popular appeal with the aid of medical controversy.
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The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries
Ken Albala and Gary Allen
The business of food and drink is for better and worse the business of our nation and our planet, and to most consumers how it works remains largely a mystery. This encyclopedia takes readers as consumers behind the scenes of the food and drink industries. The contributors come from a wide range of fields, and the scope of this encyclopedia is broad, covering from food companies and brands to the environment, health, science and technology, culture, finance, and more. The more than 150 essay entries also cover those issues that have been and continue to be of perennial importance. Historical context is emphasized and the focus is mainly on business in the United States.
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Reproduction and State Building Along China’s Frontiers
Gregory Rohlf
This article analyzes population resettlement to western China during contemporary times within a historical framework that emphasizes gender. During the 1950s most relocatees to Qinghai were men, following the historical pattern set by Qing policies. Empirical data also show that the PRC government explicitly recruited women for relocation to border and remote areas. Women were moved to western regions as somewhat gender-neutral workers and also to serve in their traditional roles as wives and mothers. In both roles, women were a crucial component in state-building policies in border and remote areas. In fact, because sovereignty could not be permanently established without a naturally reproducing population, one can argue that reproduction was, and is, a basic component of state-building—an assertion that gets little attention in analyses of social and political change in border regions. This article describes the consolidation phase of territorial expansion as a feminine or yin process that relied upon incremental, organic growth, or "soft" assertions of power. Government documents, published materials, census records, and journalistic reporting are used to demonstrate these patterns and processes.
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Women as State-Builders in Qinghai: Evidence from the 2000 Census
Gregory Rohlf
During the Qing dynasty, the expansion of the Chinese empire was led by male-dominated institutions. This pattern continued into the first decades of the People's Republic of China. Qinghai province was on the receiving end of largely male population transfers beginning in the 1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s, in-migration continued at lower levels but the gender balance of in- and out-migration shifted. Official population figures show that the population of Han women grew faster than Han men in the 1960s and 1970s despite ongoing male resettlement and sex ratios at birth that favoured males. The faster rate of growth for Han women is therefore most likely to be the result of population transfers to Qinghai, rather than births or deaths. One can also see evidence of population transfers of women in the 1960s and 1970s in two middle-aged cohorts of Qinghai's urban population in 2000 that are dominated by females. It is likely that this bulge in the numbers of middle-aged women in Qinghai's municipalities has been produced by population transfers and that it reflects a state policy to adjust the imbalanced gender ratios it had created in the 1950s.
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A Renaissance Dream Banquet
Ken Albala
Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (The Strife of Love in a Dream) of 1499 is a bizarre architectural-erotic fantasy whose imagery has often perplexed commentators. One particular banquet scene has defied scrutiny. This paper decodes the meal as a typical Renaissance banquet, as harmonious and balanced as any painting or edifice, yet offering an image of divine feeding. The flavors, ingredients and meal structure all reflect current culinary aesthetics as well as Neo-Platonic love theory, occult symbolism and humoral medicine.
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