All manners of food : eating and taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the present / Stephen Mennell.

ISBN:

9780252064906

Title:

Author:

Mennell, Stephen.

Personal Author:

Mennell, Stephen.

Edition:

2nd ed., Illini books ed.

Publication Information:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1996.

Physical Description:

x, 397 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

Contents:

1. Introduction -- 2. The Civilising of Appetite -- 3. Pottages and Potlatch: Eating in the Middle Ages -- 4. From Renaissance to Revolution: Court and Country Food -- 5. From Renaissance to Revolution: France and England - Some Possible Explanations -- 6. The Calling of Cooking: Chefs and their Publics since the Revolution -- 7. The Calling of Cooking: The Trade Press -- 8. Domestic Cookery in the Bourgeois Age -- 9. The Enlightenment of the Domestic Cook? -- 10. Of Gastronomes and Guides -- 11. Food Dislikes -- 12. Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties.

Subject Term:

Food habits -- England -- History.

Food habits -- France -- History.

Cookery, English -- History.

Cookery, French -- History.

Format:

Books

Publication Date:

1996

Publication Information:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1996.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
641.594 MEN	Book	1	Standard shelving location	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

So close geographically, how could France and England be so enormously far apart gastronomically? Not just in different recipes and ways of cooking, but in their underlying attitudes toward the enjoyment of eating and its place in social life. In a new afterword that draws the United States and other European countries into the food fight, Stephen Mennell also addresses the rise of Asian influence and "multicultural" cuisine.
Debunking myths along the way, All Manners of Food is a sweeping look at how social and political development has helped to shape different culinary cultures. Food and almost everything to do with food, fasting and gluttony, cookbooks, women's magazines, chefs and cooks, types of foods, the influential difference between "court" and "country" food are comprehensively explored and tastefully presented in a dish that will linger in the memory long after the plates have been cleared.

Author Notes

Stephen Mennell, professor of sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland, is the author of Norbert Elias: Civilisation and the Human Self-Image and The Sociology of Food and Eating.

Reviews (2)

Choice Review

Mennell's book is a history of changing tastes in food in France and England from the Middle Ages until the present. It examines the sociohistorical contexts of food fads, eating disorders, and changing standards of ``good taste.'' Its approach is developmental, rather than structural, and so it is particularly concerned to show ``how changing structures of social interdependence and changing balances of power within society have been reflected in...food.'' Well written and fun to read. For public and academic libraries, community college level up.-H. Ottenheimer, Kansas State University

Library Journal Review

This stimulating book is a welcome addition to the new academic discipline of food history. The author does not merely describe the differences in the tastes in England and France. Instead, he takes on the more difficult task of trying to explain those national differences, and to understand ``how social groups develop standards of taste.'' His topics include ``Fasting, Gluttony, the Church and the State,'' ``Puritanism and Food,'' ``Male Chefs and Women Cooks,'' ``Women's Magazines,'' and a really masterly discussion of early English cookbooks and manuscripts. This book is well written, scholarly, and provocative; no reader interested in food history could ask for more. Joyce S. Toomre, Russian Research Ctr., Harvard Univ. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.