Tasting French terroir [electronic resource] : the history of an idea / Thomas Parker.

ISBN:

9780520961333

Title:

Author:

Parker, Thomas, 1969-

Personal Author:

Parker, Thomas, 1969-

Publication Information:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2015.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (286 p.)

Series:

California Studies in Food and Culture ; v.54

General Note:

Description based upon print version of record.

Contents:

Introduction: Terroir and the Culinary Roots of French Identity -- 1. Rabelais's Table and the Poets of the Pléiade -- 2. The Plantification of People -- 3. Courtside Purity and the Académie Française's Attack on the Earth -- 4. France's Green Evolution: Terroir's Expulsion from Versailles -- 5. Saint-Évremond and the Invention of Geographical Connoisseurship -- 6. Terroir and Nation Building: Boulainvilliers, Du Bos, and the Case of Class -- 7. The Normalization of Terroir: Paris and the Provinces -- Conclusion: Terroir and Nation: From Geographic Identity to Psychogeography.

Subject Term:

Terroir -- France -- History.

Wine and wine making -- France -- History.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view book

Publication Date:

2015

Publication Information:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2015.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
641.220944 PAR	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

This book explores the origins and significance of the French concept of terroir, demonstrating that the way the French eat their food and drink their wine today derives from a cultural mythology that developed between the Renaissance and the Revolution. Through close readings and an examination of little-known texts from diverse disciplines, Thomas Parker traces terroir's evolution, providing insight into how gastronomic mores were linked to aesthetics in language, horticulture, and painting and how the French used the power of place to define the natural world, explain comportment, and frame France as a nation.

Author Notes

Parker Thomas :

Thomas Parker is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Vassar College. He is the author of Volition , Rhetoric, and Emotion in the Work of Pascal .

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

The French concept of terroir, popularized in the late twentieth century by wine connoisseurs and foodies, has roots in the European Renaissance. Through in-depth study of texts and primary sources from multiple disciplines, Parker (Vassar College) reveals chronological connections between gastronomic mores, aesthetics in language, horticulture, and art, and how the French defined their cultural and national identities through the power of place in the natural world. The extensive notes (22 pages) and bibliography (30 pages) are of great value to researchers, as gastronomy still lags behind other disciplines in terms of a paper trail to support various theories. This worthy addition to the "California Studies in Food and Culture" series should be read side by side with Amy Trubek's The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir (CH, Dec'08, 46-2041), also part of this series, to see how terroir manifests in the US. Series editor Darra Goldstein, founding editor of Gastronomica, consistently publishes books and articles that take food in history to a higher level. Valuable for academic libraries, large public libraries, and culinary schools. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above, two-year technical program students, and general readers. --Rachel S. Wexelbaum, Saint Cloud State University