The case of food European World 22 October 2013 Michael Bycroft There is another shadowy zone often hard to see for lack of adequate historical documents lying underneath the market economy ID: 300399
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Slide1
Everyday life in early modern Europe: The case of food
European World, 22 October 2013
Michael
BycroftSlide2
There is another, shadowy zone, often hard to see for lack of adequate historical documents, lying underneath the
market economy
: this is that
elementary basic activity
which went on everywhere and the volume of which is truly fantastic. That rich zone, like a layer covering the earth, I have called for want of a better expression
material life
or
material civilization
-- Fernand
Braudel
,
The Structures of Everyday Life
(1979)Slide3
It is quite easy to imagine being transported to, say, Voltaire’s house at Ferney, and
talking to him
for a long time without being too surprised.
But if he
invited us to stay with him
for a few days, the details of his everyday life…would greatly shock us.
Between his world and ours, a great gulf would open up: lighting at night, heating, transport,
food
, illness, medicine….Slide4
1. Food as a necessity
2. Food as a luxurySlide5
Daily wages of unskilled labourers, 1400-2000
(
Scholliers
, 2003)Slide6
Daily wages of unskilled labourers, 1400-2000
(
Scholliers
, 2003)Slide7
In my father’s time, we ate meat every day, dishes were abundant, we gulped down wine as if it were water. Today, everything has truly changed
– Norman gentleman, 1560
100g
of meat a day, 1480-1454
50g
of meat a day, 1582
–
agricultural labourers in Narbonne (S France)
Number of butchers in
Montepezat
(France)
18
in 1550….
1
in 1763Slide8
William Hogarth,
O the Roast Beef of Old England or Calais Gate
(1748) Slide9
French v British meat consumption
The
nobility
of England do most exceed…they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig, deer…beside a great variety of wild foul
– William Harrison,
Description of England
, 1577
3 lb/day for a group of
harvest workers
in 1706, 1 lb/day for self-employed
farm labourer
in Lancashire in 1735…
‘in nine tenths of France, the poor and the small farmers eat meat, and only salt meat at that,
no more than once a week’
– 1829 French writerSlide10
Output per worker in agriculture
England in 1500 set to 1
(Allen, 2003)Slide11
Land enclosure
Draining land for cultivation
Adding more fertilisers to soil
More ploughings
Greater use of horse power
more food produced per worker, and (in long term) smaller proportion of population working the land
Some causes of the agricultural revolution in England,
1600-1750
-- Craig
Muldrew
,
Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness
(2011)Slide12
Land enclosure
planting hedges, building fences
Draining land for cultivation
digging, hauling mud, slates, wood
Adding more fertilisers to soil
carting, spreading, digging over
Greater use of horse power
loading carts, looking after horse
more food produced per worker, and (in long term) smaller proportion of population working the land
in the short term, more food needed to fuel the workers
Some causes of the agricultural revolution in England,
1600-1750Slide13
Food for ‘poor commoners’ includes ‘melons, pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers, radishes,
skirrets
, parsnips, carrots, cabbages,
navews
, turnips, and all kinds of salad herbs’
-- William Harrison,
Description of England
, 1577
6 ounces of
veges
per day per London inhabitant
=
amount arriving in London by water and by cart from market gardens in 1680s, calculated by Gregory King, a contemporarySlide14
Aniseed, Dill, Fennel-seed, Alcost, Commen
,
Carawayes
, Clary, Corianders, dried Mints, dried Nep, dried
Origanum
, Parsley-seed, dried Gilly-flowers, roots of
Galinga
and
Orris
, Rosemary, Saffron, Sage,
Oke
of Jerusalem, Bay-berries, Juniper-berries,
Sothernwood, Tansie, Tamarisk, Time, dried Wal-flowers, Violets, Varvein
, Wintersavory, Wormwood, and suchlike…-- Thomas
Moffet
,
Health’s Improvement
(1655)Slide15
‘The staff of life’, ‘our daily bread’
cheap energy
: 11x less per calorie than meat, 3x less than butter…
most consumed locally
– on farm, or sold within 20 or 30km of cultivation
r
emotely consumed wheat about 1% of Europe’s total production
but large for time,
eg
. Florentine merchants handled 5,000 tons of Sicilian grain a year in 14
th
century
s
ea routes,
eg
. from Baltic sea to Mediterranean, England to Med…
The trinity of grain, flour, bread is to be found everywhere in the history of Europe
–
BraudelSlide16
Kinds of bread and grain
soft white bread with milk
, aka ‘Queen’s bread’
white
bread,
ie
. made with wheat, bran and germ removed
wheat
bread, bran and germ included
rye
bread
barley
bread
gruel
ie
. grain or dried bread boiled with water or
milk
r
oots and acornsSlide17
[in bad years the poor eat] bread made either of beans, peas, or oats, or of all together and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest soonest taste, sith
they are least able to provide themselves of better
-- William Harrison,
Description of England
Eg
. in England, p
oor harvests in 1596-7
, 1697, 1709,
1740
Slide18
Meal of gruel of peasant family in Holland
(A. Van
Ostade
, 1653)Slide19
Paolo Veronese,
The Marriage of Cana
(1563)Slide20
Joachim
Beuckelaer
(Flemish), 1566Slide21
Late 16
th
-century engraving of ‘sugar collation’ on occasion of a ducal marriage, 1587Slide22
Erasmus of Rotterdam,
De
civilitate
morum
puerilium
(1530)
[
A Little Book of Good Manners of Children
]Slide23
This was also the golden age of the diet book – the book that told you how to eat correctly.
As Ken
Albala
has shown, these books poured off the presses throughout the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth.
They were
similar
to today’s books on diet in the sense that they were based on the cutting-edge science of the day – in the Renaissance that meant the physiology of the ancient Roman writer Galen.
They
differed
from today’s books in the sense that they were not just concerned with keeping the body healthy.
They were also about having a healthy
mind
,
and about combining foods in the most harmonious manner.
In other words, they were at once medical, moralistic, and culinary – a kind of all-purpose self-help book. Slide24Slide25Slide26
Table laid for 12-15 places
Vincent la
Chapelle
,
Le
cuisinier
moderne
(1742
)Slide27
Contributing causes
d
ecline of
humoreal
theory
William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood casts doubt on Galen’s physiology
s
equence of rival theories of health and physiology, esp. acid-alkali theories and mechanical theories
French aristocrats discover the
countryside
Paris ‘suburbs’ crowded, drawing wealthy citizens to country houses
r
hetoric of ‘simplicity’ and ‘authenticity’
r
ecoil from increasingly
common ‘exotica’
s
ugar, spice and turkey no longer serve as marks of distinction
d
istinction now lies in high-quality ingredients and refined tasteSlide28
Populuxe food (and drink)
‘Tea and tea paraphernalia are wholly absent from all households [in Antwerp] in
1680
are universal among the rich and present in 58 percent of the poorest households (those living in a single room) by
1730
and are universal among all classes in
1780’
-- quoted in Jan de
Vries
,
The Industrious Revolution
(2008)Slide29
Daily wages of unskilled labourers, 1400-2000
(
Scholliers
, 2003)Slide30
Tips
Variations
eg
. over centuries, between nations, between foodstuffs, between social groups
Causes
eg
. population growth, agricultural change, voyages of discovery, science and medicine
Fernand
Braudel
,
The Structures of Everyday Life, chapters 2-3