Main description:

The historical study of food, culture, and society has become established within the academy based on a generation of high-quality scholarship. Following the foundational work of the French Annales school, the International Committee for the Research into European Food History and the Institut Europeen d'Histoire et des Cultures de l'Alimentation have conducted wide-ranging research, particularly on the changes brought about by culinary modernization. In the United
States, the ascendancy of cultural history in the 1990s encouraged young scholars to write dissertations on food-related topics. Despite the existence of at least four major scholarly journals focused on food, the field still lacks a solid foundation of historiographical writing. As a result,
innovative early approaches to commodity chains, ethnic identities, and culinary transformation have become repetitive. Meanwhile, scholars are often unaware of relevant literature when it does not directly relate to their particular national and chronological focus.

The Oxford Handbook of Food History places existing works in historiographical context, crossing disciplinary, chronological, and geographic boundaries, while also suggesting new routes for future research. The twenty-seven essays in this book are organized into five basic sections: historiography and disciplinary approaches as well as the production, circulation, and consumption of food. Chapters on historiography examine the French Annales school, political history, the cultural
turn, labor, and public history. Disciplinary methods that have contributed significantly to the history of food including anthropology, sociology, geography, the emerging Critical Nutrition Studies. The final chapter in this section explores the uses of food in the classroom. The production section encompasses
agriculture, pastoralism, and the environment; using cookbooks as historical documents; food and empire; industrial foods; and fast food. Circulation is examined through the lenses of human mobility, chronological frames, and food regimes, along with case studies of the medieval spice trade, the Columbian exchange, and modern culinary tourism. Finally, the consumption section focuses on communities that arise through the sharing of food, including religion, race and ethnicity, national
cuisines, and social movements.

Contents:

Introduction ; Jeffrey M. Pilcher ; Part I. Food Histories ; 1. Food and the Annales School, Sydney Watts ; 2. Political Histories of Food, Enrique Ochoa ; 3. Cultural Histories of Food, Jeffrey M. Pilcher ; 4. Labor Histories of Food, Tracey Deutsch ; 5. Public Histories of Food, Rayna Green ; Part II. Food Studies ; 6. Gendering Food, Carole Counihan ; 7. Anthropology of Food, R. Kenji Tierney and Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney ; 8. Sociology of Food, Sierra Burnett Clark and Krishnendu Ray ; 9. Geography of Food, Bertie Mandelblatt ; 10. Critical Nutrition Studies, Charlotte Biltekoff ; 11. Teaching with Food, Jonathan Deutsch and Jeffrey Miller ; Part III. The Means of Production ; 12. Agricultural Production and Environmental History, Sterling Evans ; 13. Cookbooks as Historical Documents, Ken Albala ; 14. Empires of Food, Jayeeta Sharma ; 15. Industrial Food, Gabriella M. Petrick ; 16. Fast Food, Steve Penfold ; Part IV. The Circulation of Food ; 17. Food, Mobility, and World History, Donna R. Gabaccia ; 18. The Medieval Spice Trade, Paul Freedman ; 19. The Columbian Exchange, Rebecca Earle ; 20. Food, Time, and History, Elias Mandala ; 21. Food Regimes, Andre Magnan ; 22. Culinary Tourism, Lucy Long ; Part V. Communities of Consumption ; 23. Food and Religion, Corrie E. Norman ; 24. Food, Race, and Ethnicity, Yong Chen ; 25. National Cuisines, Alison K. Smith ; 26. Food and Ethical Consumption, Rachel Ankeny ; 27. Food and Social Movements, Warren Belasco