In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, French cooks began
to claim central roles in defining and enforcing taste, as well as
in educating their diners to changing standards. Tracing the
transformation of culinary trades in France during the
Revolutionary era, Jennifer J. Davis argues that the work of
cultivating sensibility in food was not simply an elite matter; it
was essential to the livelihood of thousands of men and women.
Combining rigorous archival research with social history and
cultural studies, Davis analyzes the development of cooking
aesthetics and practices by examining the propagation of taste, the
training of cooks, and the policing of the culinary marketplace in
the name of safety and good taste. French cooks formed their
profession through a series of debates intimately connected to
broader Enlightenment controversies over education, cuisine, law,
science, and service. Though cooks assumed prominence within the
culinary public sphere, the unique literary genre of gastronomy
replaced the Old Regime guild police in the wake of the French
Revolution as individual diners began to rethink cooks' authority.
The question of who wielded culinary influence -- and thus shaped
standards of taste -- continued to reverberate throughout society
into the early nineteenth century.
This remarkable study illustrates how culinary discourse
affected French national identity within the country and around the
globe, where elite cuisine bears the imprint of the country's
techniques and labor organization.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!