Food History
One of the questions that interested me when I started thinking about food history was why Western (or French) High Cuisine appeared so suddenly in the mid seventeenth century. This resulted in an articled in Scientific American called Birth of the Modern Diet (pdf). A fuller version with all the footnotes and more details appeared in Petits Propos Culinaires with the title A Kind of Chemistry (pdf).
A move to Mexico meant that it was impossible to resist exploring the history of Mexican food.
Why do Mexican moles resemble Indian curries? Is it just coincidence? My answer is no in The Mexican Kitchen’s Islamic Connection. I was thrilled that Mexican photographer, Nacho (Ignacio) Urquiza, agreed to take the photographs for this article.
And again on Mexican food history, here’s a paper on Chiles, Chocolate and Race that I wrote with Jeff Pilcher. It shows hows the Spanish hung on to their food in the colonial period. Not much of that mixing that so many cookbook authors talk about.
For a meeting of the International Association of Culinary Professionals in Puebla, Mexico I put together a booklet, Puebla in the Global Gastronomic Geography (pdf), to explain why Puebla is the epicenter of Mexican cooking.
Were semitas, a bread found on the US-Mexico border, specifically Jewish? I tackle this question in Semitas, Semitic Bread, and the Search for Community. I conclude that semitas are not a specifically Jewish bread. I am continuing to add to this article and the new information about the history of semitas can be found in Semitas.
I have also looked a broader issues.
What counts as simple, natural food? Why is the good cook the moral cook? Here is a paper that I gave at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in 2007 called Refined Cuisine or Plain Cooking. And here’s the Handout for Refined Cuisine or Plain Cooking (pdf) that gives a one-page summary of the argument.
Posts
Hi Rachel - I admire your work! I am trying to follow the chili pepper from the Old World to its adoption as a key flavoring in Sichuan cuisine — alongside ancient sichuan pepper. How and why it happened…. I have sources on trade, likely trade routes, some cultivation, speculation on its serious culinary adoption in the 19th c …as a migration with chefs from Hunan. etc. But I haven’t found anything ‘definitive’, nor enough detail on the possibilities. I wonder if you have any ideas (i would credit, of course). This is for a grad school paper, not publication! Feel free to ignore this if it’s just beyond your interest or patience!
Many thx, Kate
Kate, Thanks for the vote of confidence. You are taking on one of the great mysteries of food history. And your instinct to look to trade routes has to be right. I have no hidden bibliographic references to offer. And it would be insulting to suggest that you don’t know obvious sources–Fuschia Dunlop and Sucheta Mazumdar. What strikes me more and more as I dig in to culinary history is that cuisines (whole packages of thinking about and making food) shape what we eat. So the chile had to fit into these structures. I suppose that is the way I would think about it. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Feel free to contact me off list.
Kate - on thing to consider is what food item the chile replaced or replicated. In India (and in Europe)New World chile replaced “pipli” (long pepper) for a whole variety of reasons. Or if people have a pre-existing taste for a flavour then they tend to adopt other similar flavors. Chile added to Sichuan pepper makes would work for instance.
To echo Adam…
According to The Book of Kimchi (published by The Korea Information Service, editors and contributors are all professors)
“Even before red chili pepper was introduced, leaf mustard of a violet color, cockscomb and safflower were used to give kimchi a delightful red color. Koreans put a special value on the color red…”