Food in World History

Jeffrey M. Pilcher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317514503
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The second edition of this concise survey offers a comparative and comprehensive study of culinary cultures and food politics throughout the world, from ancient times to the present day. It examines the long history of globalization of foods as well as the political, social, and environmental implications of our changing relationship with food, showing how hunger and taste have been driving forces in human history.

Including numerous case studies from diverse societies and periods, Food in World History explores such questions as:

• What social factors have historically influenced culinary globalization?

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• How did early modern plantations establish patterns for modern industrial food production?

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• Were eighteenth-century food riots comparable to contemporary social movements around food?

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• Did Italian and Chinese migrant cooks sacrifice authenticity to gain social acceptance in theAmericas?

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• Have genetically modified foods fulfilled the promises made by proponents?

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This new edition includes expanded discussions of gender and the family, indigeneity, and the politics of food. Expanded chapters on contemporary food systems and culinary pluralism examine debates over the concentration of corporate control over seeds and marketing, authenticity and exoticism within the culinary tourism industry, and the impact of social media on restaurants and home cooks.

1

The First World Cuisine

The seemingly fundamental social divisions between “civilized” sedentary farmers, “barbarian” nomadic pastoralists, and “savage” hunters and gatherers arose only slowly after the agricultural revolution. The transition from hunting and gathering to farming began at the dawn of the Holocene era, about 12,000 years ago, when the retreat of the last ice age caused a decline in populations of large game animals and greater returns for the collection of plant foods. Foragers around the world experimented with grass seeds, roots, and tubers, and over time they transformed wild species into more useful domesticates through an unconscious process of selecting the most favorable plants and encouraging their propagation. In addition to grains and tubers, early agriculturalists also domesticated fruits, nuts, and pulses. Although nomadic bands had settled into Neolithic villages at Jericho and Jiahu by 7000 BCE, early farmers continued to gather wild plants, even as foragers were cultivating domesticated crops as part of their seasonal migrations. The boundaries between farming and foraging remained relatively fluid until the rise of complex societies and archaic states, beginning about 2000 BCE. The hierarchical nature of the newly differentiated societies was marked both by unequal access to food and by the subordination of women within patriarchal families, an ironic twist given the crucial role of female gatherers in the original domestication of plants.

Pastoral traditions arose simultaneously with agriculture in many parts of the world. Although dogs had hunted together with humans for thousands of years, the domestication of sheep and goats in the Near East and cattle in North Africa, about 9000 BCE, provided the first herd animals. Less is known about the domestication of pigs and chickens in Asia and camelids in South America, but they too likely arose from distinctive social and environmental interactions. The use of dairy products began later, by 4000 BCE, and usually involved some form of processing to make cheese, yogurt, and butter, although raw milk may have been consumed for ritual purposes. Livestock also contributed to agriculture; for example, cattle served as draft animals and provided fertilizer. Yet the inherent competition for land between pasture and agriculture led to cultural differentiation between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. Pigs became the preferred source of food for urban dwellers because they reproduced quickly and ate garbage. As a result, pastoral peoples such as the Hebrews considered pigs to be filthy animals unfit for human consumption.

The social functions of food, constructing hierarchies and differentiating between peoples, form the subject of this chapter. It examines three civilizations, two of the classical world and one of the postclassical. The empires of China and Rome both developed sophisticated agriculture and considered the preparation of food as a mark of their civilized status and distinction from barbarian outsiders. By contrast, Islam drew on both agricultural and pastoral traditions to form a multiethnic society that spanned three continents. The banquets of Baghdad were arguably the site of the first world cuisine, although elite foods of Rome and China likewise depended on exotic ingredients brought from distant lands.

Chinese Cuisine

Rice has become the indispensable staple of modern Asian cuisine, but historical Chinese civilization emerged in the northern Yellow River valley, a region too arid for rice cultivation. People there began to settle into agricultural villages as early as 7000 BCE, growing the nutritious grain millet. Although foragers cultivated strains of wild rice across large parts of South and East Asia, the domestication of rice probably took place in the Yangzi River valley, which eventually became the agricultural center of the country. The seemingly more primitive nomadic lifestyle actually developed later, about 2000 BCE, when Turkic peoples brought the skills of horseback riding to the arid western steppe. Chinese cuisine thus developed from the earliest times with the recognition of regional differences.

The Chinese state recognized its agrarian foundations, and the ancient classics ranked food as the first of eight concerns of government. According to legend, the founder of the Shang dynasty (c. 1766–1122 BCE) appointed his cook Yi Yin to be prime minister, and the cooking cauldron served as the prime symbol of government. Emperors conducted elaborate ritual sacrifices to propitiate the gods and ancestors, thereby ensuring good harvests. After deposing the Shang, the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1040–1771 BCE) asserted its legitimacy to rule, the Mandate of Heaven, by claiming descent from the millet god.

The regulation of food remained a central concern with the rise of Chinese social philosophy during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BCE). Confucius (551–479 BCE), who emphasized gentlemanly behavior and strict observance of social hierarchies, extended this concept of decorum to the finest details of food preparation. The Analects described his fastidious behavior when dining: “He did not eat food that was not in season, nor did he eat except at mealtimes. He did not eat meat that was not properly cut off or meat paired with the wrong sauce.”¹ Conflating personal behavior with the body politic, Confucius likened a well-planned meal to a well-governed state. Mencius (372–289 BCE) likewise averred that the primary duty of a ruler was to ensure that his subjects were properly fed. Even the draconian Legalist school, which opposed Confucian thought on most subjects, agreed that productive agriculture was essential for the well-being of the state. Notwithstanding the paternal bond between rulers and subjects implied by the Mandate of Heaven, emperors could use the demands of sacrifice to extort tribute from the people, thereby condemning them to hunger.

A concern with balance and form had already infused Chinese cooking methods and eating rituals by the Eastern Zhou. The first step in preparing a proper meal lay in balancing staple grains with condiments such as meat and vegetables. Of necessity, the poor ate large bowls of rice or millet porridge, supplemented by soybeans, but the food canons (dietary guides) advised the wealthy likewise to avoid excessive quantities of rich foods. Confucius again set the example: “Even when there was plenty of meat, he would not eat more meat than grain.”² Patterns of combining flavors and chopping ingredients, which are still distinctive characteristics of modern Chinese cuisine, had also been established; indeed, the cook’s art of balancing the five flavors (salty, bitter, sweet, sour, and savory) came to mirror the cosmological balance of five elements (earth, wood, fire, water, and metal).

Cuisine likewise contributed to the formation of early Chinese social hierarchies, which mirrored the Confucian ideal family governed by filial piety. The Rites of Zhou assigned more than 2,200 attendants, over half of an idealized imperial household, to the preparation of food and drink. Other works set the proper number of meat and vegetable dishes according to rank (a high minister merited eight while a lower official got only six), age (with more variety reserved for the elderly), and gender (wives deferred to husbands and sisters to brothers). Exotic foods were also in great demand at court and in wealthy households; Mencius expressed a preference for bear paw, which, in addition to its delicate taste, was believed to strengthen the eater. Moreover, the classics prescribed strict rules for etiquette, giving particular attention to the deference owed by people of lower rank to their superiors. In a similar fashion, these texts instructed children to pay deference to their parents; if there was not enough food for everyone, the young should go hungry so their elders could eat. Prepared for an elite audience, these texts denounced the boorish behavior of the lower classes, although the common people doubtless maintained their own standards for proper conduct.

The Chinese predilection for opulent banquets coexisted uneasily with philosophical teachings of simplicity and spiritual nourishment. The Daodejing, attributed to the sixth-century mystic Laozi, warned simply: “The five flavors confuse one’s palate.”³ Zhuangzi (369–287 BCE), another Daoist sage, praised the skills of the master cook Ting while lampooning Confucian scholars with their pompous sophistication. “Stop when hunger is satiated,” taught Mozi (470–391 BCE), who explicitly denounced elite gourmandizing: “There is no need of combining the five tastes extremely well or harmonizing the different sweet odours. And efforts should not be made to procure rare delicacies from far countries.”⁴

A system of humoral medicine ultimately arose from this tension between luxury and simplicity. Applying the Daoist concept of yin and yang to foods, Chinese physicians advised patients to maintain good health by balancing “hot” and “cold” foods. These qualities indicated not temperature but their effects on the body: for instance, meat, ginger, and fried foods were “heating”; by contrast, cabbage, shellfish, and boiled foods were “cooling.” A person with a fever should eat cooling foods, while one suffering from cold needed heating foods. Grains such as rice and millet were considered neutral. Popular culture also recognized “strengthening” foods such as ginseng and bear paw. This system was formalized only in the fifth century CE after the arrival of Buddhism, and disagreements remained as to the exact nature of particular foods.

The centuries of stability under the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) allowed an agricultural revolution that tied the Chinese people even closer to the land. Innovation began with the forging of iron plows in the Eastern Zhou dynasty, and Han officials produced elaborate agricultural manuals to diffuse productive techniques. In addition to irrigation and fertilizers, the Chinese maintained pumps for rice paddy cultivation, grain mills, and state granaries to prevent famine. New cooking methods also contributed to Han productivity. Wheat, an inferior grain for making porridge, spread widely after the invention of noodles. Intensive agriculture succeeded in tripling the Chinese population to 60 million people, according to a census of 2 CE, but at the expense of more concentrated land holdings. Despite social welfare policies, the plight of peasants inspired numerous rebellions. Emperor Wang Mang (ruled 9–23 CE) attempted a program of land distribution but was overthrown and killed.

Chinese agriculturalists also used cooking as a standard of civilization to distinguish themselves from the nomads living beyond the Great Wall. Savage tribes, such as the Ti to the north and the Jung to the west, supposedly ate raw meat or did not eat grain, violating rules of civilized dining. Ethnic Chinese scrupulously avoided the milk and cheese consumed by pastoral barbarians, although by the Northern and Southern dynasties (317–589 CE), after numerous foreign invasions, dairy products had become accepted, at least among northern Chinese. Cooking displayed a marked regionalism, as northerners looked with suspicion on the strange aquatic creatures, local produce, and spices of the south. Notwithstanding the Chinese self-image as the “Middle Kingdom,” cultural contact was essential for the rise of its civilization, starting with exchanges between the Yellow and Yangzi River regions. These encounters of distinct cooking traditions, as well as the construction of social identities in opposition to nomadic outsiders, also marked another great empire of the ancient world, Rome.

Food in the Classical Mediterranean

Unlike the Chinese, Romans marched out on the road to empire as uncouth conquerors of a civilized Mediterranean world. The Etruscan kings who ruled Rome until the founding of the republic in 509 BCE were renowned for abundant agriculture and lavish banquets. Egypt, although past its prime, remained a cultural paragon with the perpetually fertile Nile and already ancient pyramids. Greeks and Phoenicians had meanwhile taken the initiative, establishing colonies and planting wheat, olives, and grapes throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins. Merchants from these far-flung trade empires conducted a lucrative commerce in the staple grains, oil, and wine, as well as in luxury goods such as honey, spices, and garum, a pungent sauce made of fermented fish and aromatic herbs. The majority of people made a living from farming, but even the most self-sufficient peasants bought and sold goods through markets.

Everyday foods of the early republic reflected the stoic frugality of the idealized Roman citizen-soldier cultivating a small plot of land. A simple porridge of emmer wheat, supplemented by protein-rich broad beans, comprised the bulk of the diet. Cabbages, greens, and other vegetables added variety to meals, and even urban dwellers maintained kitchen gardens. This produce was generally eaten raw as salads with plenty of olive oil, contrary to the Chinese practice of cooking everything. Strictly speaking, the Romans believed that the sun “cooked” vegetables, unlike truly raw meat. With little grass and fodder available in the Mediterranean climate, even the rich ate little animal protein, and that was largely pork rather than fish, as the Greeks preferred, or beef. The Romans considered meat to be indigestible; the physician Celsus (30–64 BCE) explained that fruits, vegetables, and grains built the body while meats purged it. Wine was the universal drink, although quality varied greatly according to social class. Nevertheless, legionnaires on campaign ate meat as well as porridges or flat breads and drank watered-down vinegar.

Romans set aside these frugal everyday habits for civic banquets, which played an important role in political, social, and religious life. By definition, a banquet involved the consumption of sacrificial meat, fed directly to participants in religious celebrations or purchased afterward at market. In either case, meat remained a preserve of the wealthy. More generally, the convivium or communal dinner, while ostensibly a gathering of equals, in fact reflected social and political hierarchies. For example, members of the patrician class entertained plebeian clients to ensure their votes, although senators frowned on the practice of offering free dinners for the masses as an abuse of the patron–client system. Unlike the Greek symposium, the Roman convivium was sexually mixed and involved food as well as drink. Plebeians also participated in this sociability by forming dining and funeral societies to share the costs.

Greco-Roman attitudes about the state and the marketplace differed sharply from the Chinese preoccupation with public welfare, although both were founded on patriarchal notions of the family ruled by the oldest male in the household. Democratic and republican ideals of self-reliant farmer-soldiers precluded the state from feeding the people directly, even in times of hunger. At most, there was an attitude of civic concern by private individuals acting as benefactors (euergetes) for the poor. By the second century BCE, latifundia or large landed estates worked by slaves had come to replace the independent farmers who traditionally manned the legions. The brothers Marcus and Gaius Gracchus attempted to restore the social balance through a program of land distribution beginning in 133 BCE, but they suffered the same fate as the Chinese reformer Wang Mang, and offering bread and circuses became an effective strategy for ambitious politicians such as Julius Caesar. After the fall of the republic, Augustus (ruled 28 BCE–14 CE) bureaucratized the food supply for the imperial capital, importing grain from Egypt to keep Rome’s million inhabitants quiescent. Elsewhere, consumers still depended on the market power and occasional charity of landowners.

Nostalgic Roman commentators blamed the corruption of republican virtue on the influence of decadent Greeks. The satirist Plautus (254–184 BCE) dated the arrival of the first cook in Rome to the year 187, and indeed, within half a century, Greek bread had begun to replace the traditional porridge. New social hierarchies emerged as patricians installed ovens to have fine white bread and cakes baked at home, while the plebeians went to public bakeries for coarse dark loaves. Eastward expansion also brought Rome in contact with the spice trade; a series of sumptuary laws followed, but to little effect. A cookbook attributed to Apicius documents the extravagant haute cuisine of the empire, which featured exotic ingredients and alchemical transformations. Petronius’s Satyricon described the vulgar feast of a nouveau riche former slave, Trimalchio, who berated his cook for having served a wh...