Food in World History

Jeffrey M. Pilcher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415311465, 9780415311458
• eBook ISBN: 9781134385805
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Providing a comparative and comprehensive study of culinary cultures and consumption throughout the world from ancient times to present day, this book examines the globalization of foodand explores the political, social and environmental implications of our changing relationship with food.

Including numerous case studies from diverse societies and periods, Food in World History examines and focuses on:

• how food was used to forge national identities in Latin America
• the influence of Italian and Chinese Diaspora on the US and Latin America food culture
• how food was fractured along class lines in the French bourgeois restaurant culture and working class cafes
• the results of state intervention in food production
• how the impact of genetic modification and food crises has affected the relationship between consumer and product.

This concise and readable survey not only presents a simple history of food and its consumption, but also provides a unique examination of world history itself.

Chapter 1
The first world cuisine

“Civilization” is a product of agriculture, and while farming societies have not always been considered “civilized,” nomads who fed themselves by hunting, gathering, or herding have invariably been dismissed as “barbarians” by their sedentary neighbors. The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture took place first in the Near East, where a wealth of natural grasses provided the raw materials for plant domestication. The retreat of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 BCE, encouraged new strategies for accumulating food, and over time humans transformed wild species into more useful grains such as barley, oats, and wheat through an unconscious process of selecting favorable plants and encouraging their propagation. As food sources became more dependable, nomadic bands settled into agricultural villages at Jericho and Çatal Hüyük (in modern-day Turkey) by 8000 BCE. Early agriculturalists also domesticated fruits, nuts, and pulses. The favorable natural resources of the River Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia yielded agricultural surpluses, facilitating the development of complex societies in which unequal access to food helped to define hierarchies. This social differentiation in archaic states, about 2000 BCE, also led to the patriarchal subordination of women, an ironic twist given the crucial role of female gatherers in plant domestication.

Pastoral traditions arose simultaneously with agriculture in the Near East. Although dogs had hunted together with humans for thousands of years, the domestication of sheep, about 9000 BCE, provided the first herd animals. Cattle and goats were domesticated later, and spread through much of the Middle East and North Africa. The use of dairy products began around 6000 BCE, and usually involved some form of processing to make cheese, yogurt, and butter, rather than the consumption of raw milk. Livestock also contributed to agriculture by drawing plows and providing fertilizer, but the competition between pasture and farmland led to cultural differentiation between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. Pigs became the preferred source of meat in cities because they reproduced quickly and ate garbage. Pastoral peoples such as the Hebrews considered them 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 post-classical. The empires of China and Rome both developed sophisticated agriculture and considered the preparation of food as a mark of their civilized status, distinct 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, but elite foods of Rome and China likewise depended on exotic ingredients brought from distant lands.

Chinese cuisine

Although rice has become the indispensable staple of modern Asia, historical Chinese civilization emerged in the arid north, a region unfit for rice cultivation. People settled into agricultural villages in the Yellow River valley as early as 7000 BCE, growing the nutritious grain millet. Rice domestication probably took place in a number of hearths, stretching from South-east Asia to the Yangtze River valley, which eventually became the Chinese agricultural heartland. The seemingly more primitive nomadic lifestyle actually developed later, about 2000 BCE, when Turkic peoples brought horseback riding skills to the western steppe. Chinese cuisine thus developed from earliest times with the recognition of regional differences.

The Chinese state acknowledged this agrarian basis, 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. 1040–771 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 conduct and strict observance of social hierarchies, extended this decorum to the finest details of food preparation. The Analects described his fastidious behavior when dining: “Undercooked foods he does not eat, and foods served at improper times he does not eat. Meat that is improperly carved, he does not eat, and if he does not obtain the proper sauce, he will not eat.” Conflating personal behavior with the body politic, Confucius likened a well-planned meal to a well-governed state. Mencius (372–289 BCE) similarly 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.

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: “Though there is plenty of meat, he will not allow it to overcome the vitalizing power of the rice.” 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 piquant) came to mirror the cosmological balance of five elements (earth, wood, fire, water, and metal).

Cuisine likewise contributed to the formation of social hierarchies. 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) and age (with more variety reserved for the elderly). All people were assumed to eat four bowls of grain daily. The classics also prescribed strict rules for etiquette, giving particular attention to the deference owed by people of lower rank to their superiors. Prepared for an elite audience, these texts denounced the boorish behavior of the lower classes, although commoners 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.” Mozi (470–391 BCE) 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.”

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 a cold sufferer needed heating foods. Grains such as rice and millet were considered neutral. 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.

Centuries of stability under the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) allowed an agricultural revolution. Innovation had begun already in the Eastern Zhou dynasty with the forging of iron plows, and Han officials produced elaborate agricultural manuals and maintained state granaries to prevent famine. New cooking methods also contributed to productivity. Wheat, an inferior grain for making porridge, spread widely after the invention of noodles. Intensive agriculture tripled China’s 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 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 contact between the Yellow and Yangtze River regions. This exchange of food products, 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, the 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 the paragon of civilization with the perpetually fertile Nile and already-ancient pyramids. The Greeks and the Phoenicians had meanwhile taken the initiative in 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 grain, oil, and wine, as well as such luxury goods as honey, spices, and garum, a pungent sauce made of fermented fish and aromatic herbs. The majority of people made a living by farming, but even the most self-sufficient peasants bought and sold goods through markets.

Everyday foods of the Roman Republic reflected the stoic frugality of the 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. 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 sparse grass and fodder, even the rich ate little animal protein, and that was generally pork rather than fish, as the Greeks preferred, or beef. Wine was the universal drink, although quality varied greatly according to social class. Legionnaires on campaign ate meat as well as porridges or flat breads and drank watered 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, the wealthy enjoyed the lion’s share. While ostensibly a gathering of equals, the convivium, or communal dinner, reflected social and political hierarchies. 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. Plebeians also shared in this sociability by forming dining and funeral societies to distribute the costs.

Greco-Roman attitudes toward the state and the marketplace differed sharply from the Chinese preoccupation with public welfare. Democratic and republican ideals of self-reliant farmer–soldiers precluded the state from feeding the people directly, even in times of hunger. At most, private individuals expressed civic concern as benefactors (euergetes) for the poor. By the second century BCE, large landed estates (latifundia) worked by slaves had replaced the independent farmers who traditionally manned the legions. The brothers Marcus and Gaius Gracchus attempted to restore the social balance through land distribution beginning in 133 BCE, but they suffered the same fate as the Chinese reformer Wang Mang. Offering bread and circuses became an effective strategy for ambitious politicians like Julius Caesar. After the fall of the republic, the Emperor 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. Consumers elsewhere still depended on markets and the occasional charity of landowners.

Nostalgic Roman commentators blamed the corruption of republican virtue on Greek decadence. 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. 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. Petronius’s Satyricon described the vulgar feast of a nouveau riche former slave, Trimalchio, who berated a cook during one banquet for having served a whole pig without gutting it first. When the hapless fellow slashed the belly, the “slits widened out under the pressure from inside, and suddenly out poured, not the pig’s bowels and guts, but link upon link of tumbling sausage and blood puddings.” Moralists doubtless exaggerated the “Roman incidents” of purging, but the Greeks at least provided physicians to treat the effects of overeating. They advised diets balancing the four humors – blood, phlegm, and yellow and black bile – a system that also influenced Muslim and perhaps Chinese beliefs by way of the Hellenistic world.

Culinary definitions of civilization were therefore more problematic in Rome than in China. The consumption of bread and wine distinguished the Romans from the barbarians who ate excessive quantities of meat – perhaps even raw in the case of the Huns – and drank ale. But at the same time, the Romans sought to distance themselves from Greek excesses by imagining a rustic past. Even these distinctions blurred over time, as greater numbers of Germanic people settled within the empire. The newcomers adopted Roman habits such as a taste for wine but retained their pastoral economy, and eventually public handouts included meat, as did even slave rations. Such largesse was possible because land that had come under the plow at the height of Roman influence reverted to forest and pasture as the empire retreated. Although the collapse of the Han dynasty entailed a similar population decline, ethnic Chinese eventually absorbed the foreign invaders and restored imperial rule. Contradictions within Roman identity, exemplified by the Janus-faced attitude toward food, may have contributed to the Western Empire’s inability to do likewise. Mediterranean eating habits continued to change as new civilizations arose in the post-classical era.

Multiethnic eating in the Muslim world

Before founding the religion of Islam around 610 CE, the Prophet Muhammad led camel caravans across the Arabian Peninsula, thus bridging the nomadic lifestyle of the desert and the settled agricultural villages of oases and the coast. Islam likewise synthesized diverse cultural traditions into a new civilization. Muslim armies struck out under the second caliph, Umar ibn Abd al-Khattāb (ruled 634–644), and subjugated large parts of the Sasanid and Byzantine empires, thereby inheriting Persian and Greek cultural traditions. Within a century, Muslim rule extended from Spain across North Africa and the Middle East to India, offering access to ingredients and cooking methods from three continents and establishing the basis for a cuisine that spanned the known world.

The unified government of the caliphate encouraged widespread trade and migration, introducing Asian food crops to the west. Islam honored the merchant profession, and Arab traders soon dominated Indian Ocean shipping routes. The Thousand and One Nights described the wealth of produce available to Baghdad shoppers: “Syrian apples and Othmani quinces, Omani peaches, cucumbers from the Nile, Egyptian lemons and Sultani citrons.” Low taxes, predominantly free labor, and the opportunity to own land enticed farmers from Persia and India to migrate westward, bringing with them sophisticated irrigation techniques and tropical Asian crops including rice, sugar, hard wheat, citrus fruits, bananas, mangoes, spinach, artichokes, and eggplants. Some plants of African origin such as watermelon and sorghum even made a roundabout voyage from the Swahili Coast to India, where they were improved, before returning to Africa and Europe. On pilgrimage to Mecca, the Spanish Muslim Ibn Jubayr described watermelons that tasted “like sugar-candy or purest honey” – a far cry from the bitter wild melons of Africa.

Despite this massive movement of people and plants, regional cuisines remained distinctive. The dairy and date-based diet of Bedouin shepherds, little changed since pre-Islamic times, contrasted with the lavish roast meats, rice pilafs, and sweet and savory combinations of Persian court cuisine. Cooks from Moorish Spain to Palestine specialized in fresh Mediterranean seafood, while others in the Middle East had access to only a limited variety of dried fish. Couscous, tiny steamed pasta made of sorghum and later hard wheat, spread slowly from Morocco and probably arrived in Syria and Iraq about the thirteenth century. By contrast, sweetmeats and pastries became ubiquitous throughout the Muslim world with the diffusion of sugar cane.

Islamic dietary laws imposed some continuity on these diverse regional cuisines. Pork was forbidden to Muslims, making mutton the favorite meat. Both Arab and Jewish butchers performed ritualized slaughter, draining the meat of all blood. The Qur’an also banned alcohol, which was eventually replaced by coffee. Muslims fasted for the month of Ramadan, neither eating nor drinking during the long, hot days, as opposed to Catholics, who abstained from meat during Lent. Although common to all societies, hospitality and charity had particularly deep roots in the harsh Arabian Desert, and the zakāt or tithe for the poor ranked among the five pillars of Islam. The generosity of such caliphs as Harun al-Rashid (ruled 786–809) expressed personal charity rather than the organized welfare policy of China, but this religious requirement imposed a stronger sense of responsibility than did the civic duty of classical Rome.

Handouts to the poor notwithstanding, the extravagant cuisine of the Abassid caliphate (750–1258) challenged the ethic of equality within the Muslim community. The ninth-century Kitāb al-Bukhalā (Book of Misers) berated Arabs for eating “Persian food, the food of Chosores, the flesh of the wheat in the saliva of the bee and the purest clarified butter . . . . Ibn al-Khattāb would not have approved.” This reference to the spartan second caliph rebuked the contemporary Baghdad court for having been corrupted by Persian luxuries. The hand of fate, omnipresent in Arab literature, could also punish those distracted by delicate foods. Moroccan traveler Ibn Battūta related a tale worthy of The Thousand and One Nights about a theologian, Jalāl ad-Dīn, who was tempted by a sweetmeat vendor. “The shaykh left his lesson to follow him and disappeared for some years. Then he came back, but with a disordered mind, speaking nothing but Persian verses which no one could understand.”

Cooks beyond the world of Islam also looked for inspiration to the cosmopolitan banquets of the caliphs. Medieval Christians had access to these recipes not so much from the Crusades as from Muslim-occupied areas of Spain and Sicily. In Italy, macaroni made of hard wheat had appeared by the thirteenth century, and two hundred years later, rice cultivation spread to the north, where cooks still make a porridge-like risotto. Scholars have traced connections between the sophisticated use of spices in Arabic cookbooks and European works of the lat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The first world cuisine
• Part I The ingredients of change
• Part II The taste of modernity
• Part III The global palate
• Conclusion