Medieval Tastes

In his new history of food, acclaimed historian Massimo Montanari traces the development of medieval tastes - both culinary and cultural - from raw materials to market and captures their reflections in today's food trends. Tying the ingredients of our diet evolution to the growth of human civilization, he immerses readers in the passionate debates and bold inventions that transformed food from a simple staple to a potent factor in health and a symbol of social and ideological standing.

Summary

Italy’s best-known food historian travels back to the birth of “modern” cuisine and reveals the remarkable links between medieval tastes and our own. Massimo Montanari traces the development of medieval tastes—both culinary and cultural—and details how food transformed from a simple staple to a symbol of social and ideological standing.

Report

Massimo Montanari is a master communicator of fascinating ideas. He proposes the intriguing concept of the Middle Ages as something at once close but also very distant. This work will prove appealing to more than just food historians, and I highly recommend it. David Gentilcore, University of Leicester

Product details

• Authors: Beth A. Brombert, Massimo Montanari
• Assisted by: Beth Archer Brombert (Translation), Brombert Beth Archer (Translation)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 14.11.2017
• EAN: 9780231167871
• ISBN: 978-0-231-16787-1
• No. of pages: 280
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 227 mm x 15 mm
• Series: Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Cultural history; Non-fiction book; HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Medieval History, Food & society, c 1000 CE to c 1500, Social and cultural history, c 500 to c 1000 CE, Cultural studies: food and society