Food In The Arts

Elegantly written by a distinguished culinary historian, Food Is Culture explores the innovative premise that everything having to do with food--its capture, cultivation, preparation, and consumption--represents a cultural act. Even the "choices" made by primitive hunters and gatherers were determined by a culture of economics (availability) and medicine (digestibility and nutrition) that led to the development of specific social structures and traditions. Massimo Montanari begins with the "invention" of cooking which allowed humans to transform natural, edible objects into cuisine. Cooking led to the creation of the kitchen, the adaptation of raw materials into utensils, and the birth of written and oral guidelines to formalize cooking techniques like roasting, broiling, and frying. The transmission of recipes allowed food to acquire its own language and grow into a complex cultural product shaped by climate, geography, the pursuit of pleasure, and later, the desire for health. In his history, Montanari touches on the spice trade, the first agrarian societies, Renaissance dishes that synthesized different tastes, and the analytical attitude of the Enlightenment, which insisted on the separation of flavors. Brilliantly researched and analyzed, he shows how food, once a practical necessity, evolved into an indicator of social standing and religious and political identity. Whether he is musing on the origins of the fork, the symbolic power of meat, cultural attitudes toward hot and cold foods, the connection between cuisine and class, the symbolic significance of certain foods, or the economical consequences of religious holidays, Montanari's concise yet intellectually rich reflections add another dimension to the history of human civilization. Entertaining and surprising, Food Is Culture is a fascinating look at how food is the ultimate embodiment of our continuing attempts to tame, transform, and reinterpret nature.

Food Science and the Culinary Arts is a unique reference that incorporates the principles of food and beverage science with practical applications in food preparation and product development. The first part of the book covers the various elements of the chemical processes that occur in the development of food products. It includes exploration of sensory elements, chemistry, and the transfer of energy and heat within the kitchen. The second part looks in detail at the makeup of specific foodstuffs from a scientific perspective, with chapters on meat, fish, vegetables, sugars, chocolate, coffee, and wine and spirits, among others. It provides a complete overview of the food science relevant to culinary students and professionals training to work in the food industry. Provides foundational food science information to culinary students and specialists Integrates principles of food science into practical applications Spans food chemistry to ingredients, whole foods, and baked and mixed foods Includes a comprehensive glossary of terms in food science

A further volume in this series, this year discussing not so much food or its preparation as its portrayal in any number of art forms such as popular music, crime novels, film, theatre, literature, and fine art. There are also some papers which concentrate on the art of food, or art relating to food: an instance is the art of tissue-paper orange wrappers (a recondite but riveting item). My impression, when this subject was first mooted, was that all contributions would revolve around paintings and high arts. I was mistaken, there is a remarkable spread: the arrangement of 18th-century desserts; cookery and the Cuban Santeria religion; drink in 19th-century English fiction; food in film noir; the cook as artist in 18th-century England; architectural food design in France and Italy; popcorn poetry; food and eating in Bronte novels; and much more. These volumes are sometimes indigestible fricassees if swallowed at once, but think of them as platters of oysters - each may contain a pearl. By the finish a bracelet at least, perhaps a necklace, is the consequence.

From Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s painting of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II as a heap of fruits and vegetables to artists depicting lavish banquets for wealthy patrons, food and art are remarkably intertwined. In this richly illustrated book, Gillian Riley provides fresh insight into how the relationship between humans and food has been portrayed in art from ancient times to the Renaissance. Exploring a myriad of images including hunting scenes depicted in Egyptian Books of Hours and fruit in Roman wall paintings and mosaics, Riley argues that works of art present us with historical information about the preparation and preservation of food that written sources do not—for example, how meat, fish, cheese, and vegetables were dried, salted, and smoked, or how honey was used to conserve fruit. She also examines what these works reveal to us about how animals and plants were raised, cultivated, hunted, harvested, and traded throughout history. Looking at the many connections between food, myth, and religion, she surveys an array of artworks to answer questions such as whether the Golden Apples of the Hesperides were in fact apples or instead quinces or oranges. She also tries to understand whether our perception of fruit in Christian art is skewed by their symbolic meaning. With 170 color images of fine art, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, frescoes, stained glass, and funerary monuments, Food in Art is an aesthetically pleasing and highly readable book for art buffs and foodies alike.

This book traces the various configurations of food as hunger, desire, and appetite which point to the complex dialectic of consumption and consummation of ideas and forms underpinning the arts. It examines the relationship between nature and science, space and the act of artistic creation, desire and the arts, appetite and hunger. One of the aims of the book is to explore established theoretical and historical conceptions of “nature” in the arts and re-think their relationship to appetite in the globalized world. Examining the many guises and figurations of hunger in literature and the arts, this book gives an overview of the themes that emerge from the idea of the Hunger Artist alongside the fact of food: the latter’s significance as a barometer of social class; its rich source as a metaphor in literature and art; its unequal distribution throughout the world; and the means by which its consumption can lead to gluttony and further exploitation of the “hungry.” One of the great strengths of this book is the trans-disciplinary nature of the contributions achieved by mapping how the arts in their representation of social, psychological, political, and philosophical perspectives draw attention to the problems associated with excessive human cravings.

From birth until death, food and drink are the keystones of human existence as eating and drinking have always sustained our imaginations as well as our bodies, feeding our common need for art. In these volumes, the American Institute of Wine & Food gathers together the imaginative fare of writers, artists, chefs, food historians, and children to celebrate and illustrate gastronomy, the art and science of eating. Writings from Michael Jackson, Sharon Olds, Michael Dorris, Margaret Visser, Charles Simic, Carol Field, and David Mas Masumoto, among others, join with the art of painters and photographers such as Frida Kahlo, Tessa Traeger, Diego Rivera, Gary Kelley, Jeffrey Alford, and Naomi Duguid. Together these offerings represent some of the best culinary works of past and present and produce a feast for both the eyes and the mind.

Food defines us as individuals, communities, and nations - we are what we eat and, equally, what we don't eat. When, where, why, how and with whom we eat are crucial to our identity. Feast and Fast presents novel approaches to understanding the history and culture of food and eating in early modern Europe. This richly illustrated book will showcase hidden and newly-conserved treasures from the Fitzwilliam Museum and other collections in and around Cambridge. It will tease out many contemporary and controversial issues - such as the origins of food and food security, overconsumption in times of austerity, and our relationship with animals and nature – through short research-led entries by some of the world's leading cultural and food historians. Feast and Fast explores food-related objects, images, and texts from the past in innovative ways and encourages us to rethink our evolving relationship with food.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The definitive cookbook on French cuisine for American readers: "What a cookbook should be: packed with sumptuous recipes, detailed instructions, and precise line drawings. Some of the instructions look daunting, but as Child herself says in the introduction, 'If you can read, you can cook.'" —Entertainment Weekly “I only wish that I had written it myself.” —James Beard Featuring 524 delicious recipes and over 100 instructive illustrations to guide readers every step of the way, Mastering the Art of French Cooking offers something for everyone, from seasoned experts to beginners who love good food and long to reproduce the savory delights of French cuisine. Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle break down the classic foods of France into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of dishes—from historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. Throughout, the focus is on key recipes that form the backbone of French cookery and lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations—bound to increase anyone’s culinary repertoire. “Julia has slowly but surely altered our way of thinking about food. She has taken the fear out of the term ‘haute cuisine.’ She has increased gastronomic awareness a thousandfold by stressing the importance of good foundation and technique, and she has elevated our consciousness to the refined pleasures of dining." —Thomas Keller, The French Laundry