From gluttony to enlightenment : the world of taste in early modern Europe / Viktoria von Hoffmann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoffmann, Viktoria von, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food--Europe--History.

Food.

Gastronomy--Europe--History.

Gastronomy.

Food habits--Europe--History.

Food habits.

History.

Europe.

Physical Description:

ix, 268 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Urbana, Illinois : University of Illinois Press, 2016.

Summary:

Scorned since antiquity as low and animal, the sense of taste is celebrated today as an ally of joy, a source of adventure, and an arena for pursuing sophistication. The French exalted taste as an entrée to ecstasy, and revolutionized their cuisine and language to express this new way of engaging with the world. Viktoria von Hoffmann explores a range of early modern texts to follow taste's ascent from the sinful to the beautiful. Combining food studies and sensory history, she takes readers on an odyssey that redefined a fundamental human experience. Scholars and cooks rediscovered a vast array of ways to prepare and present foods. Far-sailing fleets returned to Europe bursting with new vegetables, exotic fruits, and pungent spices. Hosts refined notions of hospitality in the home while philosophers pondered the body and its perceptions. As von Hoffmann shows, these labors produced a sea change in awareness and thought, one that moved taste from the base realm of the tongue to the ethereal heights of aesthetics. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The "Silences of Taste" 13

2 Pleasures, Disorders, and Dangers of an Animal Sense 39

3 The Lowest Sense of All 73

4 From a Material to a Spiritual Taste 101

5 Toward an Art and Science of Taste 137.

ISBN:

9780252082146

0252082141

9780252040641

0252040643

OCLC:

946905375