Eating Right in the Renaissance [Hardcover]

Ken Albala (Author)

Book Description

Series: California Series in Food and Culture | Publication Date: February 1, 2002

Eating right has been an obsession for longer than we think. Renaissance Europe had its own flourishing tradition of dietary advice. Then, as now, an industry of experts churned out diet books for an eager and concerned public. Providing a cornucopia of information on food and an intriguing account of the differences between the nutritional logic of the past and our own time, this inviting book examines the wide-ranging dietary literature of the Renaissance. Ken Albala ultimately reveals the working of the Renaissance mind from a unique perspective: we come to understand a people through their ideas on food.
Eating Right in the Renaissance takes us through an array of historical sources in a narrative that is witty and spiced with fascinating details. Why did early Renaissance writers recommend the herbs parsley, arugula, anise, and mint to fortify sexual prowess? Why was there such a strong outcry against melons and cucumbers, even though people continued to eat them in large quantities? Why was wine considered a necessary nutrient? As he explores these and other questions, Albala explains the history behind Renaissance dietary theories; the connections among food, exercise, and sex; the changing relationship between medicine and cuisine; and much more.
Whereas modern nutritionists may promise a slimmer waistline, more stamina, or freedom from disease, Renaissance food writers had entirely different ideas about the value of eating right. As he uncovers these ideas from the past, Ken Albala puts our own dietary obsessions in an entirely new light in this elegantly written and often surprising new chapter on the history of food.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Albala 's engaging tour through the host of Renaissance dietary theories reminds us that our preoccupations with food and susceptibility to cranky advice about nutrition are nothing new. This is superior scholarship delivered with a light touch."-Rachel Laudan, author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage; "This stimulating work is an important contribution to social and especially medical-dietetic history. Albala is the first to explore in detail the role of dietetic literature in the development of the European nation state. His book is a pleasure to read."-Melitta Weiss Adamson, editor of Food in the Middle Ages

From the Inside Flap

"Albala 's engaging tour through the host of Renaissance dietary theories reminds us that our preoccupations with food and susceptibility to cranky advice about nutrition are nothing new. This is superior scholarship delivered with a light touch."--Rachel Laudan, author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage

"This stimulating work is an important contribution to social and especially medical-dietetic history. Albala is the first to explore in detail the role of dietetic literature in the development of the European nation state. His book is a pleasure to read."--Melitta Weiss Adamson, editor of Food in the Middle Ages

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 324 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520229479
• ISBN-13: 978-0520229471
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #347,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ken Albala is Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he teaches courses on the Renaissance and Reformation, Food History and the History of Medicine. He is the author or editor of 14 books on food history including Eating Right in the Renaissance (University of California Press, 2002), Food in Early Modern Europe (Greenwood Press, 2003), Cooking in Europe 1250-1650 (Greenwood Press, 2005), The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (University of Illinois Press, 2007), Beans: A History (winner of the 2008 International Society of Culinary Professionals Jane Grigson Award and the Cordon D'Or award for Food History/Literature), Pancake (Reaktion Press, 2008), and the forthcoming Three World Cuisines (AltaMira Studies in Food and Gastronomy). He is also editor of three food series for Greenwood Press with 30 volumes in print. For Greenwood he has also edited a 4-volume Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. Albala is also coeditor of the journal Food Culture and Society. He is currently researching a history of theological controversies surrounding fasting in the Reformation Era, and has edited two collected volumes of essays, one on the Renaissance for Berg and the other on Food and Faith for Columbia University Press. A cookbook coauthored with Rosanna Nafziger for Penguin/Perigee is entitled The Lost Art of Real Cooking, the sequel of which The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home is forthcoming.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humour theory explained, November 23, 2004

By 

Jeremy Fletcher (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eating Right in the Renaissance (Hardcover)

To date, the best book I have read on humour theory. Not ha-ha, but the historical idea that the body's natural state is a combination of the four cardinal humours, that food is likewise and how one affects the other.

In a somewhat dry but excellent work, Albala documents and contrasts the various humoural theorists' works from the 1470s to 1650. The author's stated goal is to better understand the workings of the Renaissance mind by its ideas on food, and he does an admirably complete job.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for the aspiring nutritionist, December 25, 2006

By 

Lynn Hoffman, author:The Short Course in Beer (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eating Right in the Renaissance (Hardcover)

Ken Albala is a thoroughly charming writer. This short
excursion into the state of renaissance thought is a delight
to read for its charm alone. Underneath the charm is first
an analysis of the humoral theory-a way of making sense of
human variation that stood unquestioned untli Paracelsus and
Montaigne came along to knock it down. According to the theory,
every human is ruled by one of four fluids: melancholic, phlegmatic,
sanguine or choleric. The business of nutrition was to correct
imbalances in the humors which could lead to disease.
(Perhaps we shouldn't write the obituary for humoral theory
too soon. Most modern novels are based on one-sided char-
acterizations that reflect one of those four dispositions.)

There's another layer yet- humoral theory is of interest today
only to the cultural historian. What makes this book important
is that it remindsus of the persistence of Prescriptionism: the
doctrine that food is a medical medium and that one should eat
this and avoid that in order to correct or prevent. Those of us
who think of food as Recreation or as Delight have been tilting
with the Prescriptionists for a very long time.

You'll want your aspiring nutritionalist to read this because
the scolding assured tone of the writers cited will be
alarmingly familiar even if their conclusions sound strange.
(melons are bad for you?) Perhaps we could learn to be just
a bit less sure of ourselves in the light of another age's
vanished assurance.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN 9781601640005