Organized by David B. Goldstein, Allen James Grieco, and Sarah Peters Kernan
Digital Conference at the Newberry Library

Co-sponsored by the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library and the Folger Institute’s collaborative research project, Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The growing, preparation, tasting, and eating of food are bodily phenomena. To gain access to them through the distances of history, we must turn to words and images. This interdisciplinary conference examines the book as a primary intersection for foodways throughout the early modern world. The language and imagery of food emerge in all manner of books, including recipe manuscripts, literature, historical documents, religious writings, medical treatises, and engravings, not to mention in marginal stains and other chance material encounters. The convened speakers will explore how food interacts with books as physical objects as well as mental ones. They will examine books as ways of studying food and its representations in historical perspective, especially those of marginalized and underprivileged people; and as instances of metaphorical food and sustenance in themselves. The conference will also host collaborations between scholars, food writers, and chefs, resulting in cooking experiments and discussions of current food issues that will help reinvigorate questions about early modern cuisine for a contemporary world.