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Food in Transition from Venice to Nuremberg: Identifying Food Trends in Premodern Times (13th-17th century)

Project description

Historical food trends of Venice and Nuremberg

The term ‘food trends’ highlights how the introduction of foreign foods, available through trade, has transformed the taste and presentation of familiar dishes and created new culinary trends, even in premodern times. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the FiT project will uncover food trends, focusing on the Italian-German region and the trading hubs of Venice and Nuremberg between the 13th and 17th centuries. It will explore commercial books and trade documents, as well as the circulation of knowledge through philosophical writings, medical treatises, and cookbooks. The project will examine pasta, saffron, and Malvasia wine to establish a socio-cultural food history, while also considering gender, social, and religious factors.

Objective

Using the term “food trends” may seem to suggest a postmodern era in which people seek individuality, even in their eating habits, and new trends are emerging all the time. This project, however, focuses on the past and aims to reveal and to identify food trends in the premodern era. The modern concept of “food trends” allows us to use selected products and to show how certain foreign/novel foods, made available through trade, changed the taste and appearance of familiar dishes, or gave rise to new food creations, food trends already in the premodern era. The project is centred on the Italian-German region and the trading hubs of Venice and Nuremberg from the 13th to the 17th century. In addition to the sources that document the economic exchange between these two cities (such as commercial books, trade monopolies, documents), the associated circulation of knowledge through philosophical writings and medical treatises, the dissemination of religious ideas, and the implementation of new products in everyday culinary life (in cookery books) are of interest. These provide insight into and discussion about food as it was in transition. Three objects – pasta, saffron and Malvasia wine – are used to illustrate food trends as they move from south to north. By doing so, the concept of “food trends” is defined and a new socio-cultural food history is created, incorporating aspects of medical and philosophical history as well as global and economic history and recognising the everyday historical dimension of nutrition, to which gender, social and religious aspects are added as important categories of analysis in this project.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

FONDAZIONE BRUNO KESSLER
Net EU contribution
€ 209 483,28
Address
VIA SANTA CROCE 77
38122 Trento
Italy
Region
Nord-Est Provincia Autonoma di Trento Trento
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
No data