A Cultural History of Food in the Renaissance (The Cultural Histories Series)

Food and attitudes toward it were transformed in Renaissance Europe. The period between 1300 and 1600 saw the discovery of the New World and the cultivation of new foodstuffs, as well as the efflorescence of culinary literature in European courts and eventually in the popular press, and most importantly the transformation of the economy on a global scale. Food became the object of rigorous investigation among physicians, theologians, agronomists and even poets and artists. Concern with eating was, in fact, central to the cultural dynamism we now recognize as the Renaissance.

A Cultural History of Food in the Renaissance presents an overview of the period with essays on food production, food systems, food security, safety and crises, food and politics, eating out, professional cooking, kitchens and service work, family and domesticity, body and soul, representations of food, and developments in food production and consumption globally.

Ken Albala is Professor of History at the University of the Pacific, USA.

KEN ALBALA is Professor of History at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, California. He is a prolific author who specializes in Early Modern European food history, authoring such titles as Eating Right in the Renaissance (2002) and Food in Early Modern Europe (Greenwood, 2003) and serving as series editor for Greenwood's series Food Culture around the World and Cooking Up History.


Ken Albala is professor of history at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA.

Peter Scholliers is Professor of Contemporary History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He edited Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages (2001), and published Food Culture in Belgium.

Peter Scholliers is Professor of History at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He specializes in European food history and has written numerous works on Belgian foodways.