Tea at Trianon: What Did 17th Century Food Taste Like?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, November 23, 2017

What Did 17th Century Food Taste Like?

From Res Obscura:

What can we learn about how people ate in the seventeenth century? And even if we can piece together historical recipes, can we ever really know what their food tasted like?

This might seem like a relatively unimportant question. For one thing, the senses of other people are always going to be, at some level, unknowable, because they are so deeply subjective. Not only can I not know what Velázquez's fried eggs tasted like three hundred years ago, I arguably can't know what my neighbor's taste like. And why does the question matter, anyway? A very clear case can be made for the importance of the history of medicine and disease, or the histories of slavery, global commerce, warfare, and social change.

By comparison, the taste of food doesn't seem to have the same stature. Fried eggs don't change the course of history.

But taste does change history. (Read more.)

Hans Georg Lundahl said...: Arguably, fried eggs taste, mainly, as fried eggs. Whether Velásquez' or your neighbours.; November 23, 2017 at 10:49:00 AM EST
Hans Georg Lundahl said...: "A very clear case can be made for the importance of the history of medicine and disease, or the histories of slavery, global commerce, warfare, and social change."

This importance however involves importance of avoiding abuses, history which is not such.

Or which is lopsided.

"The poor farmers had no tractors"

Next whine:

"The poor farmers made up 90 % in the Middle Ages!"

Yes, and with 90 % farmers and perhaps little farming export, a farmer family was producing in medium the food for 1 and 1/9 of a family.

Some somewhat more, if their manorial overlord wanted farming produce to sell to towns ... or even not, since producing for his family was less than the total of 1/9.

This means, less work to be done, and of course less need of tractors!; November 23, 2017 at 10:54:00 AM EST