Seasonal, Local Dining in Pre-Modern Europe

Based on approximately 200 surviving manuscript and early printed cookbooks, we have a good idea of the aesthetics of dining before 1600. For the Roman Empire, in contrast, only one cookbook survives, that supposedly by Apicius (a second-century gourmand), but in fact dating from the fifth century. One of the two earliest copies of this unique cookbook, transcribed in the ninth century, is in the Library of The New York Academy of Medicine.

In the days before modern transport, preservation, and production technology, all chickens were local and free-range, and it was difficult to escape the constraints imposed by distance and the seasons. Difficult, but not impossible, as elite dining was defined by the challenge in obtaining ingredients, from hothouse peaches in the north in winter, to ice cream in Syria in the summer. In this talk, historian Dr. Paul Freedman of Yale University focuses on dining through the seasons. Eating was affected by medical theories about the four bodily humors thought to control the body’s health and equilibrium. To maintain a proper balance of the humors, in summer one should eat cold foods and in winter, hot, and beyond this lay many complexities of what physicians considered appropriate. In catholic Europe fasting was another factor affecting diet, especially in Lent, the longest and most rigorous period, but throughout the year as well. Ultimately, medical considerations were bound up in aesthetic judgments—when was the best time to eat certain foods to ensure they tasted best. Information on this is found especially with regard to fish—while available over a range of months, certain fish were thought best at particular times of the year.

Paul Freedman is Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University and was chair of the History Department from 2004–2007 and 2010–2011. Currently he is acting chair of the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health program. Freedman is the author of two books on medieval Spain, including The Diocese of Vic (1983) and The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (1992). In 1999 he published Images of the Medieval Peasant, which won the Haskins Prize from the Medieval Academy of America and the Otto Gründler Award from the International Medieval Congress. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination (2008), considers why spices were so popular in the Middle Ages as to become major items of trade and the stimulus to exploration of Asia and the New World. In 2007 Freedman edited Food: The History of Taste, a book about cuisine from prehistoric hunter-gatherers until present-day trends. This received a prize from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and was nominated for a James Beard award. It has been translated into nine languages.

His current research is on the Catalan church in the High Middle Ages, in particular the establishment of Augustinian canons and their relations to monasteries and bishops. In the field of food history he has written on luxury dining in nineteenth-century America, and on women and restaurants. He is working on a book entitled “Ten Restaurants That Changed America”.

A fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, Dr. Freedman was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2011. He is a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Belles Lettres of Barcelona.











When: Thu., Nov. 19, 2015 at 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Where: The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Ave.
212-822-7200
Price: Free, advanced registration required
Buy tickets/get more info now
See other events in these categories:

Based on approximately 200 surviving manuscript and early printed cookbooks, we have a good idea of the aesthetics of dining before 1600. For the Roman Empire, in contrast, only one cookbook survives, that supposedly by Apicius (a second-century gourmand), but in fact dating from the fifth century. One of the two earliest copies of this unique cookbook, transcribed in the ninth century, is in the Library of The New York Academy of Medicine.

In the days before modern transport, preservation, and production technology, all chickens were local and free-range, and it was difficult to escape the constraints imposed by distance and the seasons. Difficult, but not impossible, as elite dining was defined by the challenge in obtaining ingredients, from hothouse peaches in the north in winter, to ice cream in Syria in the summer. In this talk, historian Dr. Paul Freedman of Yale University focuses on dining through the seasons. Eating was affected by medical theories about the four bodily humors thought to control the body’s health and equilibrium. To maintain a proper balance of the humors, in summer one should eat cold foods and in winter, hot, and beyond this lay many complexities of what physicians considered appropriate. In catholic Europe fasting was another factor affecting diet, especially in Lent, the longest and most rigorous period, but throughout the year as well. Ultimately, medical considerations were bound up in aesthetic judgments—when was the best time to eat certain foods to ensure they tasted best. Information on this is found especially with regard to fish—while available over a range of months, certain fish were thought best at particular times of the year.

Paul Freedman is Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University and was chair of the History Department from 2004–2007 and 2010–2011. Currently he is acting chair of the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health program. Freedman is the author of two books on medieval Spain, including The Diocese of Vic (1983) and The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (1992). In 1999 he published Images of the Medieval Peasant, which won the Haskins Prize from the Medieval Academy of America and the Otto Gründler Award from the International Medieval Congress. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination (2008), considers why spices were so popular in the Middle Ages as to become major items of trade and the stimulus to exploration of Asia and the New World. In 2007 Freedman edited Food: The History of Taste, a book about cuisine from prehistoric hunter-gatherers until present-day trends. This received a prize from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and was nominated for a James Beard award. It has been translated into nine languages.

His current research is on the Catalan church in the High Middle Ages, in particular the establishment of Augustinian canons and their relations to monasteries and bishops. In the field of food history he has written on luxury dining in nineteenth-century America, and on women and restaurants. He is working on a book entitled “Ten Restaurants That Changed America”.

A fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, Dr. Freedman was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2011. He is a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Belles Lettres of Barcelona.

Buy tickets/get more info now