ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Tried and (Con)tested: Sensory Knowledge and Food Production, 900-1800

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

The availability of safe, lasting food supplies has always been of crucial importance for human societies. Food producers, traders, consumers and scientists alike therefore developed and exchanged sensory and theoretical knowledge for the assessment of food quality and safety. In this panel, the PI’s of three ERC Consolidator projects explore the changing role of sensory and theoretical knowledge in the production, preservation, trade, and consumption of food and wine in Arabic, Mediterranean, and Northern European worlds between 900 and 1800. The papers in this session show how in these plural worlds lay, trade, technical and scientific knowledge constantly intersected, thus offering a fresh perspective on the history of food science, a field which has thus far been largely considered a modern phenomenon.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Elaine Leong, University College London

Individual Presentations

• Playing with Your Food? Marvel, Entertainment, and Deception in Mediaeval Arabic Technical Sources - Lucia Raggetti, University of Bologna

• From Seeds to Wine: The Sensory Knowledge of Grapes in Renaissance Italy - Viktoria von Hoffmann, University of Liège

• Sweet poison? Sensory knowledge and chemical testing of wines in the eighteenth-century Low Countries - Marieke Hendriksen, Huygens Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

Session Organizer

• Marieke Hendriksen, Huygens Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)