History 2158A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Roland Barthes, Cough Medicine
10 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Introduction
●Looking at history through food is essential because food is fundamental to human beings
●Food is more than a biological necessity
○One of the biggest industries
○One of the most frequently indulged pleasures
■Need food to live but a lot of what we eat contributes to death
○Food is tied to who we are and where we come from and how we relate to people
●“Food is what matters most to most people for most of the time.”
○Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Food: A History
(2002)
●“For what is food? It is not only a collection of products that can be used for statistical or nutritional studies. It is also,
and at the same time, a system of communication, a body or images, a protocol of uses, situations and behavior.”
○Roland Barthes, “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption”
Underlying Themes and a Few Caveats
●Themes
○Influence of food in the global transition to modernity
○‘Food is always about more than what simply fills the stomach’.
●Caveats
○The past isn’t the present
○Answers to questions about who invented what food when don’t tell us anything
■Context matters
Jell-o
●Flavoured gelatin as dessert food
●Primarily for the wealthy because making it was time-consuming and expensive
●Industrialization changed jell-o
○Cough syrup manufacturer combined with gelatin to make it taste good
○Sold recipe to food company
○People began to link industrial changes of efficiency to households and jell-o fit the bill for being cheap,
quick, and simple
○Jell-o was seen as the perfect feminine food
○Downfall: diet and health campaign emphasizing less sugar
Document Summary
Looking at history through food is essential because food is fundamental to human beings. One of the most frequently indulged pleasures. Need food to live but a lot of what we eat contributes to death. Food is tied to who we are and where we come from and how we relate to people. Food is what matters most to most people for most of the time. It is not only a collection of products that can be used for statistical or nutritional studies. It is also, and at the same time, a system of communication, a body or images, a protocol of uses, situations and behavior. Roland barthes, toward a psychosociology of contemporary food consumption . Influence of food in the global transition to modernity. Food is always about more than what simply fills the stomach". Answers to questions about who invented what food when don"t tell us anything.
