Eating the Enlightenment

Food and the Sciences in Paris, 1670-1760

By: E. C. Spary

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Paperback | 7 October 2014 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

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378 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.29 x 1.52 x 0.23

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Eating the Enlightenment offers a new perspective on the history of food, looking at writings about cuisine, diet, and food chemistry as a key to larger debates over the state of the nation in Old Regime France. Embracing a wide range of authors and scientific or medical practitionersâ"from physicians and poets to philosophes and playwrightsâ"E. C. Spary demonstrates how public discussions of eating and drinking were used to articulate concerns about the state of civilization versus that of nature, about the effects of consumption upon the identities of individuals and nations, and about the proper form and practice of scholarship. En route, Spary devotes extensive attention to the manufacture, trade, and eating of foods, focusing upon coffee and liqueurs in particular, and also considers controversies over specific issues such as the chemistry of digestion and the nature of alcohol. Familiar figures such as Fontenelle, Diderot, and Rousseau appear alongside little-known individuals from the margins of the world of letters: the draughts-playing caf© owner Charles Manoury, the âTurkish envoyâ Soliman Aga, and the natural philosopher Jacques Gautier dâAgoty. Equally entertaining and enlightening, Eating the Enlightenment will be an original contribution to discussions of the dissemination of knowledge and the nature of scientific authority.

Industry Reviews

"Spary's materials offer new possibilities for seeing the Enlightenment as a contest over practical virtue, over the texture of quotidian life. How should you live? What should you eat? What's for dinner?" (Los Angeles Review of Books)"

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