Last saved by: Elsayed Ahmed

1.  Who are Rachel Laudan and Jayeeta Sharma?  What are their research backgrounds and what other works have they written? 
As a food historian, Rachel Laudan grew up in a family farm of England. She studied geology at Bristol University and obtained her Ph. D. in History and Philosophy of Science from University College London in 1974. Following that, Laudan taught at Carnegie-Mellon, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech and then the University of Hawaii, where she published her first book The Food of Paradise in 1996. The same year, Laudan retired from academia and moved to Mexico, where she changed her research to history and politics of food. Her second book Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History was published in 2012 and gained the LACP Cookbook Award for Best Book in Culinary History (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Laudan).
As an Associate Professor in History at the University of Toronto, Jayeeta Sharma’s academic interests include migration, labour, gender, post-colonial culture, and food. She obtained B.A., M.A., and M.Phil in History from the University of Delhi, and achieved her PhD at Cambridge University. Sharma then taught at universities in the United States and Canada. Her first book, Empire's Garden: Assam and the Making of India (Duke University Press, 2011) examines the intersections of colonial tea capitalism and labour with identity contestations in modern and contemporary India She is also the editor of the Empires in Perspectives book series and a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Radical History Review and the editorial board of Global Food History. (https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/hcs/jayeeta-sharma) 
 
2.  What is the relationship between food (and its production, circulation, and consumption) and imperialism, according to both Laudan and Sharma?  Tease out this complex relationship using evidence from both readings.  What insights can we glean about imperialism through time through the lens of food?  What types of primary sources did Laudan use, in particular, to craft her arguments?
According to Sharma, the establishment of European empires and industrial societies has facilitated a “complex circuits” of the production, distribution, and consumption of both new and old foods globally (Sharma, 241). Chronologically, Sharma explores the “culinary trip” of exotic food and commodities in Europe, such as spices, sugar, tropical foods (pineapple), tea, and coffee from the 17^th century to the 19^th century, how they have been transferred, adopted into colonial empires, and in particular, the transition from expensive exotics to affordable domesticated staples. She then explores the impact of long-distance trade and technological renovation on food products during the industrial age, which accelerated the circulation and development of “imperial food”. Finally, Sharma discusses the diffusion and adaptation of previously local foods with the movement of laboring bodies, mobilized by the decolonization process. Following that, Sharma argues that this kind of “culinary trip” has gradually transformed “cultural encounters and power relations” around the world (Sharma, 242). 
Similarly, according to Laudan, there are constantly mutual interactions between imperialism (the empires) and cuisines. In her book, Laudan examines the world’s major groups of cuisines as well as their evolutions across social, political, and cultural boundaries. She follows the history of Greek and Roman empire’s conquest, which involved the spread of animal sacrifice. She then traces the history of how Buddhism, Islamism, and Christianity effected the formation and development of cuisine respectively. Finally, Laudan traces the origin and evolution of the “modern cuisines” from the mid 17^th century to the 20^th century. In all of these cases, Laudan argues that the cuisines of successful empires have been absorbed, adopted, and adapted far beyond imperial boundaries (Laudan, 5). She also argues at the end of the book that, although we can choose what we want to eat,  it is in fact “the powerful” in history (conquerors, soldiers, priests, colonizers, oligarchs) that constrains what we can eat, “in the name of health, religion, or political and economic expediency” (Laudan, 359).
In her book, Laudan uses some primary resources such as historical documents, maps and tables to support and visualize her argument about culinary evolutions and beliefs.
 
3. How did the production, circulation, and consumption of food help to fortify imperial regimes?  Conversely, how did the production, circulation, and consumption of food help to de-stabilize imperial regimes?  Provide examples from both Laudan and Sharma. 
In Chapter 2 of the book Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, Laudan explores how the increased efficiency and commercialization of food processing and cooking fortified empires by enabling them to feed their cities and provision their armies (Laudan, 7). Sharma in her essay also explores how the transfer and transition of imperial commodities, such as sugar, spcies, tea, coffee, and tropical foods, fortified the “dominion over non-European territories and non-white peoples that were as yet only partially under British sway” (Sharma, 244) by claiming that such foods as well as the distant lands and inhabitants were also British. Meanwhile, the author argues that imperial ambitions also drove technological renovation on food production, preservation, and transportation, which accelerated the circulation and development of “imperial food (Sharma, 247). For instance, the development canned food and the processed food (biscuits) helped to accomplish the imperial exploration over distant land, while the refrigeration facilities helped to meet the imperial desire to have fresh meat in European markets. On the other hand, both Laudan and Sharma argue that these “imperial foods” caused suffering and even disaster to the colonial people and the native ecological system. For example, in British India and in Senegal, they have been forced by the imperatives to cultivate food-crops for export at the expense of subsistence crops that farmers previously grew for food (Sharma, 253). As a result, the distorted structural reshaping of colonial economies caused famine, malnutrition, big gap between the rich and the poor, and the destruction of ecological system, all of which became the hidden fuse for the destabilization of the imperial regimes. 
 
4. What does Laudan mean when she says, "Just as food and cooking defined social status, they also served as symbols of social status and political relations" (44)?  Provide examples from different time periods.  Would Sharma agree with Laudan that food and cooking helped define social status in colonial regimes?  Why or why not?
When Laudan says, “Just as food and cooking defined social status, they also served as symbols of status and political relations” (44), she means that the principle of hierarchy–“every rank of living being had appropriate foods and ways of consuming them” (43)–has decided which kind of food and way of cooking in each social rank should be; and at the same time, has justified the attribution of meaning to food and cooking socially, politically, and even virtuously. For instance, in the ancient kitchens and ancient feasts, those of like rank has like food (44). Salt, in the ancient time, symbolized permanence, and the loyalty oath “we eat the salt of the palace” reflected the political relations between the officials and the Persian emperors in the 5^th century B.C (Laudan, 44). In the modern time, in spite that the “modern cuisines” adopted by the urban bourgeoisie denied hierarchical political and religious power in diet, the cuisines of the urban salaried class, the working class, and the rural poor were still distinct with each other (Laudan, 274). Sharma agrees with Laudan when she argues that the rarity and expense of spices in medieval and early-modern Europe made them markers of status expressed through conspicuous consumption (Sharma, 243). However, Sharma also argues that the social status defined by the food and cooking was fluctuant. For instance, when most spices gradually increased in accessibility, the social status they used to represent slid down consequently (243). It seems to indicate that there is no inherent relation between cuisine and the social status although food and the cooking can reflect the social status. What differentiates social ranks and constitutes the social hierarchies, to some extent, is rather the rarity, man-made value endowed to the food and cooking instead of its intrinsic nutritional value. 
 
5. From Laudan:  What role did critics and "counter cuisines" play in the evolution of culinary philosophy and practice? Check out 206 and 207-208, in particular.
In the introduction of the book, Laudan argues that culinary philosophies were always subject to criticism. When those critiques reached a critical point, new cuisines were constructed from elements of the old (Laudan, 1). Around 1650, according to Laudan, the early signs of modern cuisines began to challenge the traditional culinary philosophy and raise new ideas about food related to society, the natural world, and to the supernatural. Chemists and natural philosophers proposed a new theory of nutrition and digestion; Protestants argue an equal access to the divine regardless of what they ate; and political theorists challenged monarchism with its high cuisines and the social hierarchical system (Laudan, 207) As a result, a new culinary philosophy with the focus on nutrition, republicanism and liberalism was applied to food culture. A new cuisine, “middling cuisines”, became available to favor these new theories and bridge the gap between high and low cuisines.
 
6. Laudan hints at the gendered nature of "high" and "humble" cuisines and how the evolution of cuisine impacted gender role expectations and ideals of masculinity and femininity. How did gender factor into the relationship between colonizers and the colonized in imperial settings?  Would Sharma agree with Laudan on this?
Laudan mentioned in her book that religious houses provided the first opportunity for women to oversee large kitchens (Laudan, 105). That is a no small transaction of gender role in cuisines, for high cuisines were usually prepared by men while humble cuisines by women. Sharma argues in her essay that 18^th century English society largely saw tea as a beverage that belonged to the upper-class feminine domesticity while coffee was linked with masculine sociability (Sharma, 243, 244). Another interesting example is about curry. Sharma examines that most of British Asian cuisine in UK were made by former seamen, few of whom, in the gendered society of their homeland, would ever have prepared food in the past, let alone the generic "curries" (Sharma, 252). To me, it is like a metaphor–those who play a masculine role in the colonized homeland have to alter into a feminine role in the capital of the imperial regime in order to survive. 
 
7. From Laudan:  How did the rise of "the religions of salvation" beginning in the 3rd century BCE transform ancient imperial high cuisine, and how did that transformation impact the role of food in marking social status?
            According to Laudan, the rise of the religions of salvation beginning in the 3^rd century transformed ancient imperial high cuisine in a slow and complicate way. When a region was adopted by a state, spiritual leaders joined political leaders into the construction of new sacred high cuisine. Laudan then argues that the three main religious cuisines, Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian cuisines, did not alter the two of the three major principles of ancient culinary philosophy: the theory of the culinary cosmos and the principle of hierarchy (Laudan, 104). As for the principle of the culinary cosmos, cooking was a form of alchemy to “find the real nature or essence of a natural substance by applying the purifying power of fire” (Laudan, 104). While the hierarchical principle justified the distinction between high and humble cuisines, and endowed sacred ranking for the religious elite. The principle of the sacrificial bargain, however, has been slowly replaced with the religions of salvation. The new rules of the religions identified preferred ingredients and dishes, and specified how to process and cook foods, mealtimes, days of fasting and feasting, and who could dine with whom (Laudan, 105). Under these rules, the role of food in marking social status has been “formulated and reformulated” over centuries (Laudan, 105), which makes the relation more complicate. For instance, because the different culinary ideas and practices adopted with specific religions, bread did not take the same form or have the same significance in Islamic and Christian culinary cultures (Laudan, 106).
 
8. From Laudan:  What were the economic and social causes and effects of the advent of "middling" cuisine in the modern era?  Does Sharma speak to this argument?  If so, how?
According to Laudan, modern culinary philosophy gradually abandoned the hierarchical principle for more inclusive political theories such as republicanism, liberal democracy, and socialism (Laudan, 8). At the same time, the improved social, political, and economic status of the humble was closely linked to the advent of “middling” cuisine (Laudan, 207). The industrialization of food processing and urbanization further helped the formation of “middling cuisines”, which favored the new theories and bridged the gap between high and low cuisines. In the second section of her essay, Sharma also explores the social and economic causes and effects of the industrial foods. She argues that the development of new technologies realized the desire to provide reliable supply of fresh meat, fruit and other food commodities to consumers in the empires (Sharma, 248, 249). Moreover, Sharma also mentions that price and income constraints still limited the everyday consumption of the industrial food to British society’s higher ranks (Sharma, 250). It seems that although the urban bourgeoisie adopted the “middling cuisines” and tried to deny the hierarchical political and religious power in diet, the gap between high and low cuisines has not been shortened easily with the change of the food culture.
 
9. How do Laudan and Sharma's works overlap with Jurafsky's Language of Food?  What similar themes, methodologies, sources, and/or arguments do these works share, if any?  How does bringing these works into conversation with one another broaden our perspectives of the role of food in history?
Laudan, Sharma, and Jurafsky all agree that food and the cooking everywhere in the world have been influenced by social, political, economic, and cultural transfer from one to another. Such transfers are not only multidimensional in intension but also multivariate in extension. Specifically, Laudan focuses on the cuisines. By identifying the “culinary philosophies”, which constitute essential role in the formation and transformation of cuisines, Laura presents to us a complicate evolution of culinary history from 20,000 BCE to present. Sharma’s essay focuses on the “culinary trip” of the food commodities with the establishment of European empires and industrial societies, and how has it gradually transformed “cultural encounters and power relations” around the world (Sharma, 242). She analyses the mutual interactions of the imperial regime and the production, distribution, and consumption of the imperial foods. Jurafsky, as a linguist, focuses on the evolution of the language of food, the grammar of cuisine”, and how has it influenced the adaptation and adaptation of a cuisine.
Therefore, their works help us to explore the role of food in history from different perspectives, and at the same time, provide further communication and collaboration with their specific arguments. For instance, can we explain the origin of grammar of cuisine from the perspective of cuisine philosophy? How to evaluate the relations between food and the making of social status in a truly global manner?
 
10. Finally, tell us three things you learned that surprised you in this forum’s readings, two questions you have about what you’ve read, and one way the readings have changed/challenged/broadened your perspectives.
I’m surprised to know that religious houses provided the first opportunity for women to oversee large kitchens (Laudan, 105). It makes me rethink the role of religion plays in the food culture. Another thing surprises me is about the “Buddhist cuisines”. According to Laudan, it transformed the culinary cultures of China, Japan, and Korean. I never think of the huge influence of Buddhism in China. Actually, I think the author may overemphasize the impact of Buddhism on the humble cuisines because Buddhism itself in China belongs to high culture. But it is an interesting topic to explore further. I’m also shocked at the destructive impact of the imperial foods on colonial economies and ecological system. I have worked on poverty alleviation project in rural China for about seven years, the readings broaden my perspectives to explore the root of food justice and how to handle those historical and social problems. 
My questions are: Why some cuisines do not change over centuries while others have been transformed, innovated, or disappeared? What is the root of food justice? Can we really eradicate the root and how can we handle according to the food history?