Last saved by: Elsayed Ahmed

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1.     Who are Rachel Laudan and Jayeeta Sharma?  What are their research backgrounds and what other works have they written? 
Rachel Laudan is a senior research fellow at the university of Texas in Austin, institute for historical studies. Laudan has been interested from her childhood on an English farm dating back to the Neolithic, through her training and teaching as a geologist and academic career as a historian of science and technology. She is currently looking at the history of food, which has received many awards in this field, especially in her book Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History in 2013. Laudan published many books such as the food of paradise: Exploring Hawaii's culinary heritage in1996 and from mineralogy to geology: the foundations of a science, 1650-1830 in 1987. Laudan’s historical background supported into debates on food politics on social media and at meetings across the balkanized food world at SXSW, which encouraged her to publish an article on “A Plea for Culinary Modernism: Why We Should Love Fast, Modern, Processed Food.”
According to Jayeeta Sharma, she is an associate professor in history at the University of Toronto. Sharma's academic interests include migration, labour, family, gender, food, cultural circulation, in studies of Eastern Himalayan borderlands, the British Empire, and post-colonial spaces. Sharma published her book about the Empire's garden: Assam and the making of India in 2011. Sharma is writing a book on global circulation in the Himalayas and researching another on cookbook public cultures. Also, she is on the editorial board of Global Food History, the editorial collective for Radical History Review, and edits the Empires in Perspective Routledge book series.
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?
Food from history defines the identity and status of people. In the colonial times, the Europeans could afford costly and scares foods which Africans could not access. These foods were rare to find because most of them were imported. For example some specific spices like sugar and tobacco were scares and costly, and thus regarded as food for the elite (242).Once the production of such foods were domesticated, they became readily available and the elites reduced their consumption, making these kind of foods staple to be afforded and consumed by even the less fortunate who were mostly Africans (243). Some of the primary sources used were like the marriage between the Portuguese princes Catherine and Charles II where tea was served, marking it as a symbol of loyalty as a drink. Also the use of Pineapple for decoration during royal functions among other rarely produces foods. The potatoes were also portrayed as peasant food.
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. 
The imperial regimes played a role in the availability of certain foods as a result of trade and production (244). The triangular trade of human beings made the black loyalists depend on cheap molasses due to its availability and affordability.The Irish salt beef was favored by the French as a source of portable proteins, while on the British plantations in the Caribbean, the sugar laborers were provided with the lower grade salt cod as the only source of protein in their diet. These dietary changes were imposed on them not willingly but by force, thus fortifying the imperial regimes. During slavery, breadfruit was not in the Caribbean diet thus the blacks lacked proteins in their diet since they depended on the sweet potatoes and cassava that they produced on their farms. However, after the abolishing of slave trade, they were able to supplement their diet with breadfruit which became a staple food for the poor due to its availability and production in plenty.
This human ingenuity managed to force laborers into strange foodstuffs and culinary practices.At the Atlantic exchange, Newfoundlanders begun to value the molasses which were formally scares, and later as a symbol of regional identity. Later many dishes that were of necessity were incorporated into fork lore and song, to mark their nostalgic culture (246).The advancement in technology in the production, distribution and communication altered the social meaning of these products over time, thus de-stabilizing 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. Whould Sharma agree with Laudan that food and cooking helped define social status in colonial regimes?  Why or why not?
In the 14th century, spices from the exotic, mysterious East were prized as symbols of material comfort and social prominence. The spices were flavors of the elite cookery.By 16th century, spices like sugar became increasingly available and even the mercantile households could afford, and thus their importance to the elite scaled down (242).Later in the 18thcentury, the Spanish could produce these products and thus they became readily available, changed from being luxury to necessity. However, coffee was being produces by European powers and remained a symbol of empire and power.In the late 18th century potatoes were being produced as a tropical crop that is food for the peasants, and not for the elite Europeans .Sharma should agree with Laudan that food and cooking helped define social status in colonial regimes.
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.
As a result of critics and counter cuisines, the traditional cuisines have been obscured by new developments (206). Modern cuisines have brought in new ideas about food and nature, food and divine, politics among other interventions. Most of these revolutions are as a result of the publication of the 1651 of Pierre François La Varenne’s Le cuisinier françois (The French Cook), which replaced spices and sugar, with fat-based sources that were a replacement of catholic cuisines with the modern western ones (207).New ideas from chemistry, theology, and political theory in the sixteenth and seventeenth century proposed a new theory of nutrition and digestion that replaced the culinary cosmos.
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 argues that cuisines everywhere have been influenced by long-distance transfer from one culture to another. During the marriage of the Portuguese princes Catherine to Charles II, tea was served to the English elites, making it an upper-class feminine beverage, while coffee was linked with masculine sociability (243).
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?
The rise in salvation promoted natural foods and health living, making people prefer natural foods which were previously regarded as inferior food for the poor. This made the elites to turn to the so called inferior foods, thus eliminating the social class as a result of food (208).This transformation brought about equality of all regardless of status (208).
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?
Changes in political and nutritional theories, gave rise to the middling cuisines. They closed the gaps between the high, mighty and the humble cuisines. The free expression of the will of the people made it difficult to impose some foods and cultures to the people and thus people could choose what is good for them. People had the right to eat the same kind of food like everyone else (207-208). The advent of middling also improved the social, political, and economic status of the humble, putting to an end the historical inequality that was forcibly expressed by culinary distinctions. It also increased independence since one could freely choose what to eat at a free will, and where to eat regardless of social status. The advent middling also reduced the cost of food, making it affordable by all. This was as a result of the change in the processing and production of the foods. This was as a result of improved and cheaper transportation, communication and globalization (208). It resulted into modernization, which was as a result of urbanization and industrialization, which led to the growth of modern cuisines in the urban areas than in rural areas (209).The nutritional transition brought with it food security, but it also brought about health problems such as increased incidence of strokes, heart attacks, obesity, and diabetes, together with an increased costs for society due to diets rich in sugar, oils and meat (208).
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?
Both works overlap because they are all based on the history and transition of food perceptions, preferences and myths. Both use historical references to argue their points. It broadens our perspectives on the role of food in history, by having a wholesome perspective on both social, political, religious and economic influences over time, that has influenced the modern food culture (215).
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.
The three things I learnt from these readings include:
That some foods I see as so ordinary today, were regarded as very special in the 14th century. 
That there has been a lot of changes that have happened as a result of political and religious campaigns over a period of time, regarding the food that should be eaten by all.
That modern food habits have been debated since the 18th century, and therefore the contemporary world differs significantly from the world of four hundred years ago.
The questions that I have out of the readings include:
Does history still dictate the food cultures that we have today?
What can today’s generation borrow from what our ancestors believed on food and cuisines.
The one way that the readings have challenged my perspectives is on the aspect of colonialism and food. It has shown me that even the colonialists were never knowledgeable enough about the nutritional values of certain kinds of food. They actually needed more insight and education on the same. The slave laborers were only afraid to stamp authority on what to eat due to inferiority, but they could have made a change if they rose to the occasion to challenge some of these decisions (209).