Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

In my paper, I continue the line of research started with my MA thesis, “The Enjoyment of the Foreign” (submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies at CEU and defended in 2020), present my findings and answer the question: What might the concept of terroir have meant for premodern consumers? I have put together a collection of ethnonymic food recipes from sources originating from Classical Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. By performing close reading on the text of these recipes and situating them in the context of their cultures and non-gastronomic texts originating from the same periods, I find and present the possible motivations and reasoning behind the ethnonyms given to these food recipes. In a contemporary, modern context, terroir is closely related to the idea of (often invented) gastronomic tradition and national identity, exemplified by French and Italian cuisines as we know them. As opposed to this modern idea, what did “national” dishes mean in the premodern history of European culture, before the invention of modern nationalism?