Description
Book SynopsisResearch on European food culture has expanded substantially in recent years, telling us more about food preparation, ingredients, feasting and fasting rituals, and the social and cultural connotations of food.
At the First Table demonstrates the ways in which early modern Spaniards used food as a mechanism for the performance of social identity.
Trade Review"This book will make you hungry, but it also provides a rich, nuanced connection between food and a surprising variety of other social and cultural issues in early modern Spain. Campbell's analysis of food illuminates the changing role of the nobility, religious difference and conflict, the growing influence of the urban sphere, gender, and changing attitudes toward poverty and the poor. Well written and clearly organized, the book includes an extensive bibliography of recent Spanish-language scholarship and will be of use to scholars in a wide variety of fields. In paperback, affordable, and interesting,
At the First Table's focus on food and identity would also work well to introduce undergraduate students to the rich complexities of early modern Spanish culture and daily life."—Grace E. Coolidge,
Renaissance Quarterly"
At the First Table is the only book of its kind in English, and, as such, provides an important foundation for the study of food and foodways in early modern Spain."—Allyson M. Poska,
European History Quarterly"This excellent work of scholarship, the fruit of much research in the National Historical Archive of Spain and the Biblioteca Nacional, should be acquired by university libraries, particularly those with strong history collections."—D. C. Kierdorf,
CHOICE"
At the First Table is an immensely useful handbook that shows clearly how food formed part of the web of connections and divisions that structured this world."—Rebecca Earle,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History"The Spanish food cultures that Campbell outlines contain familiar elements of Mediterranean and Europe-wide food cultures while emphasizing the particularities of Spain where they arise. Additionally, she supplements her own primary-source research with the work of scholars publishing in Spanish and Catalan to produce a valuable and highly accessible synthesis of scholarship that has not previously been available to an anglophone audience. With this book, Campbell has given Spain a seat at the table, and guests at that meal will find both comfort in the familiar and enjoyment in the new."—Marie A. Kelleher,
Bulletin of the Comediantes“A phenomenal book. . . . Beautifully written and organized, and meticulously researched with a broad range of primary and secondary sources. There is nothing like it in English.”—Ken Albala, professor of history and the director of the Food Studies Program at the University of the Pacific and the author of
Food in Early Modern EuropeTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. Basic Food Practices and Beliefs
2. Social Groups and Collective Identity
3. Status and Change
4. Vice and Virtue, Body and Soul
Conclusion
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
