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Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery
1998
Ed. Harlan Walker
300pp; 170 x 250 mm; paper cover
ISBN 1903018 013 £25.00
The market for these papers is restricted to serious students of food
and food history. They have a consistent sale to academics and libraries. |
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A further volume in this series, this year discussing not
so much food or its preparation as its portrayal in any number of art forms
such as popular music, crime novels, film, theatre, literature, and fine
art. There are also some papers which concentrate on the art of food, or
art relating to food: an instance is the art of tissue-paper orange wrappers
(a recondite but riveting item). My impression, when this subject was first
mooted, was that all contributions would revolve around paintings and high
arts. I was mistaken, there is a remarkable spread: the arrangement of
18th-century desserts; cookery and the Cuban Santeria religion; drink in
19th-century English fiction; food in film noir; the cook as artist in
18th-century England; architectural food design in France and Italy; popcorn
poetry; food and eating in Brontë novels; and much more. These volumes
are sometimes indigestible fricassees if swallowed at once, but think of
them as platters of oysters - each may contain a pearl. By the finish a
bracelet at least, perhaps a necklace, is the consequence. |
