Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 1 (2008), p. 118

For a collection of essays drawn from conference proceedings, this volume hangs together remarkably well. With the exception of only a few articles in the final sections, this book aptly traces practically all the important issues regarding food supply in the past two centuries in a fascinating range of European locales. We are taken to Berlin and Paris, London and Barcelona, Brussels and Bordeaux, Oslo and Prague. We are introduced to problems of supply and distribution, the battles over conflicting jurisdictions in food safety, arguments over nutritional theory, the replacement of small shops with supermarkets, the impact of exotic and immigrant food, and cultural issues of consumption. In a nutshell, this book traces everything that has gone wrong with food in the modern era, and why. Rather than an overarching theoretical summary of the history, this is a series of concise snapshots that bring into close focus the problems and processes that constitute the greatest transformation of the human diet since the Neolithic Revolution. The details are not always surprising, but they inform in a way that most food histories with their broad brushstrokes never manage to accomplish. Here are the results of meticulous research which will someday be used to paint a more complete picture of how we got into this mess in the first place.

Admittedly, the articles do not always depict a bleak picture. There are bright spots, just as there are some very good things about the way we eat today. Food is undoubtedly safer, we know more about nutrition, while famines are a thing of the past, at least in Europe. There are a wide range of affordable and interesting ingredients, good restaurants, and a thriving ‘foodie’ culture. But somehow, the problems, particularly those in the first half of the book still seem to confound us. We still suffer serious food scares and problems with adulteration. The public is still confused about what constitutes a health-promoting diet. Our food still travels great distances, and its price is still inflated mostly by superfluous handling, packaging, advertising, marketing and retailing. And of course there are still gross inequities in food accessibility, not merely among social classes within Europe, but around the world. Many of these articles, unwittingly perhaps, provide a stern caveat for developing nations: learn from the mistakes of European cities. The book is entirely historical in scope, but its implications are timeless for the modern era.

It would be impossible to summarize the contents, but a few examples should illustrate the strengths of this collection. Peter Atkins discusses the structural and institutional differences in Paris and London after 1850 and how the two cities differed in managing their food supply. The role of the state in urban planning, the desire to allow free trade, and even differences between Covent Garden and English street vendors and Les Halles and fixed retail shops, explain how these two food cultures diverged. Corinna Treitel focuses on German physiologist Max Rubner to show how nutritional theory interacted with state policy in dealing with the urban poor. Peter Scholliers examines Belgian legislation in the great era of food fraud, detailing the actors’ motivations, and how advanced chemical technologies changed the very definition of adulteration. Derek Oddy reveals the fascinating interplay among rival agencies in London dealing with analysis of food for safety, and how public demand for pure food influenced legislation. Alessandro Stanziani takes a similar look at Paris and the administrative problems of laboratories testing food clashing with other experts in assessing food quality with very different criteria. Vera Heirholzer shows how grass roots efforts to ensure food safety were co-opted by the government in late nineteenth-century Germany, a story which would be replayed many times in the next century right down to the present. The Dutch dairy industry and the impact of canned condensed milk is examined in an article by Adel den Hartog, again evoking déjà vu for readers who are accustomed to seeing products sold with explicit health claims while dangers are carefully left off labels. Jukka Gronow details the bizarre ideological inconsistencies in Soviet food culture, embracing both grim workers canteens and opulent department stores and restaurants for elite consumers. Peter Lummel’s article on German supermarkets is a concise account of how and why food retail changed in the twentieth century, a process that of course is still under way. Final contributions detail foreign food in Amsterdam, immigrant cuisines in London, efforts at natural food reform beginning in the nineteenth century (which are certainly still in process, even though the definition of natural keeps shifting), plus another article by Virginie Amilien on how social classes in Oslo maintained distinction in culinary terms. The twentieth chapter by Isabelle Téchoueyres offers a fascinating discussion on the emergence of open air markets in Bordeaux, and their role as an elite or tourist leisure activity.

This collection provides not only some extremely interesting studies of the difficulties in feeding cities well, but a fascinating glimpse of the roots of problems with which we still grapple.