Food in Art: From Prehistory to Renaissance

Description

In this richly illustrated book, leading food historian Gillian Riley demonstrates how works of art can provide us with detailed information about the preparation and preservation of food that is missing from the history books. Artists of all periods and in all places have portrayed the tools and environments of the gastronomic world - of the drying, salting or smoking of meat, fish or vegetables, for example - and the enjoyment of eating, from the simplest peasant meals to the grandest banquets. These works allow us, as twenty-first-century viewers, to appreciate the colours, imagine the smells and salivate over the recipes of the foods, kitchens and dishes of the past.

Gillian Riley is a prominent food writer and an authority on the history of Italian cuisine. Her previous books include Impressionist Picnics (1993), A Feast for the Eyes (1998), The Oxford Companion to Italian Food (2007) and The Fruit, Herbs and Vegetables of Italy (2012).

"This lavishly illustrated survey of art depicting food throughout history will surprise and delight readers, who will learn about edible animals, plants, and the culinary arts from unexpected sources such as Paleolithic cave paintings, Mesopotamian seals, Egyptian art, Pompeian frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, and Renaissance paintings."-- "Choice" "Food in Art shows how paintings teach us about everyday life after other evidence has vanished. Roman frescos and mosaics provide useful information about the use of humble utensils such as strainers, pots, and skillets, which, previously, archaeologists and historians tended to dismiss as 'possible rituals objects of uncertain use." -- "Country Life" "A joyful and sumptuously illustrated ramble through visual feasts from the Stone Age to Renaissance Italy." -- "Times Literary Supplement" "Filtered through Riley's irreverent, witty, and ever-imaginative style, Food in Art is a guide through the sprawling past of art's many interpretations of food, from the divine to the profound, and crucially the dark, humorous, and absurd. From the practicality of ancient Egyptian illustrated breadmaking techniques to the strange vanity of Roman mosaic floors designed to look covered in the remnants of a lavish banquet, mice and all, Food in Art calls for some self-reflection." -- "Hackney Citizen"