Food and Society in Classical Antiquity

A general study of food in antiquity, broadly based and comprehensive.

Peter Garnsey (Author)

9780521641821, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 April 1999

192 pages, 6 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.439 kg

'… it is intellectually challenging and the range is great: in short a delight.' Petits Propos Culinaires

This is the first study of food in classical antiquity that treats it as both a biological and a cultural phenomenon. The variables of food quantity, quality and availability, and the impact of disease, are evaluated and a judgement reached which inclines to pessimism. Food is also a symbol, evoking other basic human needs and desires, especially sex, and performing social and cultural roles which can be either integrative or divisive. The book explores food taboos in Greek, Roman, and Jewish society, and food-allocation within the family, as well as more familiar cultural and economic polarities which are highlighted by food and eating. The author draws on a wide range of evidence new and old, from written sources to human skeletal remains, and uses both comparative historical evidence from early modern and contemporary developing societies and the anthropological literature, to create a case-study of food in antiquity.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: food, substance and symbol
1. Diet
2. Food and the economy
3. Food crisis
4. Malnutrition
5. Otherness
6. Forbidden foods
7. Food and the family
8. Haves and havenots
9. You are with whom you eat
Conclusion: choice and necessity
Bibliographical essay
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Cultural studies [JFC], General & world history [HBG]