European Empires on a Plate c. 1750–Today

1. Introduction                                                                                                               

Ilaria Berti

2. Exoticism in Italian cuisine: travel and science in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Martino Lorenzo Fagnani

3. When the tropics came North: How exotic fruits conquered Finnish plates in the time of empires

Ritva Kylli

4. A multicultural history of Hungarian confectionery in 19th-century Habsburg central Europe                                                           

Lili Zách

5. The twofold path of the last European empire: How Italy reacted to globalization and new alcohol-related trends

Gian Luca Podestà and Luciano Maffi

6. Grimod de La Reynière’s empire of taste: Gastronomic judgement and taste under the First French Empire (1804-1815)

Yuka Saito

7. Russian character of the Siberian pelmeni: Imaginary remapping of empire in Russian and Soviet cuisine

Maria Kapkan

8. In the shadow of the Eastern Empire? Soviet–Czech relationships in gastronomy from 1945 to 1970

Martin Franc

9. Catering to Empire’s Taste: An historical analysis of the colonial hybrid cuisine in Malaysia

Cecilia Leong-Salobir  

10. The adaptable, hardworking and creative US women and the lazy, hypocrites and dirty cooks: Cuba between the Spanish and the US empires (1880s-1910s)

Ilaria Berti

11. Congolese culinary traces in Belgium between 1885 and 1940                                

Peter Scholliers

12. For a plate of couscous: Food narratives, in-between spaces and ethnic identities in the Italian colony of Libya

Alessandra Narciso and Rita d’Errico

13. Eating the empire: The gloom of colonialism, racism and sexism in food advertising in Italy, 1930s to 1970s

Stefano Magagnoli

14. Menus in political banquets: French gastronomy and Brazilian food (1889-1930)

Eliane Morelli Abrahão

15. Art and Anthropophagy: Postcolonial Reinterpretations of Cannibalism in Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art

Agata Stronciwilk

Biography

Ilaria Berti is a historian at the Pablo de Olavide University, Seville. Her research focuses on the political use of food in imperial and colonial spaces. Together with Yun Casalilla and Svriz Wucherer, she coedited American Globalization, 1492–1850: Trans-cultural Consumption in Latin America (2022).

Stefano Magagnoli is Full Professor of Economic History at the University of Parma, Italy. His research has focused on the history of public institutions, and he is currently involved in several projects related to food history. His most recent book is Vinaigre balsamique de Modène. Un goût italien à la conquête du monde (2023).

Peter Scholliers is Emeritus Professor of History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His current interest is in the history of food safety in Europe since the late 18th century. Recent publications include A History of Bread: Consumers, Bakers and Public Authorities Since the 18th Century (2024). For more information, see https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/peter-scholliers.

Peter J. Atkins is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Durham, UK. His principal interest over several decades has been food history, with reference to perishable foodstuffs. Recently he co-edited Eating on the Move from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2023). See https://pjatkins.webspace.durham.ac.uk/.