This book explores the origins and significance of the French concept of terroir, demonstrating that the way the French eat their food and drink their wine today derives from a cultural mythology that developed between the Renaissance and the Revolution. Through close readings and an examination of little-known texts from diverse disciplines, Thomas Parker traces terroirs evolution, providing insight into how gastronomic mores were linked to aesthetics in language, horticulture, and painting and how the French used the power of place to define the natural world, explain comportment, and frame France as a nation.
Thomas Parkeris Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Vassar College. He is the author ofVolition, Rhetoric, and Emotion in the Work of Pascal.
"With impressive erudition and an original marshaling of texts,Tasting French Terroirtraces French national identity in the ever-intriguing, ever-evolving bond between cuisine and country."—Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, and author ofWord of Mouth: What We Talk About When We Talk About Food
“Tasting French Terroirmakes an important contribution to myriad fields, including culinary history, French literature and philosophy, and political science. Demonstrating ingenuity with its sources and chronological scope, this book will be a wonderful resource for a wide range of scholars.”—Jennifer J. Davis, author ofDefining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650–1830
"Thomas Parker elucidates and elaborates our understanding of terroir with his unique history of this polysemous word. In Tasting French Terroir, Parker does not rely solely on classic French texts engaging with food and wine (say Brillat-Savarin and Curnonsky) to make sense of terroir’s meaning and import. His exalc,
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