Tasting French Terroir The History of an Idea [Hardcover]

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.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Terroir and the Culinary Roots of French Identity
1. Rabelaiss Table and the Poets of the Pleiade
2. The Plantification of People
3. Courtside Purity and the Academie Francaises Attack on the Earth
4. Frances Green Evolution: Terroirs Expulsion from Versailles
5. Saint-Evremond and the Invention of Geographical Connoisseurship
6. Terroir and Nation Building: Boulainvilliers, Du Bos, and the Case of Class
7. The Normalization of Terroir: Paris and the Provinces
Conclusion: Terroir and Nation: From Geographic Identity to Psychogeography

Notes
Bibliography
Index

"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