Introduction

The first chapter demonstrated that a powerful yet contested vision of social distinction implicit in food culture changed dramatically over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the role of personal taste and pleasure in eating – in literary and non-literary representations – began to balance out traditional links between food, status, and class. In particular, the pleasures of eating two traditionally luxury foods – fresh fruit and roasted fowl – appear in literature of this period as not only possible but desirable items to consume for the lower classes. This shift took place alongside a new emphasis on refined manners at the table and a growing importance of the sense of gusto. Chapter One also focused on how Italian cuisine and culture, from the sixteenth century on, upgraded the status of greens and vegetables from their initially low place on the alimentary hierarchy virtually to the heights of aristocratic delicacies. This new appreciation for greens and vegetables, which were championed by many genres of literary works, contributed to a change that was already underway in cookbooks and dietary tracts, as well as on menus, which together fomented a significant refashioning of contemporary food culture.

But conceptions about food were not only influenced by status and class issues or by re-evaluations of traditional foodstuffs. Instead, they were also encouraged by the sixteenth-century revival of Galen and concomitant obsessions about a healthy diet and moderation in eating.