Bloomsbury Food and Identity in England, 1540-1640: Eating to Impress (Cultures of Early Modern Europe)

Food and Identity in England, 1540-1640 considers early modern food consumption in an important new way, connecting English consumption practices between the reigns of Henry VIII and Charles I with ideas of 'self' and 'otherness' in wider contexts of society and the class system. Review "Lloyd's work uses interesting sources to tell an important story about food in England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries ... The tale told in this volume will be of interest to those seeking to understand the meaning that clings to food and to those seeking a greater understanding of the Tudor and Stuart period of English History." - The Historian"Despite leaving out many parts of the Caribbean, the book's project is neither undermined, nor lacking in any respect. It plays well on the dynamics between wisely chosen general notions and the particular examples depicted so colourfully. The writing style makes it widely accessible not only to scholars within the field of anthropology and social sciences, but also to a wider range of possible readers outside academia, driven by a keen interest be it even only in the Caribbean, or in food." --Gabriela Radulescu, Allegra Laboratory"Making rigorous use of a wide range of source material-from household accounts and records of public institutions, through diaries and correspondence, and onto cookery books and regimen guides-Paul Lloyd vividly reconstructs the increasingly differentiated eating habits of various 'sorts' of people in early modern England. Paying particular attention to the cultural impact of the Reformation on long-established patterns of consumption, Food and Identity in England examines the changing ways in which various groups within the population expressed their social and cultural self-image through their foodways. The result is a convincing portrait of how and why attitudes towards food changed between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, with profound implications not only for habits of sociability and commensality but also for the construction of collective social identities." --Steve Hindle, W.M. Keck Foundation Director of Research, Huntington Library, USA"Lloyd presents a careful, well researched, well thought out, and very well written analysis of the relationship between food and people in early modern England, utilizing recent research on food and society. He deftly shows the connection between food and social classes in England ... The author's very clear writing style makes his book well suited for undergraduates and should stoke their imaginations by introducing creative and innovative ways to do research and look at sources in a fresh manner. At the same time, the book contains very sophisticated research and historical methods that would challenge any graduate student working on early modern England. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries." --K. Herlihy, University of Central Florida, CHOICE About the Author Paul S. Lloyd is University Tutor and Part-time Lecturer at the University of Leicester, UK.Beat Kumin is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Warwick, UK.Brian Cowan is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Early Modern British History at McGill University, Canada. He is the author of The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (2005), which was awarded the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize by the Canadian Historical Association in 2006, and The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell (2012).