In his 1992 monograph Tastes of Paradise, Wolfgang
Schivelbusch analyzes the role that various stimulants like spices and coffee
have played in the social and cultural history of Europe. He arranges his chapters
thematically, beginning with the history of spices. He argues that in the
Middle Ages, the aristocracy favored heavily spiced dishes. These dishes became
a way for the aristocracy to differentiate itself from the lower classes.
Spices soon became the most valuable market commodity. He argues that the
exploration of the new world was driven purely by the spice trade. However,
with the discovery of cheap spices in India and Southeast Asia, the market was
saturated and Europe’s palate grew to prefer blander foods. His next three
chapters address the more classical stimulants of coffee, chocolate and
tobacco. Coffee, he argues widely appealed to the growing Protestant bourgeois
in England (and eventually the American colonies), who not only disapproved of
alcohol, but also had a work ethic that favored industriousness and activity.
The caffeine in coffee was considered to be a moral improvement over alcohol
and became a fashionable social beverage. Chocolate, in contrast, became the
favored drink of the Catholic aristocracy, who had obtained the drink through
their American colonies. Rather than representing industry, chocolate
consumption was a symbol of the luxury and languorousness of Catholic elites.
Finally, tobacco, another import from the new world, took on social meaning as
it evolved from a condemned unhealthy habit to a symbol of high culture to a
tool in the women’s civil rights movement.
His final analysis is on the history of alcohol consumption. Though this
narrative is treaded throughout the earlier parts of his text, particularly in
the ways that coffee and chocolate replaced beer and wine intake in the upper
and middle classes, these final chapter examine the social role that liquor
and, and later opium played for the working class of the industrial revolution.
These intoxicants were condemned by the upper classes, despite rampant use by
wealthier bohemians and students, but were so deeply ingrained into the social
and cultural fabric of the working class that it was difficult to control.
Schivelbusch’s text is interesting
for many reasons. First, it is a very well-written and clearly argued text. His
sources are extremely diverse and range from correspondence to shipping logs to
recipes. It is unlikely that he would consider stimulants and intoxicants to be
active agents in human history. For example, though he addresses the addictive
nature of many of these foods, he does no really connect their massive
popularity to this quality, but instead to their social and cultural status.
Additionally, though he addresses the exotic nature of these goods as
contributing to their popularity, he does not really focus on environmental
factors that could contribute to their growth and distribution. So while food
and drugs could easily be one of the “quasi-objects” described by Latour to
understand human history in relation to nature, Schivelbusch would be unlikely
to make the same characterization. For many reasons it is reminiscent of the
later work of Callum Roberts’ on the history of fishing. Both works heavily
suggest that the exploration and eventual colonization of the Americas, Africa
and Asia was due largely to desires for food and beverages. Additionally, his
argument for the social construction of tastes regarding stimulants and
intoxicants reflects the strong social constructivism found in the work of
David Barnes. His chapter on coffee and the Protestant work ethic recalls the
Weber thesis, which while quite highly regarded in the twentieth century, has
recently fell out of favor considering the success of many Asian countries and
Catholic Spain.
Schivelbusch’s text, though extremely
positive in many ways, is not without problems. For example, his reliance on
the Weber thesis, makes his coffee chapter slightly weaker. Though his evidence
is good, it seems to be more corollary than causative. Additionally, though his
work is intended to focus on Western Europe, the histories of these stimulants
in their countries of origin, or even the process in which they made it to
Europe is markedly missing. Additionally, his section on spices seems rather
weak, consisting only of twelve pages, when he spends so much time and evidence
on coffee, alcohol, chocolate and tobacco. Organizationally, though his use of
images was helpful and appealing, especially for a cultural history, there
placement throughout each chapter was somewhat confusing. This was also due in
part to their inconsistent captioning. However, this text is an interesting and
well-written social and cultural history of Western Europe and shows the important
place that food and beverages can hold in history.
