Dining on Turtles

When the gentlemen of the Royal Society in London sat down to their turtle dinner in 1793 they were participating in an historical event: an act simultaneously of fine dining and colonialism. Feasting and drinking, the communities in which they occurred, and larger themes of historical significance are explored here in case studies from the banquets in Ancient Rome through to dinners at the Olympic Games in twentieth-century Melbourne. These histories illuminate food and drink’s value in offering new insights into the past.

DIANE E. KIRKBY is Reader in History at La Trobe University, Australia. TANJA LUCKINS is Research Associate at the School of Historical and European Studies, La Trobe University, Australia.

PART I: Introduction * Preface: Of Turtles, Dining and the Importance of History–D.E.Kirkby &T.Luckins * Food in History, History in Food–B.Santich * PART II: Feasting Past and Present * Banquets in Ancient Rome: Participation, Presentation and Perception–B.Rawson * Food and Feasts as Propaganda in Late Renaissance Italy–K.Albala * Feasting on National Identity: Whisky, Haggis and Celebrations of Scottishness in the Nineteenth Century–A.Tyrrell, P.Hill & D.Kirkby * Moose Nose and Buffalo Hump: Food Exchange in the British North American Fur Trade, 1780-1840– G.Colpitts * Competing for Cultural Honours: Cosmopolitanism, Food, Drink and the Olympic Games, Melbourne, 1956–T.Luckins * PART III: Food, Drink and Community * Taverns and Sociability: Ritual, Violence and Young Men in Early Modern France–J.Cashmere * The Reform of Popular Drinking in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe–A.L.Martin * ‘Beer, Women and Grub’: Pubs, Food and the Industrial Working Class–D.Kirkby * Community Cookbooks, Women and the ‘Building of Civil Society’, Australia, 1900-1938–S.Black * Remembering Cyprus: ‘Traditional’ Cooking and Food Preparation in the Memories of Greek Cypriot Emigrants–T.Kalivas * ‘Just Sugar?’ Food and Landscape along Queensland’s Sunshine Coast–C.McConville