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E.C. Spary , Eating the Enlightenment: Food and the Sciences in Paris, 1670-1760 . Chicago and London : The University of Chicago Press , 2012. Pp. xi+366. ISBN 978-0-226-76886-1 . £29.00 (hardback).
In the modern world it is no surprise that chemistry has become integral to food consumption. Anyone shopping from Sainsbury's or Fortnum & Mason, or from a Parisian patisserie or a Monoprix, may marvel at the emporium of the exotic, and at the possibilities presented by dyes, flavour-enhancing chemicals, and preservatives. The result, in no small measure, is an economy of the status-conscious, in our time increasingly of the natural, of organic farming and of the health-food co-op. More surprising, however, is that the consequences of food consumption were already central to the political frame of early modern Europe. Emma Spary has revealed a world in which chemistry and consumption merged in a debate that resonated throughout the political economy of the French Enlightenment.
In her astute and wide-ranging book she reflects upon the increasing commerce in exotic foods from the end of the seventeenth century. The most notable, and widely appreciated,...