College
College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
Department
History
Abstract
This paper explores the development of British culture through the foreign foods it scorned and appropriated during its imperialistic reign. This has been done through analyzing five British cookbooks from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, noting the presence and presentation of French cuisine, nonculinary recipes, and colonial foods. Based on this analysis, the paper argues that Britain crafted a sense of cultural superiority through their ability to consume foods from whichever countries they chose, denying the legitimate dependence they had on other countries for recipes and ingredients. This provides a new perspective on the rise of the British Empire, showing that an examination of food integration and description within cookbooks and other literature can provide historians with a stronger understanding of how national identity is created.
Recommended Citation
Bojarski, Meagan
(2017)
"Crafting British Superiority: A Study of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Cookbooks,"
Perpetua: The UAH Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2:
Iss.
2, Article 2.
Available at:
https://louis.uah.edu/perpetua/vol2/iss2/2