The Present Time is Eminently Scientific

The Science of Cookery in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Bibliographic Data

ID9077932
AuthorsCaroline Lieffers (corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume45
Issue4
Pages936-959
Publication date2012-06-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Social History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-4529 • E-ISSN: 1527-1897
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jsh/shr106
OpenAlexW2148060033
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited8

This article examines the epistemology of cookery among the middle classes in nineteenth-century Britain. Quantification, schematization, and the scientific evaluation of food and its preparation were increasingly emphasized in prescriptive cookery books and housekeeping literature. These trends are evident to some extent in manuscript cookbooks, as well. Cookery was influenced by a rise in chemists' and physicians' professional authority, and science also suggested solutions to the period's ongoing problems of food adulteration. Science and expertise, moreover, offered women and their families access to higher social status and a sense of personal and national progress. However, the scientization of cookery was an uneven and often inconsistent process, and the individual habits and knowledge systems of families, mistresses, and servants continued to play a crucial role in culinary practice.

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art history · Economics · Epistemology · Genius · History of science · Housewife · Meiji period · Middle class · Objectivity (philosophy) · Order (exchange) · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Rationality · Rationalization (economics) · Social science · Sociology · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy

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