Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel 9789048555161

Citation preview

Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France

Food Culture, Food History before 1900 The expanding interest that food studies have elicited in the past few decades confirms the importance of a field that is still very much in the making. The history and cultures of food have been the object of wide-ranging methodological approaches: literary, cultural, economic, and material (to name just a few), and continue to elicit contributions from all the major disciplines. The series publishes monographs on the history and culture of food, and hosts contributions from different fields, historiographic approaches, and perspectives. Contributions cover a long chronological period running from the Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century, respecting the distinctive time frames of food history. A similar criterion determines the wide geographic parameters that the series follows. As of the later Middle Ages, food and cuisine traveled with extreme ease not only within the European continent but increasingly to other parts of the world. The purview of this series thus comprises contributions including Europe, the Atlantic world, as well as exchanges with Asia and the Middle East. Series editor: Allen J. Grieco

Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France Across the Channel

Garritt Van Dyk

Amsterdam University Press

The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from the University of Newcastle

Cover illustration: Philippe Mercier, The Sense of Taste, 1744 to 1747; oil on canvas, 52 x 60 1/2 inches (132.1 x 153.7 cm). Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. (Public Domain) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 017 5 e-isbn 978 90 4855 516 1 doi 10.5117/9789463720175 nur 685 © G. Van Dyk/ Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

7

Introduction: The Economics of Taste Emblems of Identity: Poulet au pot and Roast Beef 1651–1717: Global Commerce and Cultural Identity Culinary Hegemony as Cultural Export Mercantilism and Non-Traditional Influences on Economic Thought De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum: Analysing the Economics of Taste

9 12 17 19 21 23

1. Méthode Anglaise: Transnational Exchange and the Origins of Champagne ‘Come, brothers—I am drinking stars!’ (attributed to Dom ­Pérignon) The Paradox of English Effervescence Probing the Paradox: Necessity is the Mother of Invention ‘Boire à la Françoise’: Baptême et Verjus Taxes, Treaties, Embargoes and Taste Mercantilist Pressures on the English Palate

37 40 47 51 53 61

2. Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbooks, Cuisines, and Corporations The Medieval Tradition of Conspicuous Consumption The Emergence of Delicate Dining Rejection of Refinement: English Resistance to French Cuisine Disconnected Relationships: Price, Value, Supply and Demand

67 71 81 91 98

3. London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café? Mercantilism, Myth and Grandeur in the Development of Sociable Spaces Before the Coffeehouse and Café: The ‘Turk’s Physick’ and ‘Eccentricity of a Traveller’ Rationalising Luxury in Early Modern Political Economy The Success of the Coffeehouse and the Influence of the Virtuosi Soliman Aga and the Fashionability of Coffee in France An Atmosphere of Grandeur in the Parisian Café Botanical Imperialism vs. the Commerce of Empire

33

111 112 116 122 125 130 136 141

4. Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Inseparable Companion’ English Production: Naturalising Sweetness French Production: Toward an Empire of Autarky British Consumption: Grandeur through Taxes on ‘Backs and Bellies’ French Consumption: The Sun King’s Sweet Tooth and the Balance of Trade

149 154 158

Conclusion

183

Bibliography

191

Index

209

165 171

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Erika Gaffney, Allen Grieco, and the entire editorial team at Amsterdam University Press for their assistance. This project would not have been possible without research funding from the University of Newcastle. Material from Chapter 1 was first published as “Méthode Anglaise: the Origins of Champagne” in Petits Propos Culinaires 103, August 2015, as part of the series Petits Propos Culinaires, PPC (Prospect Books, London). Archivists at the Bibliothèque Municipale d’Epernay, the Archives Nationales de France, the Archives des Affaires Etrangères, and the Cabinet des Estampes at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France all provided muchneeded guidance in exploring their collections. I am grateful for the help of the archivists at Woburn Abbey for allowing me to access the household accounts of the Duke of Bedford. At the British Library, Margaret Makepeace, lead curator of the India Office Records, was indispensable in guiding my navigation of the early documents of the East India Company. A number of scholars have contributed valuable feedback to this work, most recently Philippe Meyzie and Maryann Tebben. Commentary from Ian Coller, Andrew Fitzmaurice, David Garrioch, and Glenda Sluga was instrumental in the development of my ideas. I thank my children for their forbearance when I was busy writing, and I am profoundly indebted to my wife, Jennifer. Her indefatigable support and unstinting compassion made completion a reality.



Introduction: The Economics of Taste

Since the early modern period, writers have framed food choices as connected to forms of identity. This grew, in part, from explorations of selfhood that emerged in philosophical and literary texts of the Renaissance.1 The sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne thought deeply about why eating was important to experiential knowledge, particularly of the self, but also of society.2 By the seventeenth century, cultural myths of ‘national’ identification began to develop around food and drink in England and France that reflected the emergence of collective self-identification, before the advent of the nation as a political idea. While prolonged conflict between the two kingdoms influenced the creation of culturally determined icons of national sentiment, so too did cross-cultural exchanges that were entangled with a burgeoning consumer culture, divergent economic policies, and the rapid expansion of foreign trade. A comparative analysis of this transnational food history yields the greatest insights into how eating and drinking habits and preferences became associated with ideas of what it meant to be French or English, as the notions of what it meant to eat like an Englishman and a Frenchman grew together out of the myths that established the foundations of food choices that are now perceived as both nationally and culturally determined. These choices, in turn, resulted in distinctive foodways that were linked to collective identity and shared cultural virtues that have endured. The myths and icons that were first cultivated in England and France in the seventeenth century became firmly embedded as cultural tropes by the nineteenth century. The well-known, if overused, aphorism of nineteenthcentury French writer and gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin—‘tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are’—is often cited as evidence 1 Scholarship on the historical development of selfhood in European culture is extensive; however, the classic texts remain: Greenblatt, Renaissance Selfhood; Seigel, Idea of the Self; and Wahrman, Making of the Modern Self. 2 See ‘Of Experience’ in Montaigne’s Essais, ch. XIII; and for a comparative analysis of Shakespeare’s and Montaigne’s mobilisations of eating and selfhood, see Goldstein, ‘Eats Well with Others’.

Van Dyk, G. Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463720175_intro

10 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

of how the connection between food choices and collective identity was popularised.3 While memorable, the maxim is reductive, obscuring the manifold influences that contribute to how choices are made and how they are linked to specific elements that represent a shared identity. An analysis of transnational exchange, and the relationship between foodways and the development of national icons and myths, allows a consideration of contingency, how these ideas succeeded, and the factors that led to their emergence. In the twentieth century, the French literary theorist and semiotician Roland Barthes proposed a framework for the analysis of food as a system of communication with history in his 1961 essay ‘Toward a Psychosociological of Contemporary Food Consumption’. 4 One of the roles identified by Barthes is the commemorative function of food: ‘food permits a person to partake each day of the national past’ and ‘a whole experience, of the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors’. This commemoration preserves the mythic, idealised past, and ‘brings the memory of the soil into our contemporary life…through his food the Frenchman experiences a certain national continuity’.5 Barthes argues that food and drink function not only as cumulative signifiers of a shared cultural past, but also as contemporary markers of national identity.6 These ideas by Barthes, Brillart Savarin and others have developed since the end of the eighteenth century so that some food and drink now serve as icons of nationhood. In France, champagne producers proclaim their product is a unique symbol of French sophistication and luxury, linked to the lingering legend of its invention by Dom Pérignon. Across the Channel, a cup of sweet tea is recognised as a quintessentially English icon, invoking both a sense of civility and comfort, a respite from the unrelenting rain. How, and when, did these tastes develop? And, why do these mythical associations persist, despite our knowledge that English scientists first discovered how 3 Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, p. 4. 4 Barthes, ‘Toward a Psychology of Contemporary Food Consumption’, p. 24. 5 Pascal Ory affirms the importance of cooking as a source of communal identity, in a more recent example, grouping it with language and religion: ‘cooking…invariably involves a collective ritual (the meal and its menu), a tradition (recipe and style), and critical discrimination (the product, the commentary). A cuisine is one of the most distinctive expressions of an ethnic group, or in modern times, a nation.’ Ory, ‘Gastronomy’, p. 445. 6 The term identity is often used loosely, sometimes to signify the individual difference of the self, leaving its meaning ambiguous, and open to interpretation. See Brubaker and Cooper, ‘Beyond “Identity”’, pp. 14–21. A more limited definition is useful in the early modern period to express the general sense of shared characteristics for subjects of a particular country in terms of how they viewed themselves collectively. See Wahrman, Making of the Modern Self, p. xii.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

11

to make sparkling wine, and London was once the coffee-drinking capital of the early modern world? This book addresses the origin of the cultural myths that continue to be connected to popular notions of what were considered to be typically ‘English’ or ‘French’ ways of eating and drinking in the seventeenth century. A close examination of these preconceptions reveals an alternative history with a more complex story about food practices and their relationship to cultural identification. In an era of empire-building, exploration and scientif ic discovery, early modern consumers were confronted with a dazzling array of new things to eat and drink, and new ways to eat and drink them. In my analysis, I focus on the role that commerce has played in the transmission of ideas, including the relationship between food and identity, using economic history to examine both commercial and cultural exchange in the trading networks of England and France. I explore how food choices that became part of the enduring cultural identity of both countries was influenced by global trade, and how the economic policies of these nation-states in the seventeenth century were influenced by what their citizens chose to eat and drink. A brief survey of the populations of France and England, and London and Paris in particular, provides a starting point for a comparison of some demographic factors that affected local patterns of consumption. In 1670 Paris had a population estimated at somewhere between 495,000 and 570,000, higher than the range of 475,000–550,000 in London.7 This changed by 1700, however, as London grew to become the largest European city. On a relative basis, London was also more representative of England, with a population in 1700 that was 11% of the total number of inhabitants (5.1 million). 8 Paris, with 500,000 inhabitants, was only 2% of the much larger overall population of 21.5 million in France.9 In addition to its size relative to overall population, it has been estimated that a sixth of the English-born population in 1700 lived in London at some point.10 This high level of contact with the largest city in Europe increased the circulation of ideas in England about new commodities and modes of consumption. 7 Harding, The Dead and the Living in Paris, pp. 15–17. 8 Wrigley, ‘Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period’, p. 688. 9 Dupâquier, ‘La population française aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, pp. 34–37. Also, see Mennell, All Manners of Food, pp. 127–128, for a comparative discussion of demographic factors. 10 Wrigley, ‘A Simple Model of London’s importance in Changing English Society and Economy, 1650-1750’, p. 221.

12 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

While these figures provide some rough idea of total population, they are less useful in a discussion of what might loosely be described as ‘elite’ consumers. A direct comparison of French nobility with English social classes is complicated because there are fewer stratifications in England, beyond peerage, the gentry, and land ownership. English peers only numbered about 160 during the seventeenth century, while the number of gentry is roughly estimated at between eight and twenty thousand.11 It should be noted, however, that the concentration of land ownership in England was higher than in France, with a smaller number of families controlling the largest estates.12 Without attempting to determine a precise beginning, I argue that the period from the middle of seventeenth century into the early eighteenth was marked by changes in emulation and the influence of court culture, the introduction of new comestibles, and the development of new modes of consumption and spaces of sociability that disrupted established social norms. As each of these changes occurred, the relative importance of conventional social hierarchies and wealth waxed or waned, complicating a quantitative demographic analysis. This leads to a series of questions in the economic history of food that this book sets out to answer. How did the increase in global trade affect the definition of ‘French’ and ‘English’ cultures? In turn, how did the demands of cultures that could be defined as ‘French’ or ‘English’ affect trade? Finally, how did economic issues related to the production, consumption and distribution of food cultures establish the contours of early modern French and English cultural identity? To answer these questions, I focus on ingredients and comestibles specific to their respective food traditions: sparkling champagne, coffee, spices, and sugar. Each of these is now associated with myths of national identification that originated, before the advent of the nation as a political idea, during the seventeenth century.

Emblems of Identity: Poulet au pot and Roast Beef From 1600 onwards, statesmen and commentators employed the emotive power of food as symbols to frame debates about political economy. This 11 Mingay, English Landed Society, p. 6. 12 This is noted by Stephen Mennell in his discussion of how food choices developed in England and France. Mennell argues that social display remained important for the English landed gentry with some London houses outshining the royal court in terms of social and political influence. Mennell, All Manners of Food, p. 120.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

13

rhetorical practice endured well beyond this time, as can be seen by the emblematic roast beef of England (and later Britain) and the poule au pot (chicken in a pot) of France, which to this day are lauded as national dishes with historical roots. Crucially, it was not the ingredients alone that shaped this cultural interpretation that became increasingly nationalised; rather it was the myths created around each dish that secured their place in the cultural imaginary and helped to shape the culinary definitions of each nation in the centuries that followed. As we shall see, these foods were laden with meanings in the seventeenth century that were understood at many levels of society and were used as emblems to communicate ideas of shared identity in opposition to outside influences or internal strife well before the invention of the nation-state. Poule au pot provides an effective example of how food myths developed in this period and were tied to ideas of political economy that both emerged from and endured beyond absolutism to become a dish of the people and of the nation. In the early seventeenth century, the King of France, Henri IV, faced the difficult task of rebuilding the country after it was torn apart during the French Religious Wars, fighting between Protestants and Catholics, from 1562–1598. The war had claimed millions of lives and ravaged the countryside, with crops, food, and animals plundered over many years. Famine followed the violence, claiming even more lives. Henri IV was dedicated to restoring France to its previous levels of peace and prosperity and emphasised the role of agriculture and animal husbandry in the post-war recovery. His minister of finance, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, promoted this focus on the regenerative power of the land when he proclaimed that ‘tilling the soil and grazing are the two teats of France’.13 This sentiment was reinforced, fifty years later, by a mythical promise, communicated posthumously in Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe’s Histoire du roy Henry le Grand (1662): ‘if God allows me to live long enough, I will see to it that there is not a labourer in my kingdom who does not have a chicken in his pot.’14 Originally written as a didactic text for young Louis XIV, the promise of a poached chicken reflected the legendary love of Henri IV for the welfare of country farmers rebuilding their lives after the Wars of Religion. The word poule refers not to a chicken, but a hen, presumably too old to lay eggs, destined to be a 13 Sully, Les Oeconomies royales de Sully, p. 257. 14 Hardouin, Histoire du roy, p. 528. The first edition of this text was published in 1661, but the passage regarding the poule au pot does not appear in the 1661 edition but was added to the 1662 edition within the Recueil de quelques belles actions et paroles mémorables du Roi Henry le Grand. For a history of the editions, see Issartel, ‘Hardouin de Péréfixe’.

14 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

main course. Not all peasants could have afforded laying fowl, and fewer still would have had so many that they would be able to eat one with any regularity. Even if the promise did not extend to the poorest inhabitants, and was more idealistic than practical, it reflected the author’s image of a benevolent ruler with a desire to provide a basic level of affluence, a chicken in every pot, for a broad-based constituency. The reality, however, had not been realised by 1774, and the symbol resurfaced when Louis XVI took the throne after Louis XV died from smallpox. Louis XV was not a popular king, but the public sentiment expressed for Louis XVI was cautiously hopeful that the new monarch would emulate Henri IV. A letter from the salonnière Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole shortly after Louis XVI’s coronation described the scene at the equestrian statute of Henri IV in Paris: ‘At the base of the statue of Henri IV someone wrote in large letters: Resurrected. It was left there for two days. Some unknown person wrote these verses underneath: Henri resurrected, I quite like this fitting remark / But to make up my mind, I am waiting for the chicken in the pot.’15 The unconditional enthusiasm of the bold inscription on Henri’s statue is tempered by the wait-and-see sentiment of the verses added underneath. She continued in her exchange with her English correspondent, reminding him of the totemistic value of the dish for the French people: ‘Surely you know the words of Henri IV who wanted his peasants to be well-off enough to have a chicken in their pot every Sunday.’16 Madame du Deffand reported several months later that the iconic dish appeared again in verse in a sardonic comment on the proposed economic reforms of Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot under Louis XVI: ‘Finally the hen will be put in the pot / At least we can presume it / Because it has been promised to us for two hundred years / And we never stopped plucking it.’17 The poule au pot was originally an anecdote included in the biography of Henri IV as an example of a monarch’s love for his people. This was not only a pedagogical device providing the heir to the throne with a model to emulate, but also a message to all who read the biography—this is what a good king does. By its very nature, the dish was directly connected to the land through agriculture and a rustic ideal of abundance, promoted by a monarch who cared for welfare of his people. This symbolic meaning 15 Mme. du Deffand to Horace Walpole, June 22, 1774, in Walpole, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. 6, p. 64. 16 Deffand to Walpole, p. 64. 17 Deffand to Walpole, September 11, 1774, in Walpole, Correspondence, vol. 6, p. 93.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

15

became deeply embedded into French culture as it passed through a line of Bourbon kings, from Henri IV to Louis XIV, and emerged again after the coronation of Louis XVI as a barometer for economic well-being: will there be a chicken in the pot? While poule au pot was employed as a symbol of economic prosperity in France, English roast beef was claimed around the same time as a defiant proclamation of simplicity, health, and liberty, often in opposition to the corrupting power of foreign influence. In Shakespeare’s Henry V (1599), the Constable of France describes English warriors as fuelled by beef: ‘Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.’18 Shakespeare uses a French character to make this statement about the connection between food and valour with the presumption that the English reputation as beefeaters is renowned. The source of the comment, French noblemen, is used by the English author as a point of differentiation between the two cultures—reaffirming the symbolic value of beef to his English audience. Shakespeare’s association between beef and the strength of Englishman is echoed by Joseph Addison’s commentary in the Tatler in 1709: ‘I shall begin with a very earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers, that they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile themselves to beef…This was that diet which bred that hardy race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt.’ Addison admires plain beef because it is food that is ‘simple and natural’ set in opposition to ‘pomp and luxury’ associated with French cuisine: ‘I look upon a French ragoust to be as pernicious to the stomach as a glass of spirits; and when I have seen a young lady swallow all the instigations of high soupes, seasoned sauces, and forced meats, I have wondered at the despair or tedious sighing of her lovers.’19 The same opposition between simplicity and luxury is evident in William King’s satirical poem, in 1708, The Art of Cookery, which is ‘Humbly Inscrib’d to the Honourable Beef Steak Club’. In his preface to the reader, he states that his purpose is to show ‘his Aversion to the Introduction of Luxury, which may tend to the corruption of Manners, and declare his love to the old British Hospitality, Charity, and Valour…when Beef and Brown bread were carried every day to the Poor.’20 King’s nostalgia for an idealised past associated with shared virtues and collective identity is embodied in the plain, but very substantial, nourishment that sustained the most vulnerable Britons. 18 Shakespeare, Henry V (Act 3, Scene 7). 19 Addison, Tatler, March 21, 1709. 20 King, ‘Publisher to the Reader’ in Cookery, p. 4

16 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Not f it for English men or women, French food is condemned as damaging and luxurious. Resistance to French food grew, evident in the lyrics to the ballad ‘The Roast Beef of Old England’ written by Henry Fielding for his play The Grub Street Opera (1731): ‘When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman’s food, / It ennobled our brains and enriched our blood…But since we have learnt from all-vapouring France / To eat their ragouts as well to dance, / We’re fed up with nothing but vain complaisance’.21 The title of the lyrics also appears on William Hogarth’s satirical print of the Gate of Calais, O the Roast Beef of Old England (1749), depicting a corpulent French monk fondling a side of raw beef as it passes by. Hogarth was one of the twenty-four founding members of the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks established in Covent Garden in 1735, with an emblem of a gridiron, and the motto, ‘May Beef and Liberty be our Reward’. The alignment of beef with liberty, in opposition to absolutist monarchy, strengthened the association of the food with national identity, and distinguished the English from the French. 22 Consequently, it is a comparative analysis of this transnational food history that will yield the greatest insights, as the notions of what it meant to eat like a Englishman and a Frenchman grew together out of the myths that established the foundations of food choices that are now perceived as both nationally and culturally determined. That food was selected for its potency as a symbol should not be a surprise because the need for nourishment is universal. Not everyone enjoys, or values, food in the same way but the commonality of the practice is undeniable. Food was viewed not only as sustenance, but also as a means of social differentiation within a society and as a means of self-identification, often in opposition to inhabitants of other countries. As new comestibles were sourced from around the globe, food choices were influenced by, and exerted a mutual influence on commerce. The revenue generated by this trade was considerable and encouraged more forays into unfamiliar territory in competition with other state-sponsored actors in search of exotic goods for a growing consumer market. The varying modes of self-identification and social distinction in England and France in the same period offer an opportunity to examine the difference in responses to the relationship between food, commerce, and national 21 Baldwin and Wilson, ‘250 Years of Roast Beef’, p. 203. 22 For a discussion of the symbolism of English roast beef, see Rogers, Beef and Liberty; and for a compelling argument for the alignment of cuisine with politics in the period see Lehmann, ‘Politics in the Kitchen’.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

17

identity. Ideas about the nation, even if they did not amount to nationalism, appeared in early modern discourse in England, and were used to frame the debate about political economy. The origins of national identity are located in culture, as can be seen in the responses of writers and artists from the period, and through the establishment of the French academies and the development of industries to promote economic self-sufficiency.23 While I am not proposing an earlier development of the nation in England or in France, I do question the role that food and commerce played in developing a sentiment of national belonging, beginning in the middle of the seventeenth century, before the political idea of the nation developed. By focusing on commerce and cultural exchange and drawing on transnational and comparative methodologies,24 I challenge existing myths and suggest a new chronology for the development of the association of food with cultural and national identities and identifications.25 Marc Bloch noted that comparative history was most successfully employed in ‘a parallel study of societies that are at once neighbouring and contemporary, exercising a constant mutual influence, exposed throughout their development to the action of the same broad causes just because they are close and contemporaneous, and owing their existence in part at least to a common origin.’26 Employing these two complementary approaches here avoids the limitations imposed by either, permitting an analysis which is driven by the inherent quality of the history, not the requirements of the methodology.

1651–1717: Global Commerce and Cultural Identity This analysis is centred on the period from 1651–1717, beginning with the publication of the first cookbook dedicated to French cuisine, and ending with the establishment of regular shipments of tea from the English East India Company’s monopoly on the trade from Canton.27 These dates are 23 For early modern nationalism in England see Newman, Rise of English Nationalism; and Kumar, Making of English National Identity. For the development of the pre-revolutionary French idea of the nation see Bell, Cult of the Nation. 24 Tyrell, ‘Reflections on the Transnational Turn’, pp. 457–458. Tyrell asserts the complementary nature of comparative and transnational methodologies. 25 Bayly, Beckert, Connelly, Hofmeyr, Kozol, and Seed, ‘AHR Conversation: On Transnational History’, pp. 1441–1464. 26 Bloch, ‘A Contribution towards a Comparative History of European Societies’, p. 47. 27 EIC access to Canton was agreed in 1713. Routine shipping began in 1717 and marks the point at which the value of coffee and tea imported into Britain is split 50/50. See Cowan, Social Life of Coffee, p. 75.

18 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

significant because the publication of Le Cuisinier françois marked the rise of French culinary hegemony, while the start of British direct trade in tea signalled the East India Company’s consolidation of its position as a trading power.28 These iconic moments frame a crucial period for understanding the significance of the connections between global commerce and the development of what later became national food cultures and stereotypes. Food choices, and the fluidity of meaning and significance attributed to them by elite consumers, changed dramatically during the second half of the seventeenth century, as trade and exploration redefined the known universe of food and drink in England and France. As a result, consumer demand for novelty and innovation in London and Paris during this interval outstripped the supply of new goods. Consumption of the latest imports functioned as a measure of social distinction and had local and global implications, as both goods and ideas circulated through these local and global trade routes. Attempts by the state to control domestic consumption of imported goods through sumptuary prohibitions in France and England failed. These laws struggled to regulate expenditure and consumption to preserve social distinctions and to encourage re-export of ‘luxury’ imported goods. Unable to control patterns of consumption, through the latter half of the seventeenth century the governments of England and France instead chose to harness the demand for new goods through taxes, for their economic benefit.29 More importantly, because of this expansion of trade, the balance of precious metals used for payments ebbed and flowed, raising concerns about the impact of global commerce on the financial stability of England and France. Even though Spain, Portugal and the Dutch Republic also experienced the same effect, the relationship between England and France more usefully illuminates the broadly entrenched food cultures embedded in the development of cultural identity.30 Some of the most enduring myths associated with the cuisines of England and France developed in the second half of the seventeenth century. These culinary myths emerge from an idea of cultural difference that precedes the political idea of nation, even as it presumes nationhood in prototypical form.31 Furthermore, the fundamental 28 For the importance of the tea trade see Erikson, Chartering Capitalism, p. 125. For the start of the French culinary hegemony, see Spary, Eating the Enlightenment, p. 12. 29 Spary, Eating the Enlightenment, p. 95. 30 The special nature of the relationship between these two countries in later periods has been discussed by Robert and Isabelle Tombs in their book, That Sweet Enemy. 31 In saying this, I do not assert the separation of political and cultural influences on state formation. Instead, like more recent theorists of nationalism, I view the differentiation of political and cultural nationhood as a false dichotomy. See A. D. Smith, ‘Ethnie and Nation’, pp. 127–142.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

19

connection of economic influences to both the political and the cultural is incorporated here, not as determinist or even lockstep with development, but still influential, and under-addressed in terms of its role in cultural production.32 The role of food and commerce in this pre-national state contributed to the emergence of the concepts of ‘national taste’, the way that English and French consumers viewed themselves, and the construction of ideas about what it meant to be ‘French’ or ‘English’ by virtue of comparison and connection. The cuisine of the court, and patterns of consumption by the bourgeoisie and the gentry were cultural practices identified by these sectors of society as expressions of ‘national’ identity, but they were not nationalistic in the modern sense of a political group sharing common beliefs acting as a collective entity.33 Instead, they expressed a sentiment of national belonging in a cultural sphere and were codified in the culinary practices of England and France. Cuisine in this period did not serve to unify all of the population within its borders, but it operated as an emblem of cultural identity.

Culinary Hegemony as Cultural Export The promulgation of French culinary hegemony began in 1651 with the publication of Le Cuisinier françois. French cuisine emerged, in print, as the dominant force in the development of cooking technique when French chefs departed from the pan-European traditions of the past, f irst identifying, and later codifying, the flavours and spices now associated with classic French cuisine.34 This excellence was declared in the name of France, disseminated through the agency of printed cookbooks for the benef it of all who wished to share in the superiority of French cuisine. This break with the ancients, and a turn toward domestic flavours pref igured the mercantilist policies of Colbert, with more lasting results.35 32 Yoshino, Consuming Ethnicity, p. 11. 33 On the lack of cohesion of the early modern Parisian bourgeoisie outside their quartier, see Garrioch, Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, pp. 1–7. 34 I use the term ‘chefs’ here to stand in for the historical French term maîtres d’hôtel to avoid confusion with the modern role of the same name in English. The role of the maître d’hôtel in the seventeenth century was not merely chef de cuisine, but head of all household staff with management responsibility for all domestic servants in a château. 35 DeJean, Essence of Style, p. 113.

20 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

In 1670, Savinien d’Alquié’s Les Délices de la France, a guidebook, extolled the many virtues of France, including French cuisine and its unique flavours: ‘I believe that we have things so special and so agreeable in taste, that no other Nation than ours has them, like truffles, whose taste is so charming and salutary, that there is nothing else like it in the world’.36 He claimed that the best chefs in the world were French, and that Italians, Spaniards, Germans, English, Poles, Muscovites and Turks were all obliged to entertain in the French manner, when they want to have a good meal. In France, he boasted, you find the most refined, delicate and special meats—only roast Phoenix was beyond the reach of the French chef. The hyperbolic prose was directed at foreign travellers, exporting the appeal of French culinary excellence to all of Europe. Guidebooks and travel literature like Les Délices de la France in the late seventeenth century helped to establish France as a destination for connoisseurs of refined cuisine. As an export, French cuisine became the prevailing mode for courtly entertaining across Europe. In France, aspiring bourgeoisie emulated courtly cooking through more modest culinary displays, forced by economic limitations to select only the best dishes, forming a canonical repertoire still recognisable today.37 The nouvelle cuisine was quickly imported into London by powerful Whig politicians who competed for the services of celebrity French chefs. Unlike the bourgeoisie, the landed gentry struggled to translate the French extravagance of courtly cuisine through the language of English economy, despite the best attempts of English cookbooks to appear au courant.38 The powerful grip of French fashion did not give way to Francophobia until later in the eighteenth century, when English cooks rejected elaborate cuisine in favour of simple fare, emblematic of Englishness. An exploration of the role of cuisine in the formation of cultural identity in the seventeenth century necessarily begins with historical studies of the cuisines of France and England. The main focus of food historians who have written about this period is the printed cookbook, which replaced the manuscript compilations of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The issues of author and audience, culinary style and the dining experience are common, but the methodological approaches of scholars to primary sources and materials have varied.39 Through the selective use of transnational 36 d’Alquié, Les Délices de la France, pp. 232–234. 37 Wheaton, Savoring the Past, pp. 194–195. 38 Lehmann, The British Housewife, pp. 193–194. 39 The most comprehensive study of French cuisine is Wheaton, Savoring the Past. Significantly, Wheaton dismisses the myth of Italian origins of French cooking through the court of Catherine

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

21

and comparative approaches in this analysis, the presence (or absence) of cultural exchange or emulation is neither presumed nor favoured. 40 A close reading of primary sources is necessary to determine how French cuisine spread in translations of French texts, and how the texts were transformed, or not, in their assertion of French superiority, the inf luence of food culture as it developed during the ancien régime, and its emergence as a cultural marker for France. 41 French-authored cookbooks attempted to promulgate culinary hegemony but failed when English editions were not faithfully translated. Instead, French recipes were changed to appeal to the English audience through language that emphasised economy and simplicity, and included familiar ingredients rejected by nouvelle cuisine.

Mercantilism and Non-Traditional Influences on Economic Thought By selecting food and drink that seventeenth-century consumers considered representative of their own narrowly defined collective ideologies, this book explores the role that the contrasting mercantilist trade policies of England and France played in forming their choices, and how these choices influenced the development of their economies. The role of economics in shaping the food traditions of seventeenth-century consumers provides tangible evidence which complements cultural history. As a discipline, economics is not primarily concerned with money, but with choices. And choices have consequences—costs, measured not only in terms of money, but also as time or lost opportunity. These consequences resonate beyond the sphere of the self-interested individual, and extend into unexpected areas of social, cultural, political, and intellectual practices. A number of economic theories, however, presume pre-existing consumer demand, de Medici, locating importance instead in her use of court festivals. This is also discussed by Strong in Feast. 40 Mennell, All Manners of Food. The discussion of the divide in court and country food is really a comparison of France and England, characterising French cooking as courtly and defining English cooking as the cuisine of the gentry. The comparison does not consider Wheaton’s assertion of overlap between bourgeois and haute cuisine in France and contradicts Lehmann’s archival evidence that French courtly cuisine was served to the English court. 41 The apogee of the French culinary hegemony is located in the nineteenth century with Antoine Câreme. See Parkhurst-Ferguson, Accounting for Taste, p. 10. For an analysis of the intersection of religion, imperialism, and culinary hegemony, see Laudan, Cuisine and Empire. For a discussion of luxury industries during the reign of Louis XIV, see DeJean, Essence of Style, p. 2.

22 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

limited only by the constraints of budget and income. For example, Ralph Davis’ analysis of English seventeenth-century trade used Say’s Law, which assumes that supply creates its own demand, to explain how imports and re-exports changed during the period.42 Similarly, Jan de Vries’ explanation for shifting patterns of consumption in early modern Northern Europe was that increased wage income, or conversely reduced prices, necessarily increase demand. 43 Consumers, unfortunately, are anything but rational. These analyses do not account for non-economic factors that produce contrary results: lower prices may relegate a luxury good to the status of commodity; new products may not initially succeed, in spite of unsatisfied demand for novelty, unless they can be contextualised in the consumer’s social and cultural framework. An examination of the economics of this period reveals the influences that gave rise to myths associated with cultural identity and provides insight into the development of seventeenth-century cultural practices and patterns of consumption. In particular, it is worth exploring how the economic concerns addressed by mercantilist writers influenced social, cultural, political and intellectual life in the seventeenth century. Before political economy was considered a separate discipline, scientific, religious, and philosophical discourse informed economic thought. 44 The prevailing school of economic thought in the seventeenth century was mercantilism, loosely defined as a system of economic programs and ideas common to early modern Europe. Seventeenth-century mercantilist authors addressed a disparate range of topics from sovereignty and power to population and botany.45 The term ‘mercantilism’, however, is often dismissed when it is used as an analytical framework. Economic historian D. C. Coleman famously referred to the idea of mercantilism as a unified economic policy or theory as a ‘red-herring of historiography.’46 Mercantilism is not a complete system with a coherent doctrine like physiocracy, but the term has been used as a metonym for the practical economic policies of early modern nation-states and the body of literature which debated how to increase state wealth and 42 Davis, ‘English Foreign Trade’, pp. 150–166. 43 de Vries, ‘Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods’, p. 115. 44 Schabas makes the argument that economic discourse prior to the nineteenth century viewed commerce, trade, and money as natural phenomena. See Schabas, Natural Origins of Economics. 45 For example: Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, Les Aventures de Télémaque; Petty, Essay Concerning the Multiplication of Mankind); and Linnaeus, Economy of Nature. 46 ‘Eli Heckscher and the Idea of Mercantilism’, in D. C. Coleman, Revisions in Mercantilism, p. 117.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

23

power.47 Newer studies of mercantilism address the concerns raised by earlier historians of economic thought, and consider this strand of early modern political economy in a wider cultural context. 48 A consideration of sources not traditionally considered as economic, provides a new perspective on the formation of cultural practices in the period and the mutually influential relationship between culture and economics. 49 Through the use of primary sources, the methodology employed here considers mercantilism from an interdisciplinary perspective. Typical primary sources where economic information and data can be found include newspapers, trade periodicals, pamphlets, economic treatises, household accounts, and price data. These traditional sources are supplemented by economic inflections found in cultural documents and sources, such as cookbooks, poems, plays, correspondence, paintings, engravings, and ephemera. The differences in authors, audiences, and medium allow for a consideration of the influence of political economy within the broader cultural setting in which it was developed. A more inclusive approach to sources also creates opportunities for analysis in the absence of traditional data, by providing a context to infer, with qualification, causal connections.50 The combination of cultural history and economic history provides both a theoretical framework and concrete examples to illustrate the various factors which influenced the habits through which early modern English and French consumers fashioned their own ideas of who they were.51

De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum: Analysing the Economics of Taste The Latin maxim that ‘in matters of taste there can be no dispute’ is often translated more loosely as ‘there is no accounting for taste’, meaning that taste is too subjective to be analysed objectively.52 Traditional consumer theory is limited in this respect, because it assumes that consumer choices are influenced by a desire to gain the greatest possible benefit, defined as 47 Vardi, Physiocrats and the World, pp. 2–4. 48 For example: Magnusson, Mercantilist Economics, pp. 1–2; and Pincus, ‘Rethinking Mercantilism’, pp. 3–4. 49 Stern and Wennerlind, Mercantilism Reimagined. 50 Boix and Rosenbluth ‘Bones of Contention’, p. 1. 51 For examples of this blended approach, see: Shovlin, Political Economy of Virtue; and Stein, Plumes. 52 Stigler and Becker, ‘De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum’, pp. 76–90.

24 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

the most goods or services for the least amount of money. The consumer who seeks to maximise individual utility, subject to the constraints of income and substitute goods, is considered a rational consumer. A consumer who does not make choices to maximise utility is irrational, and beyond the scope of standard economic theory. Despite this apparent limitation, choices based on taste or fashion can still be analysed, provided that the social and cultural context in which the choice is made is also evaluated.53 As Adam Smith identified in The Theory of Moral Sentiment: ‘Few men… are willing to allow, that custom or fashion have much influence upon their judgments concerning what is beautiful’, they ‘imagine that all the rules which they think ought to be observed in each of them are founded upon reason and nature, not upon habit or prejudice.’54 Smith’s observation reminds us of the fallacy of objectivity and the role of culture and familiarity in matters of taste. I evaluate these influences on cultural practices in this period, not only to widen the scope of my analysis, but also because I argue that socioeconomic forces are deeply embedded in the associated cultural processes.55 The Anglo-French trade relationship in the seventeenth century offers an example of taste overriding the assumption of rational market-driven behaviour. The tariffs, treaties and embargoes commonly associated with mercantilist protectionism affected the supply of French wines in England in the middle of the century.56 French wine producers begged Louis XIV’s Controller General, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to help them when a new English tax was levied on French wines in 1670. Colbert not only remained confident of continued English consumption, he also predicted that scarcity would increase consumer demand: ‘it is likely that after the tax increase, demand will increase, having seen everywhere, that wine is consumed most heavily in those places where it is most expensive; it being difficult if not impossible for the English to give up drinking French wine.’57 Colbert astutely recognised not only the inelasticity of demand for French wine, but also the appeal of what we would now refer to as conspicuous consumption. In dismissing the wine producers’ concerns, he observed the social status ascribed to expensive wine, the English consumers’ cultural preference 53 Gary Becker addresses the influence of collective demand on consumer choice. Becker, ‘A Note on Restaurant Pricing’, pp. 1109–1116. 54 Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. V, p. i. 55 Davis, Diefendorf, and Hesse, Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe, p. 1. 56 Ludington, Politics of Wine in Britain, p. 35. 57 Letter from Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, March 28, 1670, in Colbert, Lettres, instructions et mémoires, vol. 2, p. 524.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

25

for French wine, and concluded that higher prices would actually increase demand. This departure from the traditionally inverse relationship between demand and price is interpreted as irrational when evaluating the actions of a decontextualised individual. The increase in demand at a higher price is rational, however, if social and cultural factors are considered. English consumers who wanted to display their wealth and taste by purchasing expensive French wine got exactly what they paid for. This example illustrates the approach used here, which requires a perspective that blends economic and cultural history. Apart from price and traditional economic constraints, there are social and cultural factors which contribute to the choices that economic actors make that fall outside the domain of traditional economic analysis.58 Sarah Stein’s study of the nineteenth-century ostrich feather trade Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce, for example, refers to an overlap in the Venn diagrams of the economic and cultural spheres as the ‘as-yet-untheorised interstices of economic and cultural history.’59 Tracking the trade in ostrich feathers, or the development of bubbles in champagne, requires not only an analysis of the network of supply and demand, but also an analysis of changes in cultural patterns that influenced choices. Utilising this blended cultural-economic approach, Chapter 1 looks at the English contribution to the origin and development of French champagne and challenges the presumption that cultural exchange between England and France in the seventeenth century, in matters of taste, was a one-way street. The English role in the development of sparkling wine is examined, and takes into account the influence of trade, taxes, scientific inquiry, cultural inertia, and myth to solve what French champagne historians have referred to as the English Paradox—how could a country that does not produce wine develop an innovative winemaking technique—that evolved into an icon of Frenchness? Chapter 2 evaluates the role of mercantilist trade policies in forming French and English culinary traditions through a comparative analysis of import substitution and the joint-stock company, and a transnational analysis of cooking and cultural exchange. In 1651, the publication of Le Cuisinier françois communicated the development of a specifically French cuisine that abandoned the exoticism of imported spices for the delicacy of 58 Ashraf, Camerer, and Loewenstein, ‘Adam Smith, Behavioural Economist’, p. 141. 59 Stein, Plumes, p. 7.

26 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

native herbs.60 The new cuisine acted as both an import substitute for spices imported through trade where France lacked a significant presence, and as a cultural export, disseminating the dominance of the French culinary hegemony through printed texts and the circulation of ideas. French recipes and French chefs came to England, but the French methods and flavours did not take hold.61 Imitations of French cuisine abounded, but were French in name only, ignoring the painstaking and expensive techniques in favour of shortcuts in the name of economy. The circulation of people and ideas should have encouraged cultural exchange. An analysis of factors that discouraged the assimilation of French cuisine reveals why the imported culinary modes did not take hold. Chapter 3 examines coffee in the context of the development of two sociable institutions that emerged during this period: the London coffeehouse and the Parisian café.62 The different trajectories of the development of the Parisian café and the London coffeehouse are compared in conjunction with the introduction and transmission of the coffee habit in England and France. Here, the nature of the history calls for a comparative, rather than transnational approach to analyse how the development of new sociable spaces provided a context for the development of cultural practices, affecting how coffee was received in each country. The role of the Franco-Ottoman political relationship, commercial diplomacy, and the mythical influence of Turkish diplomatic envoy, Soliman Aga, are evaluated for their purported influence in communicating the cultural practice to Parisian nobles. In Chapter 4 the focus shifts from innovation and novelty to an old commodity, produced in new colonies—sugar.63 Sugar in the seventeenth century is often referred to as the common denominator which enabled European consumption of coffee, tea and chocolate. Through an alternative view, these combinations are ‘unbundled’ here to provide a clearer picture of the political economy and cultural context in which sugar was consumed.64 Unbundled from its beverage companions, the value of sugar to the economy of each state is assessed to test the contemporary English claims that the French were too poor to buy sugar, and the French claims that the English sugar had to be consumed domestically as tariffs made it too expensive to re-export. 60 La Varenne, Le Cuisinier françois. 61 Wheaton, Savoring the Past. 62 Cowan, Social Life of Coffee; Forster and Ranum, Food and Drink in History. 63 Dunn, Sugar and Slaves; Stein, French Sugar Business. 64 de Vries, Industrious Revolution; Smith, Consumption.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

27

Comparative and transnational methodologies reveal that development of food habits as cultural practices and the economic policies of each country in this period were mutually influential and informed the way elite consumers thought about themselves in terms of being ‘English’ or ‘French’. This is shown through an analysis that challenges traditional presumptions through a couplet of contrasts in the subjects for each chapter: cultural inertia and trade in the development of innovation in winemaking; new maritime trade in an old commodity (spices) and how market access affected the adoption or resistance of cultural practices; the arrival of new commodities (coffee and tea) and the contingency of cultural exchange; and old commodities (sugar) grown in new colonies, removing foreign producers from the economic equation. This examination of the acceptance of, or resistance to novelty, new goods, and new spaces will show how economic policies and cultural practices transformed how early modern consumers of England and France described themselves as ‘English’ or ‘French’.

Bibliography Printed Primary Sources Addison, Joseph. The Tatler, No. 131, February 1709–1710; No. 148, March 21, 1709–1710. d’Alquié, Savinien. Les Délices de la France. Paris: G. de Luyne, 1670. Colbert, Jean Baptiste. Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert. Paris: Impr. impériale, 1861–1873. Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe, Histoire du roy Henry le Grand. Paris: Thomas Lolly, 1662. King, William. The Art of Cookery: In Imitation of Horace’s Art of Poetry. London: Bernard Lintott, 1708. La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. Le Cuisinier françois, eds. J.L. Flandrin, P. Hyman, and M. Hyman. Paris: Montalba, 1983. Linnaeus, The Economy of Nature. Transl. of Oeconomia naturae. London: Benjamin Stillingfleet, 1775. Montaigne, Michel de. Les Essais, Édition Villey-Saulnier. Paris: PUF, 2004. Petty, Sir William. An Essay Concerning the Multiplication of Mankind: Together with Another Essay in Political Arithmetick Concerning the Growth of the City of London, with the Measures, Periods, Causes, and Consequences Thereof. 1682. 2nd, rev. and enl. ed. London: Mark Pardoe, 1686. Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, François de. Les Aventures de Télémaque, 1699.

28 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Sully, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de. Les Oeconomies royales de Sully, vol. II, 1595-1599, Paris: Klincksieck, 1970. Walpole, Horace. Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, Vol. 6, ed. W. S. Lewis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937.

Secondary Literature Ashraf, Nava, Colin F. Camerer, and George Loewenstein. ‘Adam Smith, Behavioural Economist’. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 19:3 (2005), 131–145. Baldwin, Olive, and Thelma Wilson. ‘250 Years of Roast Beef’. The Musical Times, 126: 1706 (1985), 203–207. Barthes, Roland. ‘Toward a Psychology of Contemporary Food Consumption’. In Food and Culture. A Reader, ed. Carole Counihan & Penny Van Esterik. New York & London: Routledge, 1997, 20–27. Bayly, C. A., Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmeyr, Wendy Kozol, and Patricia Seed, ‘AHR Conversation: On Transnational History’. The American Historical Review 111: 5 (2006), 1441–1464. Becker, Gary S. ‘A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social Influences on Price’. Journal of Political Economy 99: 5 (1991), 1109–1116. Bell, David. The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism 1680-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Bloch, Marc. ‘A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies’ in Land and Work in Mediaeval Europe: Selected Papers by Marc Bloch. Trans. J. E. Anderson. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967. Boix, Charles, and Frances Rosenbluth ‘Bones of Contention: The Political Economy of Height Inequality’. American Political Science Review 108 (February 2014), 1–21. Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste: or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. Trans. M.F.K. Fisher. New York: Heritage, 1949. Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper. ‘Beyond ‘Identity’’. Theory and Society 29 (2000), 14–21. Coleman, D. C., ed. Revisions in Mercantilism. London: Methuen, 1969. Cowan, Brian William. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005 Davis, Natalie Zemon, Barbara B. Diefendorf, and Carla Alison Hesse. Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800): Essays in Honor of Natalie Zemon Davis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. Davis, Ralph. ‘English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700’. The Economic History Review 7: 2 (1954), 150–166. DeJean, Joan. The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication and Glamour. New York: Free Press, 2005.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

29

de Vries, Jan. ‘Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe’. In Consumption and the World of Goods, eds. John Brewer and Roy Porter. New York: Routledge, 1993. Dunn, Richard S. Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713. London: Cape, 1973. Dupâquier, Jacques. La Population française aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1979. Erikson, E. Chartering Capitalism: Organizing Markets, States, and Publics. New York: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2015. Forester, Robert and Orest A. Ranum. Food and Drink in History: Selections from the Annales, économies, sociétes, civilisations, volume 5. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. Garrioch, David. The Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, 1690-1830. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Goldstein, David B. ‘Eats Well with Others: Culinary Skepticism in As You Like It and Montaigne’s “Of Experience”.’ Criticism 59: 4 (2017): 639–660. Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: Chicago University Press, [1983] 2005. Harding, Vanessa. The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500-1670. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Issartel, Thierry. ‘Hardouin de Péréfixe et les enseignements absolutistes d’Henri IV: l’Histoire du roy Henry le Grand (1661)’ in Gregory Champeaud et Céline Piot (s.d.), L’image d’Henri IV à travers les siècles. Actes de la journée d’études (Nérac, 15 mai 2010), Editions d’Albret, 2010, 95–143. Kumar, Krishan. The Making of English National Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Laudan, Rachel. Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013. Lehmann, Gilly. The British Housewife: Cookery Books, Cooking and Society in Eighteenth- Century Britain. Devon: Prospect Books, 2003. Lehmann, Gilly. ‘Politics in the Kitchen’. Eighteenth-Century Life 23: 2 (1999), 71–83. Ludington, Charles. The Politics of Wine in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Magnusson, Lars, ed., Mercantilist Economics. Boston: Kluwer, 1993. Mennell, Stephen. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996. Mingay, Gordon. English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. Newman, Gerald. The Rise of English Nationalism 1740–1830. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987.

30 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Ory, Pascal. ‘Gastronomy’. In Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, ed. Pierre Nora. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Parkhurst-Ferguson, Priscilla. Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006. Pincus, Steven. ‘Rethinking Mercantilism: Political Economy, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 69:1 (January 2012), 3–34. Rogers, Ben. Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation. London: Vintage, 2004. Schabas, Margaret. The Natural Origins of Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Shovlin, John. The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Siegel, Jerrold. The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Smith, A. D. ‘Ethnie and Nation in the Modern World’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies. 14:2 (1985), 127–142. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, eds. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981. Spary, E.C. Eating the Enlightenment: Food and Sciences in Paris, 1670-1760. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Stein, Robert Louis. The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Stern, Philip J. and Carl Wennerlind, eds. Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Stigler, George J., and Gary S. Becker. ‘De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum’. The American Economic Review 67:2 (March 1977), 76–90. Strong, Roy. Feast: A History of Grand Eating. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Tombs, Robert and Isabelle Tombs. That Sweet Enemy. Britain and France: The History of a Love-Hate Relationship. New York: Vintage, 2006. Tyrell, Ian. ‘Reflections on the Transnational Turn in United States History: Theory and Practice’. Journal of Global History 4: 3 (2009), 457–458. Vardi, Liani. The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

Introduc tion: The Economics of Taste

31

Wrigley, E. A. ‘A Simple Model of London’s importance in Changing English Society and Economy, 1650-1750’. In Towns in Societies, eds. P. Abrams and E. A. Wrogley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 215–243. Wrigley, E. A. ‘Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period’. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15: 4 (Spring, 1985), pp. 683–728. Yoshino, Kosaku. Consuming Ethnicity and Nationalism: Asian Experiences. Richmond: Curzon, 1999.

1.

Méthode Anglaise: Transnational Exchange and the Origins of Champagne Abstract Here, I challenge the presumption that cultural exchange between England and France in the seventeenth century, in matters of taste, was a one-way street. Before Dom Pérignon made champagne at Hautvillers, Christopher Merrett a member of the Royal Society of London presented a paper on how to make sparkling wine. This chapter examines the English role in the development of sparkling wine, considering the influence of trade, taxes, scientific inquiry, cultural inertia, and myth to solve the ‘English Paradox’ – how could a country that does not produce wine develop an innovative winemaking technique? Key words: Champagne, effervescence, early modern, cultural exchange, transnational

Roland Barthes’ 1957 essay ‘Wine and Milk’ describes a collective proprietary attitude of the French people towards wine: ‘Wine is felt by the French nation to be a good which is its very own, at the same level as its three hundred and sixty types of cheese, and its culture. It is a totem-drink corresponding to the…tea ceremoniously consumed by the British Royal Family.’1 Deeply embedded in French culture and daily life, wine has taken on mythical national significance. If we imagine that this national myth remains the provenance of the past, or even of the French, we need only remember the broad range of influence exerted by the word ‘champagne’. It is distinguished from all other French sparkling wines in the singularity of its nomenclature—unlike a Blanquette de Limoux, or a 1 Barthes, Mythologies, p. 83. I take up tea as an emblem of Britishness in Chapter 4.

Van Dyk, G. Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463720175_ch01

34 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Crémant de Bourgogne—it is simply ‘champagne’. The unique nature of its name is also legally protected—no other sparkling wine in the world may officially be labelled ‘champagne’. As a global brand, champagne is perceived by contemporary consumers as a symbol of luxury, excellence and Frenchness. For over one hundred years champagne producers have marketed their sparkling wines as geographically unique products, and restricted the designation ‘champagne’ to wines which meet strict criteria related to origin.2 Since 1935 international treaties and the domestic Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée have offered legal protection to preserve the integrity of the brand, and promoted adherence to these criteria in a global market.3 Delineated by geographic boundaries and strictly def ined methods of elaboration, champagne continues to be traded not only on its exclusivity, through limited production and an assumption of superior quality, but also through the cumulative history associated with the product. The combination of explicit quality and implicit pedigree separates champagne from all other sparkling wine in the world, allowing champagne producers to distinguish their product in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace. Given the importance of history and prestige as marketing tools that have elevated champagne to its status as a symbol of Frenchness, it has not been widely accepted that the English first produced champagne as an elaborated sparkling wine, and that the French originally considered bubbles a winemaking mistake. Since the nineteenth century, the role of English taste and trade in the production of champagne as an effervescent beverage has been minimised with the aim of maintaining French authority in the history of winemaking. 2 Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘United States’. Champagne.fr, 2022. [https://www.champagne.fr/en/comite-champagne/bureaus/bureaus/united-states]. This website of the US bureau of the Comité Interprofessionel du vin de Champagne protects the Champagne name and produces related educational and public relations materials: ‘…on December 17, 1908 the delimitation of the Champagne vineyard (setting out the geographic area) became official.’ The bureau in the United States is notable, as the CIVC considers that market problematic: ‘The United States is one of the last countries in the world to adequately protect the Champagne name.’ 3 The Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC)…protects the denomination on the French territory…It is the notion of soil (terroir) that is the basis of the concept of Appellations d’origine—AO. A terroir is a specific geographical area where production takes its originality directly from the specific nature of its production area. Terroir is based on a system of interactions between physical and biological environment, and a set of human factors within a space which a human community built during its history with a collective productive knowledge. There are elements of originality and typicality of the product. Actimage. ‘PDO-AOC’ INAO. https://www.inao.gouv. fr/eng/Official-signs-identifying-quality-and-origin/PDO-AOC

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

35

More recently, in the twenty-first century Champagne historian Benoît Musset acknowledged the English adoption of sparkling wine, but argued for parallel origins in France. 4 He specifically questioned the nature of the exchange between England and France, and suggested that the fashion for sparkling wine could have developed separately in each country, with a lag of forty years.5 By contrast, François Bonal and Jean-Louis Flandrin have proposed divergent histories of early champagne development.6 Bonal has viewed effervescence in champagne largely as a natural product of its geographic place, with only an indirect query into the English role in the development of sparkling wine. Flandrin alternatively proposed that French producers of les grands vins, including champagne, already possessed the technology necessary to effect changes in the typicité of their products, but did not employ them until foreign demand trumped traditional wine-making styles. Each of these histories of champagne has its merits, but all would benefit from an extended evaluation of the unique circumstances related to sparkling wine. Those unique circumstances are the transnational developments that took place in the technology of champagne making. This chapter considers the wine exchange between England and France, and the slow diffusion of the fashion for effervescence in France. Traditionalist champagne producers did not wholly embrace effervescence in France until the early eighteenth century, when champagne nevertheless became a French symbol of political economy and the possibilities offered by international trade in luxury goods. By parsing the origins of the national myth of champagne, its ‘mythic’ qualities are not simply exposed, but also discovered as part of a more diverse transnational history of nation-building and national identification. Underlying the perception of champagne’s essential Frenchness is the heritage and prestige offered by the mythical origin of the techniques to produce and capture effervescence, popularly attributed to a Benedictine 4 ‘Effervescence was definitely adopted in England by a narrowly defined clientele as a sign of differentiation and being fashionable. However, attempts to capture effervescence were certainly observed in Champagne, even if the dubious quality of carved wooden stoppers (pegs) covered with canvas, which was not waterproof, reduced the chances of succeeding in this approach.’ Musset, Vignobles de Champagne, p. 89. 5 ‘Is it also necessary to consider the effect of Anglomania that swept across the French aristocracy … from the years 1710-1720? There again, the link is probable, but no document is able to confirm this … it is not impossible that French society was aware of the same cultural phenomenon as English society in the years 1660-1670, with a different chronology, without there being any causality between the two.’ Musset, Vignobles de Champagne, p. 62. 6 Bonal, Dom Pérignon, pp. 24–33.

36 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

monk, Dom Pérignon (c. 1638–1715).7 The seventeenth-century historical origins of what is a nineteenth-century myth about Dom Pérignon’s invention of champagne produced a staying power into the twenty-f irst century through its reconciliation in public relations media, and its continued role in promoting a luxury brand. 8 Adding to the complexity of champagne’s legendary beginnings, however, is a range of exogenous influences. An explanation of the double fermentation process used to produce champagne, for example, supports an understanding of the English contribution to this process. Yet how could the English—unknown as wine producers in this period—possess the knowledge required to transform winemaking techniques that would eventually create a globally recognised French icon? The answer to this question requires us to move beyond French national history and towards a different paradigm of the transnational origins of national cultures. By taking up the apparent paradox of an English-made French champagne, a more helpful connected reading of the cultural exchange between England and France in the mid-seventeenth century is revealed in the presumed nationally exclusive realm of winemaking. The foreign technology required to capture effervescence reliably, combined with an assessment of the political and economic factors that shaped exogenous wine habits and subsequently influenced French oenological values. The wine consumption practices of English and French consumers guided their respective acceptance, or creation, of effervescence. Due to a series of political and economic factors influencing taste and technology, English wine consumers pioneered the innovations necessary for the advancement of sparkling wine in France. These factors in turn impacted culture and the character of the transnational exchange between England and France from the middle of the seventeenth century to the early eighteenth century. Unlike other major changes to European food pathways in the seventeenth century, the development of sparkling champagne as an 7 Simon, History of Champagne, p. 54. 8 The legend of Dom Pérignon disseminated during the nineteenth century continues today as a luxury brand of champagne produced by Moët et Chandon. Marketing materials from the 2010s for Moët et Chandon’s Dom Pérignon champagne brand continue to emphasise the monk’s role in their ‘Dom Pérignon: The Power of Creation’ advertising campaign. In this campaign, the image of Dom Pérignon was aligned with the talents of iconoclast filmmakers, composers and designers, each renowned for their innovative techniques and rejection of prevailing traditions. On Dom Pérignon’s official website, accessed June 1, 2016, and http://www.domperignon.com/ image/home-power-of-creation/ and http://www.domperignon.com/image/dom-pierre-perignon/ (pages discontinued).

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

37

elaborated product was not inspired by a discovery from the New World.9 It was instead ‘home-grown’ in England.

‘Come, brothers—I am drinking stars!’ (attributed to Dom Pérignon) Dom Pérignon, treasurer of the Benedictine Abbey of Hautvillers from 1668, is routinely heralded as the ‘inventor’, ‘creator’, or ‘discoverer’ of sparkling champagne. The myth was f irst propagated by Dom Grossard from the Hautvillers Abbey of Saint-Pierre in 1821, when he wrote to the deputy mayor of Aÿ that Dom Pérignon found the secret of making sparkling wine.10 While Dom Pérignon was involved in every aspect of winemaking at the abbey, he initially focused on improving the quality of the grapes through careful pruning, aiming to enhance the reputation of the traditional still wines. In an effort to compete with Burgundy wines for pride of place at the king’s table, he substituted lightly pressed pinot noir grapes for the more acidic white grapes, producing a vin gris, tinged by the red grape skins. Dom Grossard not only credited Dom Pérignon with discovering the secret of effervescence, he also claimed that Pérignon perfected still and sparkling ‘white champagne’ (as opposed to vin gris), championed the necessity of bottling and promoted the use of corks: It’s Dom Pérignon who discovered the secret of making sparkling and still white wines; because before him, we only knew how to make pink or straw-coloured wine; and again we owe it to Dom Pérignon for introducing the use of real corks. For closing the bottles, we only had a type of stopper that used canvas soaked in oil.11

Dom Grossard’s version was appropriated by the Syndicat du Commerce in 1889 for use in a pamphlet promoting champagne at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The brochure reinforced and promulgated the fiction of a blind monk discovering and harnessing effervescence, and the myth took root.12 Held during the year commemorating the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, the Exposition is often remembered for the debut 9 Cowan, ‘New Worlds, New Tastes’, pp. 197–232. 10 Guy, When Champagne Became French, p. 28. 11 Cited in Louis-Perrier, Mémoire sur le vin de Champagne, p. 22. 12 Guy, When Champagne Became French, p. 28.

38 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

of the Eiffel Tower. At the height of an era of national mythmaking, three of the most popularly recognised and enduring symbols of French cultural heritage emerged in a confluence of technology, history, and commerce.13 Certainly Dom Pérignon’s techniques in viticulture improved the grapes used in the wine produced at Hautvillers, and his pursuit of a white wine from red grapes (blanc de noirs) instead of a white wine from white grapes (blanc de blancs) advanced the quality of still wines made at the abbey. He did not, however, pass on the techniques to reliably produce and capture effervescence in champagne wines. Wines from the Champagne region were originally manufactured as still (non-sparkling) wines, although they occasionally had a few bubbles. This small amount of incidental fizz was not initially considered desirable but viewed either as a fault or as a diversion to distract the drinker from the poor quality of the wine. Noted wine merchant Bertin de Rocheret commented in 1713 that effervescence improved lesser wines, but detracted from the qualities of better wines: But in order to ensure your satisfaction, please let me know when you think you would drink this wine and if you will make it sparkling, which I would not agree with, effervescence obscures the best characteristics of good wines, in the same way that it improves wines of lesser quality.14

While there was naturally occurring effervescence in the time of Dom Pérignon, achieved through unassisted secondary fermentation, this varied widely according to the amount of sugar in the grapes harvested, and how much sugar remained after alcoholic fermentation had finished. Many French champagne historians, including André Simon, René Gandilhon, and François Bonal, have moved away from the erroneous nineteenth-century attribution of effervescent elaboration to Dom Pérignon.15 Significantly, these historians assert that champagne was not ‘invented’ or even ‘discovered’, but is a naturally occurring process, which is only possible because of the specific location and climate of the vineyards and the geological character of the cellars in Champagne.16 The Comité 13 Rodgers, Atlantic, pp. 8–9. 14 Bibliothèque Municipale d’Epernay, Ms 209, liasse 329: 20 Décembre 1713. 15 Bonal, Dom Pérignon; Gandilhon, Naissance du Champagne; and Simon, The History of Champagne. 16 Simon, History of Champagne, p. 15.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

39

Champagne, which polices the international use of the Appellation Contrôlée and promotes Champagne wine through public education, describes effervescence as a product of nature: Effervescence is neither a discovery nor an invention. A natural phenomenon, effervescence results from the action of yeasts, living organisms that transform the sugars present in grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.17

To proclaim champagne, the sparkling wine, as a natural result and a product of geography and terroir affirms the argument for its uniqueness—when you consume le champagne you imbibe the distilled essence of the terroir of La Champagne. Portrayed as an organic singularity, the origin of champagne takes on mythical qualities inextricably tied to territory, and therefore redolent of patrimony. Champagne’s national credentials have hardly been enhanced by the replacement of an historical personage with the incidental action of local microorganisms. Biochemical processes do not replicate the charm of a Benedictine monk accidentally discovering the secret of effervescence. Instead, this scientific explanation excludes the possibility of individual agency and relocates the source of the phenomenon within the geographical borders of Champagne itself, preserving and reinforcing the national exclusivity of the product.18 The role of English technological capability and mercantilism in the origins of this French cultural icon has remained peripheral to an understanding of its significance. Because champagne is a geographically specific product, national factors have predominated in discussions of its history and origins. Even when historians have discussed the formative roles played by foreign consumers and taxes in shaping the development of demand for French wines in styles crafted for export markets they have ignored the transnational cultural significance of an Anglo-French exchange in the 17 Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, ‘L’histoire de l’effervescence’. Champagne. fr, 2022. http://www.champagne.fr/fr/vigne-vin/qu-est-ce/effervescence/l-histoire-de-leffervescence 18 Other scholars who have written on wine history and the cultural influence of champagne, such as Kolleen Guy and Joan DeJean, have explored its cultural capital and courtly presence, but have not addressed the role of cultural exchange between England and France in early sparkling wine production. For the most part, these studies have focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. See DeJean, Essence of Style; Epstein, Champagne: A Global History; Guy, When Champagne Became French; Kladstrup, Champagne.

40 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

development of sparkling champagne, and its relationship to the relative influences of political economy.19 The more prosaic influences of early modern scientific inquiry and foreign markets may detract from the intrinsic appeal of the legend, but they also illustrate the English contribution to the development of French winemaking.20

The Paradox of English Effervescence The role of English taste and scientific inquiry in the mid-seventeenth century allowed France to ultimately claim champagne as its own. An assessment of the factors that led to this change usefully begins with an understanding of the methods used to produce sparkling wine, and an analysis of the English contribution to this process. Champagne, as we know it today, is a sparkling wine that is a product of not only primary, but also a secondary fermentation.21 Early Champagne wines did sparkle—but only a little—as opposed to the much more forceful vins mousseux we know today, and only underwent a single fermentation at the point of production. The residual sugar present in harvested grapes would ferment, producing carbon dioxide. As winter approached, falling temperatures arrested the fermentation. In spring, rising temperatures would cause the quiescent yeasts to resume their fermentation, sometimes with enough force to cause bungs to pop out of barrels. Without strong glass bottles and cork stoppers, the bubbles eventually dissipated. This rudimentary form of fermentation is now referred to by the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne as ‘la méthode rurale’.22 It was not fool-proof, as the method for measuring the amount of sugar naturally present in a given harvest was not properly understood until the publication of Jean-Antoine Chaptal’s study, L’Art de faire le vin, in 1807.23 The uncertainty of an effervescent product persisted into the eighteenth century, and is reflected in the correspondence of Bertin de Rocheret who, when queried 19 Flandrin, ‘L’invention des grands vins français’; Brennan, Burgundy to Champagne; and Nye, War, Wine and Taxes. 20 Robert and Isabelle Tombs proposed in their book That Sweet Enemy that the transformative effect of English tastes on French foodways has been overlooked. Tombs and Tombs, That Sweet Enemy, p. 424. 21 Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, ‘Les Clés des vins de Champagne: Effervescence’, p. 15. 22 Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, p. 17. 23 Chaptal, L’Art de faire le vin, p. 202.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

41

about the harvest in 1732, responded, ‘I don’t know if it will effervesce.’24 Sparkling wines were produced in the late seventeenth century, but without the deliberate addition of sugar in the winemaking process, achieving enough effervescence to pop a cork was not a guaranteed result. While the claim by the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne that champagne was originally a natural product of its environment is true, it is also evident that in some years effervescence was not achieved—and therefore, only still wines were produced. The addition of sugar, molasses, or syrup made from raisins was not initially embraced by champagne producers, who sought to capture any naturally occurring effervescence, which varied depending on the quality of the grapes harvested, the weather, and when the wine was bottled. Assisted secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle through the addition of liqueur de tirage, a mixture of sugar and yeast, producing the trademark carbonation of the prise de mousse, the fermentation that ensures the wine will be effervescent. The bubbles do not escape the thick glass bottle, which is sealed, usually, with a cork. In the seventeenth century, however, the majority of the wines that were made in the Champagne region were still wines. It was aristocratic English consumers who began to reinvent champagne as a bubbly wine by practicing a method of assisted secondary fermentation, transforming the wines into vins mousseux, decanting them into substantial glass bottles and sealing them with corks. In 1662, Christopher Merret, a founding member of the Royal Society of London presented a paper describing this method for adding bubbles to still wines.25 Sparkling wines were soon fashionable enough in London to attract the attention of playwrights and poets eager to gain currency in the latest fashion. Butler’s 1663 Hudibras contemplated the transformative power of effervescence, ‘The sun shall no more dispense / His own, but your bright influence…Drink every letter o’ it in stum / And make it brisk champagne become.’26 George Etheridge’s The Man of Mode, in 1670 recommended champagne’s restorative powers to languishing lovers, ‘Then sparkling Champaign / Puts an end to their reign’.27 Through the agency of the exiled 24 Bibliothèque Municipale d’Epernay, Ms 209 28 Mai, 1732. Lettre de Philippe Bertin de Rocheret à James Chabane. 25 Merret, Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines. Wine journalist Tom Stevenson brought Merret’s paper to the notice of a wider audience in Vins mousseux. 26 Simon, History of Champagne, p. 50. 27 Simon, p. 50.

42 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

friand Marquis de St. Evremond (1614–1703),28 still champagne wines were imported and then transformed into cork-popping wines. A career soldier-turned-diplomat, St. Évremond is best remembered as an essayist, literary critic, and epicurean. He wrote primarily for the private enjoyment of his friends, and only allowed publication of a selection of works in 1700. His private correspondence nonetheless led to his downfall in France. In a letter written in 1659 to the Marquis de Créqui, Saint-Évremond satirised Mazarin’s hasty conclusion to the peace of the Pyrénées. This letter was discovered during a search for evidence following Nicolas Fouquet’s arrest in 1661. Saint-Évremond fled to Holland to avoid imprisonment, and then moved to England in 1662.29 Having previously spent six months in England as part of a diplomatic entourage following the restoration of Charles II, he quickly re-established himself with the English court. His acquaintances included Hobbes, Sir Kenelm Digby, the Dukes of Buckingham and Ormond, and the Lord D’Aubigny. With his correspondents he was an avid commentator on literature, history, philosophy, and religion. He was no less ardent in his interest in the pleasures of the table but was a notoriously discerning consumer. Saint-Évremond never spoke in favour of effervescent wines, but went to great lengths in recommending still wines from Champagne to the English court and nobility: Spare no expense to have wines from Champagne, if you find yourself within two hundred leagues of Paris. Wines from Burgundy are no longer held in high esteem by people of good taste; & and are having a hard time hanging on to their old reputation with the Merchants. There is no other region which provides such excellent wines, suitable for all seasons, like Champagne.30

His promotion of these wines is not surprising, as he was one of the founding members of the so-called Ordre des Côteaux, a group of epicureans dedicated to the appreciation of fine food and wine, and allegedly only three slopes (côteaux) in France produced wine worthy of their exacting standards, all in the Champagne region.31 28 Lennon, ‘Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond?’. 29 Saint-Évremond, The Works of Monsieur de Saint Evremond, p. cxlvii. 30 Saint-Évremond, Oeuvres de M. de Saint-Evremond, vol. 3, p. 289. 31 Hope, Saint-Evremond and his Friends, pp. 123–124. The purported exclusivity in wine consumption should be considered within the context of the intense rivalry between the Burgundy and Champagne regions during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Elsewhere,

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

43

Together with the Comte d’Olonne and the Marquis de Bois-dauphin, St. Evremond was noted for accepting only the most refined food and wine. His eighteenth-century biographer and editor, Pierre Des Maizeaux, explained the origin of the ‘côteaux’ in his description of a lunch St. Evremond attended at the home of the bishop of Le Mans: They will only eat veal from Riviere: their partridges must come from the Auvergne; and their rabbits from Roche-Guyon or Versine. They are no less difficult about the origin of their fruit: and for wine, they will only drink wine from the hillsides of Ay, Haut-Villiers, and Avenay.32

The three côteaux mentioned are hillsides located in Champagne, and as a group the three men were referred to as the ‘trois côteaux’.33 St. Evremond and his associates repeated the anecdote, which spread widely enough that the word ‘côteau’ became a sobriquet for any person with stringent standards in food and drink. The confrerie, or brotherhood, was known well enough to draw the attention of Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux in his repas ridicule in Satire III (1666), and was the subject of Jean Donneau de Visé’s satire Les Costeaux ou les marquis Frians (1665).34 Through another member of the order, the Marquis de Sillery, who owned vineyards in the same region, St. Evremond arranged for the import of wine in barrels. In 1667, the household accounts of the Fifth Earl of Bedford record the direct sale of wine from the grower, and the simultaneous purchase of bottles and corks. French wine historian André Simon draws the conclusion from these records that the Earl was rebottling still champagne early in the spring to capture the effervescence that rising temperatures would produce.35 English aristocratic consumers, then, who imported wine in large quantities for personal consumption, were the first to deliberately capture the naturally occurring fermentation of Champagne wines. This has been referred to by champagne historian François Bonal as a ‘paradox’. How could the English have pioneered this

the group is described as more inclusive in their wine consumption: ‘It was a Society of Lords who prided themselves on being the best gourmets in Paris, who had resolved in their celebrations of pleasure to drink only the best wines from the most delicious regions of Champagne & Burgundy.’ Constantin de Renneville, L’Inquisition françoise, p. 177. 32 Saint-Évremond, Oeuvres melées de Mr. de Saint-Évremond, vol. 5, p. 24. 33 Saint-Évremond, p. 24. 34 Visé and Shoemaker, Les Costeaux ou les marquis Frians, p. 11. 35 Simon, History of Champagne, p. 49.

44 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

winemaking technique when they did not make wine?36 To characterise English influence on French winemaking as improbable discounts the diff iculty of abandoning well-established methods of production and drinking practices. A culture unencumbered by traditional oenological values, however, would be more open to novelty. Free of proscriptions on what constituted proper wine, English consumers experimented with wine according to their own tastes and requirements. Several factors can lead to the development of new styles of wine. A fundamental change in attitude towards diet in the seventeenth century, along with the selling price of Bordeaux, Sauternes and champagne in foreign markets eventually produced the attributes we associate with these wines today, overcoming a traditional distaste for heavy reds, vins liquoreux (sweet dessert wines) and effervescence. Yet the English contribution to effervescence has been diminished by proposals that assert the technology necessary for production of all of these styles was already known to French winemakers, in turn suggesting that French preferences in taste were all that prevented them from being produced.37 While champagne is certainly a grand vin, it is difficult to analyse its development in parallel with full-bodied, tannic Bordeaux and the sweet wines of the southwest. The technology necessary to achieve the typicité of the grands vins of Bordeaux, Sauternes and Montbazillac was already known to French winemakers in the seventeenth century through texts such as Nicolas de Bonnefons’ Les Délices de la campagne (1654), and Olivier de Serres’ Théâtre d’agriculture (1600). The technology was not new but was employed by French winemakers as a new method to achieve a different result. The same argument, however, does not apply for effervescent champagne, as the necessary advancements were not already available to Champagne winemakers. Unlike refinements in fermentation and barrel preparation, which contributed to the success of vins liquoreux and tannic red wines, the requirements of assisted secondary fermentation in the bottle demanded new developments which had not yet been embraced by French winemakers. The adoption of cork stoppers and English glassmaking methods did not arrive in Champagne until 1695 and 1735 respectively.38 36 Bonal, Dom Pérignon, p. 197. It is of note that Bonal’s discussion of this question, entitled ‘Champagne is Born in England’, appears in a four-page ‘Annexe’ to the 1995 volume Dom Pérignon: Vérité et légende, whilst in the main text, champagne’s effervescence is portrayed as a predisposition, a natural product of its environment. From this perspective of French national history, the English impact is marginalised, delivered as a coda to the French chef d’oeuvre. 37 Flandrin, ‘L’Invention des grands vins français’. 38 Gandilhon, Naissance du champagne, pp. 183–187.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

45

Not only did the intentional creation of sparkling wine through assisted secondary fermentation involve different techniques and technology from those required for the other grands vins in question, the adoption of effervescence by champagne producers was a gradual process. By the 1730s, in the estimation of Musset, the reputation of sparkling champagne stabilised and partisan resistance relented.39 As for a shift in dietary science, the fundamental difference of effervescence alone makes traditional analysis using either of the prevailing dietary schools of thought—Galenic or Paracelsian—problematic. Both frameworks were flexible enough to incorporate previously unknown products, but the closer a novelty was to a known comestible, the easier it was to rationalise. 40 Champagne’s distinctive bubbles were an anomaly which was not readily evaluated in traditional dietary terms. Scientific approval of sparkling champagne was received, but almost one hundred years later than the noted shift in dietary science.41 Effervescence was the topic of a thèse scientifique presented in 1777, Question debated in the School of the Faculty of Medicine at Reims, 14 May 1777 by Mr. Navier, Doctor of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Reims, on the use of sparkling champagne against infectious diseases and other Illnesses of the same nature. The paper was not just another salvo in the battle, waged by doctors, poets, and connoisseurs, between Burgundy and Champagne for the claim of superiority. Beyond the standard claims that wines from the region in question did not cause gout or kidney stones, it addressed the unique quality of sparkling champagne: Independent of these valuable qualities, which champagne shares with other wines from Champagne, it contains a particular element which Chemists call gas; an element that is an essential characteristic, and is known today for its powerful antiseptic qualities…The delicious juice of the slopes of Champagne are effective with their double advantage, and surpass all other wines, which are no contest for the appeal of Champagne.42

The over-arching question posed by the thesis, ‘The wine of Champagne—is it as healthy as it is pleasant?’ was answered with: ‘Amongst the many 39 ‘The conflict between supporters of the two wines seems to continue until the 1730s, then disappears. The new fashion was then accepted unanimously.’ Musset, Vignobles de Champagne, p. 62. 40 Freedman, Food: The History of Taste, p. 214. 41 Flandrin, ‘L’Invention des grands vins français’. 42 Navier, Question agitée dans les Écoles de la Faculté de médecine de Reims.

46 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

substances that …contain this antiseptic gas, there are none to which nature has given more of this quality, than to sparkling champagne.’43 The bubbles were declared both salubrious and delicious, and given medical approval—albeit as the ostensibly partisan endorsement—of a doctor from Champagne to the faculty of medicine at Reims. In 1778, the supremacy of champagne’s reputation was confirmed with the affirmative response to the question of a thèse cardinal at the Faculté de médecine de Paris: Is champagne superior to other wines, native or foreign?44 It took almost a century for effervescent champagne to be deemed healthy by the leading school of medicine in France, even in the modest arena of a second-year hygiene thesis. While the argument that foreign consumer demand caused a shift in the development of French wines beginning in the middle of the seventeenth century is valid, it does not address the issues specif ic to sparkling champagne. 45 Winemakers of the other grands vins employed existing techniques and adopted new winemaking styles; yet producers in Champagne lacked the technical means to reliably contain effervescence, relied solely on the intrinsic levels of residual sugar for secondary fermentation, and remained ambivalent about the idea of vins mousseux in the seventeenth century.46 Wines from Champagne were originally the preferred wine of Louis XIV. They were also the wines consumed when kings were anointed in coronation ceremonies, at Reims cathedral, in Champagne. Imbued with symbolic value, their weight also produced a sort of cultural inertia, which required an external force—an impetus—for change to occur. By shifting from a national to transnational perspective on cultural and economic exchange, it becomes possible to survey the range of factors that contributed to the development of champagne, and the relationship between English and French wine practices. 43 Navier, Question agitée dans les Écoles de la Faculté de médecine de Reims. 44 ‘An tum exoticis, tum indigenis vinis prœcellat campanum? Thesi propugnata baccalaurei responsa probavit Ordo saluberrimus.’ Commentaires de la Faculté de médecine de Paris, pp. 18–19. The medical theses supporting Champagne and effervescence might be viewed more as partisan marketing media than as rigorously debated scientific treatises, but they nonetheless indicate the delay in acceptance of sparkling wine. 45 Flandrin, ‘L’Invention des grands vins français’. 46 Anthropologist Sidney Mintz has commented more generally on the tenacity of established food habits: ‘…food preferences, once established, are usually deeply resistant to change. We cannot easily imagine the Chinese people giving up rice to eat white bread…Such deeply cherished tastes are rooted in underlying economic and social conditions, and they are surely far more than simply nutritive.’ Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom, p. 24.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

47

Probing the Paradox: Necessity is the Mother of Invention If England gave champagne its bubbles, it behoves us to ask: ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ Numerous factors led to the development of techniques in England to provoke effervescence and deliberately produce sparkling wine. Wine producers, consumers, and merchants all had reason to value effervescence, which was produced most effectively through the addition of sugar. The uniquely English habit of adding sugar to wine, even when effervescence was not a goal, also contributed to producing wines which, once bottled, would sparkle. English wine made from English grapes was available in the seventeenth century, but the quality was unquestionably inferior to imported wine and required the addition of sugar to be palatable. The sugaring of wines was proposed by English writers keen to advance the position of English wine, rebottling the wine to improve the quality of the end product, as explained by the anonymous author of England’s Happiness Improved: or an Infallible Way to get Riches, Encrease Plenty, and promote Pleasure…containing: The Art of Making Wine of English Grapes and other Fruit, equal to that of France and Spain with their physical virtues (1699).47 The extra sugar induced a secondary fermentation, and bubbles, as a welcome diversion from the damaged wine. While English grapes could not produce quality wines, English apples and pears could be used to make cider and perry. These beverages provided a substitute for heavily taxed, lower-quality French table wines. Cider and perry, made from good English fruit, were also proclaimed as better suited to the Englishman’s constitution, as native produce was deemed inherently better than imported products. Cider was not only economical but was also used as an additive to transform poor quality wines into purportedly ‘fine wines’ in London. In the 1669 posthumous publication of The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Opened, the author provided directions for making cider, including the techniques for bottling the barrel-fermented product, sealing it with corks, and how to avoid breakages from the pressure of the carbonation. 48 Familiar with the perils of thin glass, Sir Kenelm Digby had developed a more robust bottle design, which was awarded a patent in 1632. 49 The economic benefit that could be obtained by growing apples for 47 England’s Happiness Improved. 48 Digby, The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Opened, p. 119. 49 Digby developed glass blowing and shaping techniques to produce the characteristic wine bottle design in use today. His patent was affirmed in 1662 despite a challenge to the original

48 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

cider was also presented in Richard Harris’ Aphorisms upon the New Way of Improving Cyder in 1684: For the Good of those kingdoms and Nations that are Beholden to Others and Pay Dear for Wine Shewing that Simple Cyder frequently sold for… three-half-pence per quart may be made as Strong, Wholesome and Pleasing as French Wines Sold for Twelve-pence a Quart.50

Other texts extolled the virtues of cider as health-promoting, cheap to produce and better suited to English constitutions, as is evident in the title of John Wolridge’s Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cider: that Cider and other juices of our English Fruits are the best Drinks for this Country in 1675.51 The treatise describes the method for bottling cider, and adding sugar to promote fermentation in the bottle, as well as suggesting the use of an inverted rack for storage to facilitate the removal of yeast deposits in the neck of the bottle. This technique appears very similar to the French technique of rémuage, or riddling, that early champagne historian Henry Vizetelly credited to Madame Clicquot in the nineteenth century.52 Wolridge also discusses the problem of breakages from excessive fermentation and the danger of contaminating the contents using tainted cork stoppers.53 In 1676 Reverend Dr. J. Beal published an ‘advertisement’ in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, immediately subsequent to the issue that included an announcement of Wolridge’s book. The paid editorial reinforced the economic benefit derived from Wolridge’s suggestion of English winemaking, highlighting the additional value to the economy through the use of English sugar from Barbados: With much regard to the worthy author…for the further encouragement and improvement of our Countrey in Hortulans, I am willing to add some Lines to the mention you made of it…where an Apple cannot grow, Shrubs may prosper and bear great store of delicate and rich wine by the help of Sugar; which, when brought into common practice may prove a great benefit to our Sugar-plantations.54 claim by one of his glass blowers. Parliamentary Archives: House of Lords: Journal Office [HL/ PO/JO/10/1/314]. 50 Harris, Aphorisms upon the New Way of Improving Cyder, title page. 51 Wolridge, Vinetum Britannicum, pp. 107–108. 52 Vizetelly, History of Champagne. 53 Wolridge, Vinetum Britannicum. 54 Beal, ‘Advertisements on the Vinetum Britannicum’, vol. 11, pp. 583–588.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

49

Beal’s hope for a new outlet for English sugar production to absorb increased supply, and bolster prices, would have to wait for the ascendance of the other English ‘wine’—tea.55 Imported wines, while of a superior standard, were not usually robust enough to withstand the rigours of transport to England. French wines were produced for immediate consumption and shipped in barrels. As a result, they were susceptible to contamination and degradation in transit. Even if the wine weathered the trip without incident, once a barrel was opened the wine would begin to oxidise, continually deteriorating unless the contents were consumed rapidly. Out of necessity, English consumers experimented with methods to disguise stale wine and prevent further spoilage. A result of their tinkering with wines was the technique for secondary bottle fermentation, and a taste for sparkling wine. It is precisely because England was not a major wine producer that merchants and consumers developed methods to repair wine damaged during import. Between the late-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth century, a number of treatises were written advising the consumer or retailer on how to f ix wines that had ‘turned’ in transit or had languished in the barrel. The 1596 English translation of an Italian sixteenth-century text entitled Instructions for the Ordering of Wines recommended: ‘Temper wine that is turned or changed with a good quantity of honey, throwing it into the vessel where the wine is. Then fix it in the butt with a stick in the bung…and the wine will clear itself…the honey maketh the dregs fall to the bottom.’56 Christopher Merret’s treatise published in 1662 repeated the title and addressed the same issue of improving wines, but with the added bonus of bubbles: ‘Our winecoopers of latter times use vast quantities of sugar and molasses to all sorts of wines, to make them drink brisk and sparkling, and to give them spirits, as also to mend their bad tastes.’57 Not only did French wine consumers not require sugar, as wine made in France was unscathed by the rigours of transport, but there was also no French fashion for sweetening wine. The English habit of sugaring wine, even when it was not necessary because of spoilage, is well documented. The spiced sweet drink Hippocras, a common feature of the medieval banquet, continued to be consumed in 55 The East India Company’s direct trade in tea from Canton begins in 1713 with regular shipments beginning in 1717. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, p. 388. 56 Instructions for Ordering of Wines, trans. William Philip. 57 Merret, Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines.

50 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

England as a sort of digestif-cum-medicine until the eighteenth century.58 Samuel Pepys’ diary mentions Hippocras and other herbal tonics, such as plague-water, taken as remedies when unwell. In his entry of October 29, 1663, he declined wine in favour of ‘Hypocras’ at the Guild Hall, and rationalised his consumption as medicinal in nature, ‘…which did not break my vowe, it being to the best of my present judgment only a compound drink, and not any wine.’59 Ironically, the English gentleman’s unwillingness to discard medieval tradition also predisposed him to foster the innovation of sparkling wine that French champagne producers rejected. Even without the addition of spices, English gentlemen sweetened wine to taste. Most famously in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, Falstaff changes place with Prince Hal, and delivers a speech about himself, ‘If sugar and sack be a fault, God help the wicked!’ Shakespearian scholar Edmond Malone, in a 1790 annotated edition of Shakespeare’s plays explained the use of sugar in wine: Much inquiry has been made about Falstaff’s sack, and great surprise has been expressed that he should mix sugar with it…it may be probable that Falstaff’s sack was Sherry…Nor will his mixing sugar with sack appear extraordinary, when it is known that it was a very common practice in our author’s time to put sugar into all wines.60

Malone cited traveller Fynes Moryson’s 1617 Itinerary as evidence of the seventeenth-century practice: Clownes and vulgar men (says Fynes Moryson) only use large drinking of beere or ale, -- but gentlemen garrawse only in wine, with which they mix sugar, which I never observed in any other place or kingdom to be used for that purpose. And because of the taste of the English is thus delighted with sweetness, the wines in taverns (for I speak not of merchante’s or gentlemen’s cellars) are commonly mixed at the filling thereof, to make them pleasant.61

The proclivity to add sugar to wine was not shared by French wine drinkers, who only preferred to add water on those occasions when the wine demanded 58 Recipes for red and white ‘Hippocrass’ are included in Nott’s Cook and Confectioner’s Dictionary. 59 Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, p. 814. 60 Malone, Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, vol. 5, p. 126. 61 Malone, p. 126.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

51

rectification for acidity, to quench thirst, or to prevent an imbalance of humours in the body.

‘Boire à la Françoise’: Baptême et Verjus French dietary advice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries endorsed diluting wine with water, as advised in the 1702 edition of L’Agriculture et maison rustique: There are several other very dangerous health risks posed by wine… Because of its hot and dry temperament, if it isn’t consumed in moderation and diluted with water, through prolonged use…it can cause a build-up of bilious humour, which festers, and if not eliminated, will cause illness.62

The addition of water not only prevented the accumulation of bilious humours, it also promoted sobriety during long meals. Montaigne’s sixteenth century Essays provide insight to his perception of moderation, ‘to drink in the French manner, at two meals, in moderation and mindful of his health.’63 His moderation was accomplished by ‘baptising’ the wine in different proportions. While the best wine might have been consumed without alteration amongst elite consumers, this was not the normal practice: ‘I cut my wine more often by half, sometimes by a third, with water.’64 This contrasted sharply with the drinking habits he observed in Germany, where wine was not diluted, but consumed full strength: ‘I would rather be a German with water in my wine, than a Frenchman who drinks it straight.’65 French wine drinkers not only preferred wine diluted, they preferred a more acidic style of wine than was produced elsewhere in Europe well into the eighteenth century. Contemporary French travel accounts provided detailed descriptions of viticultural methods and winemaking techniques from other European countries. French travellers emphasised their perception of sweetness in their impressions of foreign wines. In his 1730 recount of his travels in Italy and Spain, Père Labat considered ‘sweet’ Italian wine an acquired taste: 62 Estienne and Liébault, L’Agriculture et maison rustique, p. 545. 63 Montaigne, Essais, II, ii, p. 343. 64 Montaigne, Essais, III, xiii, p. 1104. 65 Montaigne, p. 1104.

52 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

I am convinced that the cooked grapes contributed heavily to the syrupy sweetness of the wine, to which I had to become accustomed, in order to find it pleasant. Yet, once I had done it, our best wines from Burgundy … seemed rough and bitter, and wines from Champagne had an unpleasant taste of verjus. It was four or five years after I returned to Paris from Italy, that I was able to become accustomed to what we consider good wine.66

Once he had adjusted his palate to the foreign style of wine, he considered Burgundy harsh and bitter, and Champagne acidic. The habit of diluting wine, rather than sweetening it, combined with a preference for acidity did not predispose French winemakers to adopt techniques to guarantee a reliable level of effervescence through the addition of sugar. Instead, unassisted secondary fermentation succeeded or failed, depending on the amount of residual sugar available in the wine when cellar temperatures rose in the spring, and fermentation recommenced. As far as the English role in this goes, English merchants of French wine resorted to effervescence to enhance, or disguise, their inventory. Beginning in the last half of the seventeenth century, English wine-sellers had to contend with a series of duties and excise taxes on French wines, which raised prices and limited supply. The fashion for French wine continued, unabated, forcing English merchants to choose between a loss of revenue or unscrupulous tactics, as described in the 1681 ballad The Wine Cooper’s Delight: ‘French wines Prohibition meant no other thing, but to poyson the Subject and begger the king / Good nature’s suggested with Dregs like to choak her, of fulsome stum’d Wine by the cursed Wine-Cooper.’67 To battle the shrinking profit margins, taverns turned to bubbles as a device to trick the palates of discriminating gentlemen from determining the true origins of purportedly fine wines. English wine consumers and merchants exploited effervescence, as a remedy and expedient, predisposed to the technique through their market position as importers, and a food habit which favoured sweet wine. By contrast, French wine producers eschewed vin mousseux as an error, inconsistent with their traditional oenological values. The explanations of English trade and deeply embedded French wine habits address the perception of England as an unlikely source of innovation in winemaking. The narrative, however, becomes more complicated, as the wine desired by English consumers was nearly impossible to obtain by virtue of taxes, 66 Labat, Voyages, vol. 4, p. 9. 67 Dean, Wine-Cooper’s Delight.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

53

duties, treaties and embargoes enacted by the English government. While it was not determinist, the role of economics in influencing the development of cultural preferences here is crucial to understanding the nature of the exchange beyond the contemporary national narrative of who ‘owns’ champagne. Disentangling the multifarious strands of this story requires an examination of both micro- and macroeconomic factors and emergent technology which exerted cultural influence in the tug-of-war that would yield an enduring symbol of Frenchness.

Taxes, Treaties, Embargoes, and Taste England’s excise taxes and duties on French wine favoured imports from Spain and Portugal beginning in 1667 and 1685, respectively.68 Embargoes placed further pressure on the import of French wine during the periods from 1678–1685 and 1689–1696. While some French wine was imported by ships sailing under the Spanish flag as Spanish wine in the early embargoes, later efforts to ban French wine were more successful.69 Nevertheless, English demand for French wine was not initially dampened by the levy of taxes and embargoes in the seventeenth century, and even increased as supply diminished. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Controller General of Finance for Louis XIV commented that higher prices would actually increase the demand for French wine: it is likely that after the tax increase, demand will increase, having seen everywhere, that wine is consumed most heavily in those places where it is most expensive; it being difficult if not impossible for the English to give up drinking French wine.70

As the price of foreign wines rose, importers and merchants struggled to maintain their level of profitability. Trade with France was free from embargo for five years, from 1697–1702, until the passage of The Treaty between England and Portugal, signed on December 27th, 1703. Better known as the Methuen Treaty, this trade 68 John Nye’s analysis of this aspect of Anglo-French trade states that tax revenues on alcohol eventually accounted for 40% of total English tax revenues. Nye, Wine, Art and Taxes, pp. 48–50. 69 Ludington, The Politics of Wine, p. 35. 70 Letter from Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, March 28, 1670. Colbert, Lettres, instructions et mémoires, vol. 2, p. 524.

54 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

agreement gave preferential tax treatment to Portuguese wines, which paid one-third less tax than French wines.71 This tax was levied by volume, not value, which made modestly priced French wines uncompetitive with wines from Portugal. Under the treaty, Portuguese wines were taxed 33% less than French wines. French wine producers struggled to compete with less expensive imports of sherry and port. The goal of the Methuen Treaty was to bolster the trading relationship between England and Portugal, opening an export market for English woollen cloth in exchange for Portugal’s favourable tax treatment for wine landed in England. The excise tax structure discouraged the French from exporting cheaper table wines, as the levy was on the volume of wine imported, not the value of the wine. This effectively priced France out of the bottom end of the wine market, as it was not economic to compete with Spanish and Portuguese wines taxed at lower rates.72 The tax structure did prompt a move, albeit a gradual one, towards exporting smaller quantities of high-quality wines, including sparkling champagne.73 Premium wines at premium prices were less sensitive to the duties than inexpensive wines which would have been consumed in English taverns, and French winemakers adjusted their exports to the English market accordingly. Demand for French wines persisted in the eighteenth century, albeit at lower levels than in the seventeenth century. The scarcity of wine demanded the tireless creativity of wine-drawers in London’s taverns, who fashioned ‘French wines’ from the hedgerows and orchards of England. Joseph Addison bemoaned the continued adulteration of wines and the corruption of the English wine-consumer’s palate in The Tatler (1709–1710): There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who work underground…raising under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and valleys of France. They can squeeze Bordeaux out of the sloe and champagne from an apple.74

He alleged that the fabrication of ersatz ‘French’ wines was so widespread that patrons of the city’s taverns rejected the genuine product, as it did not conform to their previous experience: 71 Journal of the House of Commons 14 (January 1704), pp. 289–290. 72 Ludington, Politics of Wine, p. 35. 73 Nye makes this argument specifically for Bordeaux. Nye, Wine, War and Taxes, p. 57. 74 Addison, The Tatler, No. 131, p. 93.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

55

The person who appeared against them was a merchant who had by him a great magazine of wines that he had laid in before the war; but these gentleman (as he said) had so vitiated the nation’s palate, that no man could believe his to be French, because it did not taste like what they sold for as such.75

Through their attempts to improve English wine, remedy tainted imported wine and in the production of cider and ale, the English developed a predilection for effervescence in alcoholic beverages. As a result, they also developed the technological capability to reliably produce secondary in-bottle fermentation in any wine. The pressure of carbonation required not only corks, already in use by home brewers of cider and ale, but also demanded strong glass. The competition across Europe for supremacy in glass production in the seventeenth century was f ierce, originally dominated by Venetian glass producers, organised into guilds. The Venetian guilds had carefully guarded their trade secrets and restricted the mobility of their workers to preserve their technological advantage by preventing the dissemination of information about manufacturing processes. Competing glass producers from elsewhere, including France, often resorted to industrial espionage, enticing artisans to emigrate in order to gain their technical knowledge. Print was not a substitute for personal contact as the processes were complex and the choice of materials was crucial for success. In this environment the control of information preserved the Murano glass makers’ market position, but stifled their own innovation, as their techniques did not advance without the circulation of ideas from other glass producers. When technological advances were made elsewhere, the developments in glass technology changed the manufacture of mirrors, bottles, drinking glasses and windows. These technological improvements changed patterns of consumption, with economic and cultural effects.76 Any innovations achieved in this competitive environment had signif icant economic and cultural impact, given the limited circulation of industry-specif ic technology. English glassmaking techniques were technologically superior to methods used in France in the early seventeenth century, largely as a result of a royal decree by James I in ‘A Proclamation touching glasses’ (1615), which prohibited the use of wood as fuel for furnaces in the manufacture of 75 Addison, p. 93. 76 Trivellato, ‘Murano glass continuity and transformation’, pp. 151–152.

56 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

glass. The king declared that England’s ‘incomparable’ forests, furnished by Providence for ‘this Nation to be mighty by Sea and navigation’ had to be preserved to furnish wood of suitable ‘toughness and heart’ to build ships for England’s burgeoning merchant and naval fleets.77 Admiral Sir Robert Mansell developed techniques for making glass in coal furnaces, producing stronger and less expensive glass, and was granted a virtual monopoly in 1635. The use of coal produced a hotter fire, which allowed for increased levels of silica and less potash, which resulted in more robust glass.78 As the price of production dropped, more robust bottles were made out of thicker glass, capable of withstanding the internal pressures of carbonation. Additional impetus for the manufacture of glass bottles came from a 1636 royal proclamation prohibiting the sale of bottled wine, because there was no industry standard for volume in the manufacturing of glass bottles. The proclamation noted the rise in demand for glass bottles from consumers, who responded by bringing their own bottles to wholesalers when they purchased wine. French wine producers lacked both strong bottles and corks. French glass makers only produced very thin glass bottles, which were adequate for use as decanters, but were incapable of withstanding the pressures of a sparkling wine. When stronger glass was required, French clients requested English bottles. Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy, Chancelier des ordres du Roi, placed an order on November 14, 1711, that specified thick English glass: ‘six hundred bottles to be sent by Calais…thick glass bottles in the fashion of English glass’.79 When wine was bottled, it was closed with wooden stoppers covered with grease-soaked canvas, ‘des brocqueleix’, ill-suited for the task of keeping bubbles in.80 Cork was not unknown in France in the seventeenth century, as seen by its place in the definition of ‘bouchon’ in the 1690 edition of Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel: ‘Something that acts as a stopper in a bottle, English cork stoppers.’81 While cork was not indigenous to England, its extensive use there as a stopper caused the attribution to be made, similar to the designation of strong glass as ‘comme en Angleterre’. Furetière’s last entry for ‘bouchon’ also provides insight into the practice of bottling in the period through a saying, ‘There is a saying that good wine doesn’t need a cork, just as they say that shops with the best merchandise don’t have to 77 HRH James I, England. ‘A proclamation touching glasses’, May 23, 1615. 78 Mansell was granted numerous patents with various levels of monopoly and control of the industry beginning in 1614. Turnbull, Scottish Glass Industry, p. 313. 79 Quoted in Gandilhon, Naissance du champagne, p. 184 80 Simon, History of Champagne, pp. 45–47. 81 Furetière, Dictionnaire universel.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

57

wait for customers.’82 While poor quality wine was certainly not bottled, the proverb conveys the idea that it was most often decanted from the barrel and consumed promptly. Champagne continued to produce mainly still wines in the eighteenth century, despite a growing trend for vins mousseux, because of the expense of refining and clarifying wine before bottling and the risk of breakages. In slow years, however, winemakers turned to bottling to extend the life of the wine, as the risk of spoilage from extended storage in barrels outweighed the additional production costs.83 Other factors affecting the decision to bottle included a 25% tax on the retail sale of wine in bottles that was established in 1680. The arrêt did not apply to persons of ‘quality’, but was an attempt to discourage the fraudulent practices of taverniers and cabaretiers. In Normandy, a separate cour des aides was established in the same year, so the province operated under a separate tax regime. The regulations in Normandy effectively prohibited transportation of wine in bottles. With its significant number of ports in close proximity to England and the Continent, this affected the ability of producers from Champagne to ship wine from Normandy. This restriction was lifted in 1728, to address the growing demand for sparkling wine.84 At the same time, a Parliamentary Act was passed in England in 1728 prohibiting the import of wine in bottles or flasks, 85 which was not repealed until 1800. 86 These restrictions, taxations and prohibitions were not always obeyed, on either side of the Channel, but they did nothing to encourage large-scale production, or export, of sparkling 82 Furetière, Dictionnaire universel. 83 Brennan provides an in-depth analysis of the economics of bottling in the eighteenth century. Regarding the specific issue of bottling in slow years, see Brennan, Burgundy to Champagne, p. 250. Musset, however, contends that Brennan’s analysis overestimates the role of excess supply in the decision to bottle, Vignobles de Champagne, p. 63. 84 ‘the trade in vin gris de Champagne has increased considerably in recent years … Those who drink it prefer the one that sparkles to the one that does not sparkle: besides, the gray wine cannot be transported in Casks…without totally losing its quality’, Brunet de Grandmaison, Dictionnaire des aydes, pp. 278–279. See also Musset, Vignobles de Champagne, p. 300. Musset’s discussion is particularly useful in clarifying this point, noting that trade in bottled wine was only banned under the separate system in Normandy. Other provinces had taxes which distinguished between wholesale and retail transactions but did not prohibit sales of bottled wine altogether. 85 ‘House of Lords Journal Volume 23: May 1728, pp. 21–30.’ Journal of the House of Lords Volume 23: 1727-1731. London: 1767–1830, pp. 273–290. British History Online http://www.british-history. ac.uk/lords-jrnl/vol23/pp273-290: Hodie 3a vice lecta est Billa, intituled, ‘An Act for repealing the present Duties on Wine Lees and Lignum Vitæ, and laying new Duties on Wine Lees; and for prohibiting the Importation of Wine in Flasks, Bottles, or small Casks…’. 86 Journal of the House of Lords 43 (July 1800), 645a.

58 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

champagne. Moreover, in response to local tastes during the middle of the seventeenth century, wine producers in Champagne were trying to remove the bubbles from the primary fermentation process. Wines which today would be described as barely sparkling—sablant, or petillant—were seen as undesirable and considerable effort was devoted to exorcising the effervescence from what Madame de Sevigné called le vin du diable (the wine of the devil).87 The style of the wine did change as a result of foreign demand, but not at the point of production, as foreign end-users still had to add their own bubbles. Modern champagne is an elaborated product and differs from most other French wines because it is not the end product of a single year’s harvest but is a blend of several vintages to produce wine which is representative of the style of a particular maison. Single-harvest (millésime) champagnes are produced in exceptional years, but the goal of most champagne producers is a wine which is consistent from one year to the next, representing the cumulative prowess of the winemaker through its uniform typicité. By contrast, the early sparkling wine produced in the vineyard during the late seventeenth century was haphazard, as the level of effervescence fluctuated with each harvest. This lack of certainty meant increased financial risk, further compounded by the additional time required to produce champagne, and the additional costs for bottles and stoppers. Instead of assuming the additional costs at the point of production, wine producers transferred the risk to the end-user. Consumers purchased a vintage known to be mousseux for bottling before March, when any fermenting yeasts would be dormant from the cold. Once bottled, warmer spring temperatures would re-invigorate the fermentation within the bottle. The correspondence between Bertin de Rocheret and the Maréchal de Montesquiou dated February 15, 1712, provided a costing for all the materials necessary ‘pour faire un vin mousseux’.88 Opinion about effervescence as an appropriate quality for wine varied depending on whether the speaker was a fashionable consumer or traditional producer. In 1674, the anonymous author of L’Art de bien traîter, known only as L.S.R., distinguished between bubbles employed in a lesser wine for the sake of novelty, and the ability of a subtle sparkle to elevate an already great wine: 87 Johnson, Vintage, p. 217. See also Gandilhon, Naissance du champagne, p. 174. 88 Bibliothèque Municipale d’Epernay, Ms 209, liasse 329: 15 Février 1712. The cost for decanting, filling 200 bottles and securing the corks is detailed. Rocheret also advises his client that he has cheaper wine to make into vin mousseux, if a greater quantity is desired, ‘This barrel must be bottled at the beginning to make sparkling wine as you requested. If you want to make more sparkling wine, even cheaper than 100 pounds per queue, I can easily satisfy your orders.’

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

59

If Champagne is successful, that’s where…the gourmets run to…It is now the most fashionable wine…the bouquet can resuscitate the dead…when it lacks the greenness that some libertines are so fond of, when it settles quickly, and isn’t bubbling fiercely, because there is nothing to be valued in a wine that is always raging and boiling.89

On the one hand, well-executed champagne could revive the dead, but the overwhelmingly green version, boiling furiously, was not held in high regard by L.S.R. Written as a manual for the officier d’office, the servant with responsibility for all elements of aristocratic entertainment, it would nonetheless have reached a wider audience beyond the trade practitioner, informing curious readers about the current mode of entertaining on a grand scale, and which wines to select. While wine brokers in Champagne followed their clients’ wishes, they too weighed in on the debate about sparkling wine, exerting their influence when possible. Champagne négociant Bertin de Rocheret argued against the growing fashion for sparkling champagne in his letter to M. d’Artagnan in 1713: the merit of effervescence, which for me, is the mark of a lesser wine, is more appropriate in beer, hot chocolate, and whipped cream. Good wine from Champagne should be clear, refined, barely sparkling in the glass, appealing to good taste, never when it is foaming, with a pronounced taste of fermentation; in so much as it is only bubbling because it is still fermenting.90

D’Artagnan was suitably admonished by the comparison of effervescent wine with beer or chocolat chaud. The prospect of a wine which still tasted like it was fermenting put him off and he relented, abandoning his request to have all his wine sparkle. He responded to Rocheret, ‘I see how wrong I was to ask you to make my wines effervescent; it is a fashion which reigns everywhere, especially among the young’.91 The last phrase reveals the diffusion of a fashion for effervescent wine from a specific market segment to elite French consumers in general.92 In 1725, effervescent champagne had become a significant trade concern that prompted a formal request by the Mayor of Reims to the king, requesting 89 L.S.R., L’Art de bien traîter, pp. 29–30. 90 Bibliothèque Municipale d’Epernay, Ms 209, liasse 329: 18 Octobre 1713. 91 Bibliothèque Municipale d’Epernay, Ms 209, liasse 329: 25 Octobre 1713. 92 Musset, Vignobles de Champagne, p. 62.

60 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

permission to ship wine in bottles, to preserve the bubbles valued by foreign consumers.93 By 1736 French attitudes about effervescence had changed enough that Voltaire used sparkling champagne as a poetic device in Le Mondain (The Worldly Man). Voltaire’s poem celebrated luxury, portrayed in the text as the force uniting hemispheres in a global civilisation, accomplished through foreign trade. He also rationalised luxury in terms of the benefit it provided to the state economy through the ‘happy exchange’ of foreign trade: The superfluous, is a very necessary thing Uniting one and the other hemispheres You see the nimble vessels From Texel, London, Bordeaux Going off to search, through a happy exchange Of new goods, born at the source of the Ganges. While far away, conquerors of Muslims Our French wines intoxicate sultans?94

Wine is a good that is symbolic of France, with a global reach, capable of intoxicating sultans. He extolled a number of French artists, and French arts, including winemaking and cuisine, yet Voltaire singled out champagne as the ‘sparkling symbol’ of France: Chloris, Aegle, turn their hands To a foaming wine from Ay From the bottle it is launched Like a flash, let fly the cork It rises, we laugh; it hits the ceiling The sparkling foam of this wine Is the brilliant emblem of France95

While the lingering ambivalence amongst traditionalists about the merits of vins mousseux had faded, Voltaire praised champagne’s uniquely effervescent virtues, but did not speak about them in terms of taste. Instead, 93 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Départment des manuscrits, MS 1667, fol. 29, p. 36. 94 ‘Le Mondain’ in Voltaire, ed. Mélanges de poësies, p. 64. Bottled champagne wine purportedly survived travel as far away as Siam. This evidence of its new-found durability was cited as superior to Burgundy, making it the best choice for export. Journal des sçavans, June 7, 1706, pp. 561–566. 95 Voltaire, Mélanges de poësies, p. 67.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

61

in a poem about luxury, consumption and the utility of both, champagne became a symbol of mercantilist aspirations. A product of trade tensions and the mercantilist policies of both England and France, the wine exported to France and transformed by English aristocrats returns to France as a sparkling symbol of the possibilities of foreign trade.

Mercantilist Pressures on the English Palate France had the wine, but the English had everything else to make any wine sparkle—bubbles, bottles, and corks. Despite the fact that England was not known in this era as either a wine-producing country, or as a dominant culinary power, the English aristocracy exerted undeniable cultural and economic influence over matters of taste in the middle of the seventeenth century.96 English wine merchants possessed the technology to create bubbles, had access to corks to seal bottles securely, and because of England’s demand for ships for foreign trade, the strongest glass available for bottles. English consumers were accustomed to effervescence, both in home brewing and in the re-bottling of imported wines. French winemakers lacked the technology to induce secondary bottle fermentation when insufficient sugar was provided by the grapes, could not reliably capture the bubbles, and initially had no predilection to encourage carbonation. As producers of quality wine, France was not forced to remedy spoiled imports and had no reason to experiment with methods that would produce carbonation. The French adoption of a wine-making style favoured by English aristocratic consumers, that transformed an attribute considered barely acceptable in a petit vin (a lesser wine) into the hallmark of a cultural icon, speaks to the bilateral nature of the exchange, and the influence of economics, even in matters of la bouche. The development of assisted secondary fermentation techniques as a consumer-driven aftermarket modification, in a country which was not a major wine producer, is a logical result when viewed in the transnational context of economic and cultural influences. A country of consumers forced to remedy wines damaged in transit, combined with a habit of sugaring 96 This period is marked by the ascendancy of France’s culinary hegemony. It was around this time that the French promulgated their expertise in the form of printed cookbooks throughout the Continent and across the Channel. The publication of Le Cuisinier françois in 1651 marked the communication of a new style of French cuisine which relied less on imported spices and sugar and used French herbs and new techniques to form a more refined and methodological approach to cooking. See Hyman and Hyman, ‘Printing the Kitchen’, p. 395.

62 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

wine, is more likely to discover, as a by-product, the method for producing effervescence. Even though French wine producers already had some bubbles in their wine, it was the combined effect of English taste, technology, and taxes that encouraged French wine producers to overcome the cultural inertia that discounted vins mousseux and embrace sparkling champagne. Champagne, in its origins, can be viewed as a product of transnational cultural and economic exchange. Its unique oenological characteristics are a result of terroir and winemaking, but it was the synthesis of these qualities with the economic influence of the innovative English consumer that initially produced what became an exclusive, and fiercely defended, French icon. The example of champagne challenges presumptions embedded in national histories of European food and cultural identities where England is always the recipient of culinary developments initiated in France. The pathways of transnational exchange shed light on other factors, both cultural and economic, which influenced the development of a new product that would eventually become a global signifier of luxury and refinement largely through its association with France. Like champagne, French culinary techniques are often claimed in narratives of the development of cookery as the spontaneous consequence of the refinement of national tastes in France, that simultaneously framed English tastes in matters of cuisine as behind the times. Exploring the divergent roles of spice and technique in French and English cooking at mid-century allows consideration of a moment when exchange did not take place and prompts an understanding of why it did not occur. The rise of French culinary hegemony following publication of Le Cuisinier françois in 1651 and the English resistance to adopting French cuisine that took place during the second half of the seventeenth century was largely a matter of economics that evolved around the cultural recasting of a central ingredient in court cuisine—spice—as alternatively a cheap substitute for culinary skill (in France) or a savouring of trading prowess (in England). As in the foregoing discussion of champagne, received presumptions of national taste inform the next chapter’s starting point for an economic history that impacted matters of taste pertaining to spice. As exploration and overseas trade made spices less expensive throughout the seventeenth century, French culinary technique developed as a refinement to maintain cultural distinction. Once spice was no longer a marker of social differentiation, technique became the new luxury. The new French cuisine eschewed spices in favour of technique to act as an import substitute because France did not have ready access to significant overseas trade routes.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

63

In line with mercantile policies of economic self-sufficiency where luxury goods were produced in France for domestic consumption and export, the development of French cuisine is not merely a cultural development but an economic export.

Bibliography Manuscript Sources Bibliothèque municipale d’Epernay Ms 209, liasse 329: 15 Février 1712; 18 Octobre 1713; 20 Décembre 1713; and 28 Mai, 1732. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris Départment des manuscrits: MS 1667, fol. 29, p. 36.

Printed Primary Sources Addison, Joseph. The Tatler, No. 131, February 1709–1710; No. 148, March 21, 1709–1710. Beal, J. ‘Advertisements on the Vinetum Britannicum Mentioned in the Last Foregoing Tract, Sent to the Publisher by the Reverend Dr. J. Beal Rector of Yeovil in Somersetshire and One of His Majesties Chaplains’. In Philosophical Transactions (1665-1678). Vol. 11 London: T. N., 1676. Brunet de Grandmaison, Pierre. Dictionnaire des aydes. Paris: Prault, 1730. Chaptal. Jean-Antoine, L’Art de faire le vin. Paris: Deterville, 1807. Colbert, Jean Baptiste. Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert. Paris: Impr. impériale, 1861–1873. Commentaires de la Faculté de médecine de Paris, 1777 à 1786, eds. A. Pinard, H. Hartmann, F. Widal, and G. Steinheil, Paris: Université de Paris, 1903. Dean, John. The Wine-Cooper’s Delight, to the tune of The Delights of the Bottle. London: H. L., 1681. Digby, Kenelm. The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Opened. London: H. Brome, 1669. England’s happiness improved: or An infallible way to get riches, encrease plenty, and promote pleasure. London: 1699. Estienne, Charles, and Jean Liébault, L’Agriculture et maison rustique. Lyon: André Laurens, 1702. Furetière, Antoine. Dictionnaire universel, contenant generalement tous les mots françois, tant vieux que modernes, & les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts. The Hague and Rotterdam: Arnout & Reinier Leers, 1690.

64 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Harris, Richard. Aphorisms upon the New Way of Improving Cyder. London: George Larkin, 1684. Instructions for ordering of wines: shewing how to make wine, that it may continue good and faint not … Written first in Italian, and now newly translated into English, by W.P., trans. William Philip. London: Adam Islip for Edward White, 1596. James I, England, HRH. ‘A proclamation touching glasses’ (May 23, 1615). London: Robert Barker. STC, 2nd ed. / 8520; Steele, R. Tudor and Stuart proclamations, 1164. Reproduction of the original in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Journal of the House of Commons 14, January 1704. Journal of the House of Lords 23, 1727–1731 (1767–1830): 273–290; and 43, July 1800, 645a. Journal des sçavans, June 7, 1706, pp. 561–566. Labat, Jean-Baptiste. Voyages du P. Labat de l’Ordre des FF. Prescheurs, en Espagne et en Italie. 8 vols. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Delespine, 1730. La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. Le Cuisinier françois, eds. J.L. Flandrin, P. Hyman, and M. Hyman. Paris: Montalba, 1983. Louis-Perrier, Jean Pierre Armand. Mémoire sur le vin de Champagne. Épernay: Bonnedame, 1886. L.S.R. L’Art de bien trâiter. Paris, F. Léonard, 1674. Malone, E. et al. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. London: Printed by H. Baldwin for J. Rivington and Sons [etc.], 1790. Merret, Christopher. Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines, presented to the Royal Society. By Dr Merret. Published in Walter Charleton, Two Discourses. London: R. W. for William Whitwood, 1669. Montaigne, Michel de. Les Essais, Édition Villey-Saulnier. Paris: PUF, 2004. Navier, Jean-Claude. Question agitée dans les Écoles de la Faculté de médecine de Reims le 14 mai 1777 par M. Navier fils, Docteur-Régent de la Faculté de Médecine en l’Université de Reims…sur l’usage du Vin de Champagne Mousseux contre les Fièvres putrides et autres Maladies de même nature. Paris: Méquignon aînée, Didot le jenue; Reims, Cazin; Châlons- sur-Marne, Paindavoine, 1778. Nott, John. The Cook and Confectioner’s Dictionary. London: C. Rivington, 1723. Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (unabridged). Raleigh, NC: Hayes Barton Press, 2007. Perrin, Pierre. Les Oeuvres de poésie de Mr. Perrin. Paris: Estienne Loyson, 1661. Renneville, Constantin de. L’Inquisition françoise: ou, L’histoire de la Bastille, volume 3. Amsterdam: Étienne Roger, 1719. Saint-Évremond, Charles de. Oeuvres de M. de Saint-Évremond, avec la vie de l’auteur. Par M. des Maizeaux, vol. 3. Barbin: np, 1753.

MÉTHODE ANGL AISE: TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE

65

Saint-Évremond, Charles de. The Works of Monsieur de Saint Evremond, Made English from the French Original: with the life of the author by Mr. Des Maizeaux. London: J. and J. Knapton, 1728. Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, ed. Mélanges de poësies, & c. Geneva: Cramer et Bardin, 1775. Wolridge, John. Vinetum Britannicum or a Treatise of Cider. London: J.C. for Thomas Dring, 1676.

Secondary Literature Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1957. Bonal, François. Dom Pérignon: Vérité et Légende. Langres: D. Guéniot, 1995. Brennan, Thomas. Burgundy to Champagne: The Wine Trade in Early Modern France. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Chaudhuri, K.N. The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company,1660-1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 [1978]. Cowan, Brian. ‘New Worlds, New Tastes: Food Fashions After the Renaissance’. In Food: The History of Taste, ed. Paul Freedman. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. 197–231. DeJean, Joan. The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication and Glamour. New York: Free Press, 2005. Epstein, Becky Sue. Champagne: A Global History. London: Reaktion, 2011. Flandrin, Jean-Louis. ‘L’Invention des grands vins français et la mutation des valeurs oenologiques’. Eighteenth-Century Life 23: 2 (1999), 24–33. Freedman, Paul, ed. Food: The History of Taste. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. 197–231. Gandilhon, René. Naissance du Champagne: Dom Pierre Pérignon. Paris: Hachette, 1968. Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Hope, Quentin Manning. Saint-Evremond and his Friends. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1999. Hyman, Phillip and Mary Hyman. ‘Printing the Kitchen: French Cookbooks, 1480-1800’. In Food: A Culinary History, eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. Trans. Albert Sonnenfeld. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Johnson, Hugh. Vintage: The Story of Wine, vol. II. London: Mitchell Beazley; New York, Simon & Schuster, 1989. Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.

66 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Lennon, Thomas. ‘Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond?’ Journal of the History of Ideas 63: 2 (2002), 225–237. Ludington, Charles. The Politics of Wine in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Musset, Benoît. Vignobles de Champagne et vins mousseux: Histoire d’un marriage de raison 1650-1830. Paris: Fayard, 2008. Nye, John. War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Rodgers, Daniel. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Simon, André. The History of Champagne. Sydney: Universal, 1971. Tombs, Robert and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy. Britain and France: The History of a Love-Hate Relationship. New York: Vintage, 2006. Trivellato, Francesca. ‘Murano glass continuity and transformation (1400-1800)’. In At the Center of the World: Trade and Manufacturing in Venice and on the Venetian Mainland (1400-1800), ed. Paola Lanaro. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2006. Turnbull, Jill. The Scottish Glass Industry 1610-1750: ‘To Serve the Whole Nation with Glass’. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2001. Visé, Jean Donneau de, and Peter William Shoemaker, Les Costeaux Ou Les Marquis Frians. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013. Vizetelly, Henry. A History of Champagne. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1882.

Websites Académie des sciences. ‘Liste des members depuis la creation de l’Académie des sciences’. Institut de France, 2022. http://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Listedes-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membresdu-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-t.html Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘Les Clés des vins de Champagne: Effervescence’. Comité Champagne, 2000. http://www.champagne.fr/f iles/ pdf-fr/effervescence.pdf Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘L’histoire de l’effervescence’. Comité Champagne, 2022. http://www.champagne.fr/fr/vigne-vin/qu-est-ce/ effervescence/l-histoire-de-l-effervescence Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘United States’. Comité Champagne, 2022. https://www.champagne.fr/en/comite-champagne/bureaus/ bureaus/united-states

2.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbooks, Cuisines, and Corporations Abstract This analysis considers the role of trade policies in forming French and English culinary traditions by contrasting import substitution with the rise of the joint-stock company. In 1651, the first printed French cookbook, Le Cuisinier François, communicated the culinary shift that abandoned exotic spices for native herbs. French cuisine was both an import substitute for spices imported through trade where France lacked a significant presence, and an export, disseminating the French culinary hegemony. French recipes and chefs came to England, but the methods and flavours did not take hold. I propose that English cookery shunned French excess and privileged the plainness, and stability of the old cuisine, and increasingly identified foreign spices with the maritime strength of England. Key words: spices, cuisine, cookbooks, mercantilism, early modern

Changes in food habits are unpredictable and often paradoxical. The social, economic, and historical forces that shape decisions about how a culture eats can be difficult to identify, especially when the food in question has almost no intrinsic nutritional value. The ability to select food according to a set of preferences, rather than through necessity further complicates any analysis. Despite these limitations, it is not too broad a generalisation to posit that introducing a new food is not as difficult as discarding an existing, and well-established system of eating.1 Yet this is exactly what occurred in France over the first half of the seventeenth century, resulting

1 Mintz, Tasting Food, pp. 23–24.

Van Dyk, G. Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463720175_ch02

68 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

in the first new cookbook to appear in France in over one hundred years.2 In 1651, the publication of Le Cuisinier françois marked a significant break with previous traditions of formal cookery.3 These changes included: a move away from exotic spices to indigenous herbs; the use of butter and flour (a roux) to thicken sauces; a move towards separating sweet and savoury flavours; and the first appearance in a French cookbook of two iconic French ingredients—foie gras and truffles. The previous tradition of pan-European style courtly cookery had emphasised the pageantry of the meal and made extensive use of spices imported from the East at great expense. In a dramatic change of culinary direction around 1600, French chefs began to reject foreign spices, refined cooking techniques, and focused on the intrinsic qualities of ingredients sourced from within France. There is no definitive documentation indicating what specifically caused French chefs to make these shifts. The most persuasive theory links the turn away from the use of exotic spices to declining prices and competing imports as a result of direct trade. 4 Lower prices eroded the perception of spice as a marker of elite status. This occurred throughout Europe, but exotic spice use continued in English and other Continental cuisines. While cheaper prices would have altered the perceived exclusivity of spice, it does not explain an abrupt rejection en masse of spices in French cookery.5 Neither does the appearance of new products on the market, such as coffee, tea, and cocoa, which competed for consumer preferences. The introduction of these influential imports—the colonial beverages—occurred half a century after the turn away from 2 Le Grand cuisinier de toute cuisine, a compilation, was published in 1540. A book on diet and nutrition, Le Thrésor de santé, was published in 1607, but only contained a few recipes. Hyman and Hyman, ‘Printing the Kitchen’, p. 395. 3 La Varenne, Le Cuisinier françois, np. 4 Other explanations for the French turn away from spice are less chronologically viable. Rachel Laudan, for example, has argued that empiricism challenged the dietary sciences of antiquity, obviating the use of spices in balancing the humors. While the dominance of dietary science waned throughout the early modern period, these changes to diet brought about by an empirical understanding of the body did not gather momentum until the middle of the eighteenth century, when French cuisine was already well established. See Laudan, ‘The Birth of the Modern Diet’, pp. 62–67, in which she attributes the shift in French cuisine to acceptance of the Paracelsian theory of fermentation. 5 In this regard, tobacco is a useful point of comparison. Tobacco was initially an expensive commodity consumed by only the wealthiest members of European societies. When supplies of tobacco increased, prices fell, but consumption expanded and remained popular in various forms at all levels of society. In contrast to this example, the consumption of spices eroded in France when prices fell. See Goodman, Tobacco in History.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

69

spices had begun in French cooking.6 They also operated in different spheres of sociability: the salon, drawing room, café, coffeehouse, and the tavern. As new tastes, they did not fit into existing dining traditions, but established their own modes and methods of consumption.7 Unlike anywhere else in Europe, and especially in contrast to England, the social differentiation previously conveyed by spice was replaced by culinary ref inement in France. As French cuisine became the new luxury, the emphasis on imported spices was supplanted by the domestic production of a French system of delicate eating, which not only served to glorify the nobles who employed the chefs, but also became an export transmitted through cookbooks. What has not been fully explored is whether the French move towards a domestic range of spices, and the French culinary diaspora, relates to a mercantilist emphasis on the local production of luxury goods for both domestic consumption and export. The mercantilist economic policies begun during the reign of Henri IV and continued by Colbert sought to increase the wealth of the state through accumulation of precious metals. This was achieved through the domestic production of high value goods (such as tapestries, mirrors, and wine) which could be sold abroad, while limiting the outflow of wealth by producing all the desired luxury goods for domestic consumption. Ideally, a state could reach a level of economic self-sufficiency, autarky, which would not require any goods from abroad while selling high value goods to trading partners, ensuring a one-way flow of precious metals, specie, into the state. This is contrasted by the English version of mercantilism which relied upon the acquisition of high-value goods abroad through maritime trade, which were then sold at substantial profits to generate wealth and accumulate specie. Rather than seeking to create luxury goods through domestic production in England, the Crown, and English merchants ventured abroad to acquire them. This was accomplished through joint-stock companies such as the East India Company (EIC). Long-distance maritime trade was

6 Coffee is publicly available at a coffeehouse in 1652 in the City of London. See Wild, Coffee: A Dark History, p. 90. Tea first sold at auction in London in 1658. See Colquhoun, Taste, p. 148. Chocolate is first advertised for sale in London 1657 in the Publick Adviser (No. 4, June 9 – June 16), ‘In Bishopsgate Street in Queen’s-head Alley at a Frenchman’s house is an excellent West India drink, called CHOCOLATE, to be sold, where you may have it ready made at any time, and also unmade at reasonable rates.’ 7 On the contrasting development of these modes and methods of consumption in France and England, see Chapter 3.

70 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

a capital-intensive commercial venture, fraught with risk of shipwreck and piracy. Capital invested was largely inaccessible for years until the completion of a voyage. The joint-stock company accessed the necessary capital through the sale of shares to a larger universe of individual investors, distributing both risk and profits. Established as a corporate body politic, the EIC’s initial fifteen-year charter granted by Elizabeth I in 16008 conferred a monopoly on trade between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.9 The EIC, however, was not merely a commercial entity created by, and subordinate to, the interests of the state. Powers granted by the initial charter gave the EIC considerable authority, such as jurisdiction over English subjects in the Company’s specified area of operations. The Company’s prerogatives increased in the following years, including the ability to engage in diplomacy, coin money, establish courts, make laws, and construct fortifications.10 While not an entirely autonomous entity, the Company was an influential political institution in its own right. More than just a long-distance trading company, but not an independent sovereign, the EIC exercised its own brand of ‘corporate sovereignty’.11 In defence of this level of autonomy and privilege, Governors and directors of the Company espoused the institution’s ideology and culture through their writings. This discourse engaged with debates about luxury and foreign trade, and the products imported by the EIC, including spices. Foreign spices imported by the EIC were naturalised and legitimated as honest products of trade in England through the language of economic rationalisation. By contrast there was no significant French trading presence in the East. In a parallel to the self-sufficiency achieved in other areas of luxury production, French chefs replaced imported spice with an emphasis on domestic ingredients and refinement of technique. French cuisine then developed into a luxury good which was exported to all of Europe. English cooking, however, continued to use exotic spices, despite the dominant fashion of French culinary refinement. This suggests a link between the perceived value of items brought into England by the EIC as ‘English’ and the sustained culinary emphasis on spice in English cookery. In this way the cuisines of each emerging nation serve as metaphoric equivalents of their economic policies. 8 Mukherji, Indian Constitutional Documents, vol. I, pp. 1–20. 9 Mukherji, Indian Constitutional Documents. 10 Charles II, warrant to Attorney General, March 24, 1661/2, BL, Sloane MSS 856 fo. 10. 11 Stern, The Company State, p. 14.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

71

The Medieval Tradition of Conspicuous Consumption In order to appreciate the scale of change that was broadcast in the publication of Le Cuisinier françois, it is f irst necessary to understand the magnitude of the traditions which it rejected. In the preceding f ive centuries, the demand for spices could aptly be described as a mania. Contemporary historians such as Wolfgang Schivelbusch and Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination, have compared the economic and political importance of spices in the medieval period to the essential modern commodity—oil. While this comparison conveys the signif icance of the trade in terms of its dollar value, it is reductive, as spices were neither commodities nor necessities. Coffee, which ranks as one of the most actively traded global commodities, is comparable as a comestible which is not a necessity. 12 Spices, however, were much more valuable with a very high value-to-weight ratio, prized by shipping companies for the prof itable nature of this trade.13 Beyond their economic value, imported spices were a major feature of court culture. Cloves, mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon were luxury items, highly sought after for their value as markers of status and exoticism in food and drink at the banquet table; they were in demand for their purported medicinal values, especially in the absence of viable alternatives; and they were required for their dietetic role in balancing the Galenic system of humours. ‘Spice’ is not employed here as an all-encompassing term for ‘articles of pleasure’ or Genussmittel.14 Many consumables not classed as necessaries were ingested for pleasure in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including later arrivals such as coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, and opium, but these operate in different spheres, and contexts, of sociability and serve different purposes as stimulants and intoxicants.15 Salt and pepper, were commonplace enough by this period to be excluded, classed instead as commodities. Sugar is considered, in so far as the marked decline in its widespread usage was indicative of the pivotal shift from ancienne to nouvelle cuisine in France. Sugar is excluded as a spice when its explicit value as a necessary foodstuff for the working poor began to eclipse its 12 For a full discussion of introduction of coffee to Europe in this period, see Chapter 3. 13 Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds, xv. Regarding the desirable weight-to-value ratio of spice, see Standage, An Edible History of Humanity, p. 73. 14 Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise, p. xxvi. 15 See Chapter 3.

72 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

implicit culinary value as a flavour enhancer at the dining table. Sugar continued to have value in the late eighteenth century, for both upper and lower classes in other guises, elaborated into art de table (garden designs and Greek temples) for the former; or into molasses (for distilling rum) for the latter. This discussion of spices is limited to tropical species, especially their roots, buds, and bark imported for use as condiments in food and drink because of their inherent flavours and aromas. Indigenous spices such as saffron, caraway, and coriander are excluded as they were locally available and do not figure in the trade equation.16 Spices—the dried bark, seeds, and buds of tropical plants—were imported from the East into medieval Europe. Exotic in provenance, and expensive to acquire, spices were a luxury good signifying wealth and worldliness. In aristocratic cuisine, numerous spices were included in every dish. The liberal use of imported spices in medieval court cookery was so pervasive that modern observers considered ‘conspicuous consumption’ inadequate as an explanation for its prevalence and sought a plausible explanation to rationalise its function in cuisine. Spices were alleged to have been utilised to mask the flavour of rotten meat. The culinary myth of spice being used to disguise tainted meat defies logic, however, when the astronomical cost of spice is considered. For the elite consumer who could afford spices, edible meat was available.17 When fresh meat was not in season, salted and smoked meat was always on offer. Spices did help to balance the flavour of preserved meat which had been ‘cured’ through the process of salting and smoking to extend the keeping qualities of meat and f ish, which were limited in the absence of refrigeration.18 Cured, smoked ham glazed with brown sugar and studded with cloves is a contemporary example of the equilibrium which can be achieved in the sugar/salt/smoke/spice combination.19 Sugar was also employed as a spice to temper acidity, or enhance the sweetness of fruit. Medieval 16 Turner, Spice, xx; Saffron was grown in England (Saffron Walden) and in France. See ‘Le territoire de Beaune abonde en safran et les habitants des environs en font un grand trafic’ (Chroniqueur, 1780). 17 Freedman, Out of the East, p. 4. 18 The inability of contemporary observers to understand medieval culinary tradition gave rise to the myth that spices were used as an attempt to hide the flavour of rotten meat. While the myth seems believable, given the lack of refrigeration and the inexplicable ubiquity of spice, the explanation is driven by an attempt to provide a rational explanation despite considerable contradictory evidence. 19 Similarly, sugar is still used today as a spice, rather than as a sweetener, in manufactured meat products sold under the label of ‘marinated’. These meats have been soaked in a saltwater solution to enhance their flavour, reduce the cost of production, and prevent inexpert cooks

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

73

cookery did not separate sweet and savoury flavours, so the use of sugar, also an imported luxury, in a meat dish was not unusual. The desired effect was not necessarily sweetness, but an additional flavour to act as a counterpoint to pungent aromatics. One recipe from the fourteenth century which appears emphatically sweet was Egurduce (a transliteration of aigre-douce), rabbit in sweet and sour sauce.20 Jointed rabbit is f irst fried, then sauced with a combination of sugar, vinegar, wine, onions, currants, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and thickened with breadcrumbs. While sweetness is intentional in the recipe, it still functions as a foil for the acidity of the vinegar and the wine. An evaluation of the use of and value of tropical spice and its trajectory in royal cookery must take into account its links to antiquity. Imported spices were used in European cookery from the eleventh century and should not be evaluated in the same manner as foods of the New World which might have been deemed desirable for their novelty or rejected because they were unfamiliar. Spices were known to the Greeks and Romans and enjoyed a positive association with the wisdom of classical science in medieval Europe. Although spices were not a new food, prior to the fifteenth century European spice consumers, with the possible exception of spice traders and returning Crusaders, had no idea where spices actually came from, or how they were harvested. Bartholomeus Anglicus, thirteenth-century author of an encyclopedia, De proprietatibus rerum, wrote about the origins and quality of pepper: Pepper is called Piper, and is the seed or the fruit of a tree that groweth on the side of y hill in Caucasus…serpents keep the woods that pepper groweth in, and when the woods of the pepper be ripe, men of that country setteth them on fire, and chace away the serpents by violence of fire, and by such burning, the graine of pepper, that was white by kind, is made blacke and rively….21

Mysterious provenance contributed to their symbolic weight, as an association with an earthly Eden was often assumed, as reflected in the name of one spice—Grains of Paradise. Returning Crusader, Jean sieur de Joinville, identified the Nile as the source of spices in his memoir of Saint Louis, King Louis IX: from drying out the meat through overcooking. The finished product tastes neither sweet, nor salty, but balanced in flavour. 20 Hieatt and Butler, Curye on Inglysch, vol. 4, p. 23. 21 Bartolomeus Anglicus, Batman upon Bartholome, vol. XVII, ch. 131.

74 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Before the river reaches Egypt, men who are practiced in it cast their nets loose into the stream at nightfall, and when morning comes, they find in their nets such raw goods as are imported into this country; to wit, ginger, rhubarb, aloes and cinnamon. And it is said, that these things are washed down from the Earthly Paradise; that the wind blows down the trees of Eden just as the wind in this country blows down the dry wood; and that what the merchants sell to us in this country, is the dry wood that falls into the river there.22

This presumption of exoticism was conferred upon the host offering the spices, connoting both wealth and worldliness. Spices were desirable in large part because they were expensive and exotic, their origins only guessed at, but assumed to originate from an earthly Paradise, bestowing them with even more status. Their intrinsic qualities of flavour and aroma (and sometimes colour) had appeal, yet other non-tropical spices which were readily available domestically did not attract the same attention, precisely because they were easily accessible and better understood. Many of the values attributed to imported spice were dependent upon their exclusivity. The expense of importing spices through overland routes in small quantities limited the available supply, which in turn spurred demand. Unknown origins not only increased their value in terms of the cachet ascribed to tropical spice, they allowed for the possibility of previously undiscovered properties, medicinal or mystical. Nothing from the medieval herb garden could compete with the open-ended potential for the discovery of a panacea in an unknown land. Domestic spices were not considered markers of luxury, with the notable exception of saffron, which was valued for its colour. Golden colour was thought to impart the metallurgical qualities of gold when consumed by the diner through a form of edible alchemy. Production of this labour-intensive spice requires the delicate removal of three strands of stamen from a crocus by hand. The prohibitive cost of saffron conveyed (and continues to convey) luxury status on this domestic spice. The rarity and expense of spices in the medieval period often prompts the question: how much spice was actually used in cooking? Medieval recipes rarely included definitive quantities because they relied on the assumed knowledge and skill of the cook to achieve the desired effect, and usually served only as an aide-memoire. The bulk of a cook’s knowledge was transmitted orally, as most cooks were illiterate. Household accounts do provide 22 Joinville, Memoirs, pp. 87–88.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

75

evidence of expenditure on spices, which when compared to the values of other foodstuffs, or daily wages, give an approximation of the relative expense and quantity consumed. It is still difficult to say with certainty just how spicy a medieval meal really tasted. When quantities are provided, they are modest, yet this would not correlate with the quantities recorded in household accounts. Religious and dietetic literature of the period warned against the dangers of over-spicing and provided cautionary tales inveighing against the dangers of spice addiction and its use as an aphrodisiac, but no accurate inference can be drawn from these polemical sources. Spices were not only used in the cooking of food but were also offered to guests on ceremonial plates during the meal, as digestives, in sweetened wine at the table, and in the bedroom chamber.23 Separate plates were used by male and female guests, the latter also containing comfits—spices, fruits, and nuts preserved with sugar.24 The spice plates were made of precious metal, adorned with jewels and heraldic symbols, and filled with unadorned spices. A large silver spice plate belonging to Richard II, made in Paris, was adorned with a hart decorated with precious stones and pearls.25 The designated female spice receptacle, the drageoir aux épices, was decorated lavishly and held the sweetened spices, preserved fruits and sugar-coated almonds.26 The division of unadorned spices in the heraldic plate for men, and sweetened spice confections in the luxurious drageoir point to the gender roles of the fourteenth-century court, and the use of spices (including sugar) to convey the power and wealth of the hosts. Spices were proffered again in the bedroom, in the form of épices de chambre.27 These were offered both as a bedtime remedy for gastrointestinal disturbance and to freshen the guest’s breath.28 At the medieval feasting table, spice was ubiquitous. It found its way not only into the food, but also into the drinks, in the form of hippocras, ale and bitter. Hippocras is a mixture of spices, wine, and sugar. A 1780 edition of The Forme of Cury, originally compiled around 1390, gave the following recipe for hippocras: 23 Toussaint-Samat, History of Food, p. 539. 24 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, p. 128. 25 Cherry, ‘Late Fourteenth-Century Jewellery’, pp. 137–140. 26 Wooley, Queen-like Closet, xxx. This recipe calls for two pounds of sugar for every quarter pound of spice, still an expensive proposition in the period. 27 This practice is noted in Christine de Pisan’s Le Tresor de la cité des dames (c. 1405), ch. 11: ‘After taking the Spices, and when it is time to retire, the Lady will go to her room’. 28 The tradition of sugared spice blends for digestion and fresh breath still continues in India in the various mixtures of mukhwas.

76 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

TO MAKE HIPPOCAS. Three ounces of cinnamon and three of ginger. A penny worth of Spikenard of Spain, galangal, cloves, long pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, cardamom, a quarter ounce of each. Grains of paradise, cassia buds, a tenth ounce each. Make this into a powder.29

The receipt is distinguished from others in the compilation, as it provides quantities for the spices. There is no method included with the ingredients, and the quantities for sugar and wine are also omitted. Substituting honey for sugar produced ‘clarry’, a less exclusive version of hippocras, as domestically produced honey was much cheaper and less prestigious than foreign sugar. Hippocras was served both before and after the meal, and the spices were meant to aid in digestion of the many dishes at a feast. ‘Ypocras’ refers to Hippocrates, and sweetened spiced wine was originally referred to as piment, a reference to pigmentum, one of the Latin words for spice. The allusion to the Greek physician affirms an association with the overlap between medicine, cooking and dietary science of the period. Both the spices and sugar would originally have been found at either a pepperer’s shop or at the apothecary. The cloth bags used to strain the whole spices from the wine were referred to as Hippocrates’ sleeve, a reference to his early efforts in water filtration.30 While spices and sugar may have had dietary value, they also disguised the unpleasant taste of wine which had turned. This was not an unusual occurrence, as wines were largely produced for immediate consumption, and did not keep well. Wine produced in England was not noted for its high quality, so most of the wine consumed in England was imported. Imported wine was transported in barrels and began to oxidise once the cask was opened. Unless consumed immediately, it required the spices and sugar as remedies for its deteriorating quality. This habit of sugaring imported wines to temper faults from transport and age fostered the discoveries of Christopher Merret in 1662, who presented a paper to the Royal Society on how to produce sparkling wines.31 Wine was not served to all guests, however, and was only within the reach of the well-to-do on a daily basis. The daily drink of choice for all others in the fourteenth century, and for centuries after, was ale (in England) or beer (on the Continent). In an era of suspect water quality, ale and beer 29 Pegge, The Forme of Cury. 30 Hippocrates, On Airs, Waters, and Places, Part 8. Hippocrates is noted as a pioneer in recommending filtration (sieving) of rainwater. 31 Merret, 1662, ch. 1.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

77

provided an affordable and healthy alternative, especially for breakfast with toast. While this sounds like an unusual way to begin the day, these drinks should not be thought of as intoxicants, but as staples, containing vital calories and nutrients.32 Ale was an integral part of an Englishman’s diet, but it would take two hundred years for beer to be consumed or produced in large quantities on England. Beer would not be seen as an Englishman’s drink for nearly four hundred years. Ale is distinguished from beer, as it is made from malt, water and yeast only, while beer includes hops. The inclusion of hops improves the keeping quality of the drink, making it last longer and suitable for transport. Spices were used in ale to prevent spoilage, improve flavour, and mask the taste of ale that had begun to turn. Nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, caraway and aniseed were all routinely used in ale production. As ale was not very difficult to make, it provided an opportunity for incremental income to women on the margins of the lower class while working in the home. A precise date for the introduction of hops in England is difficult to establish, but their use is recorded in London in 1391, so the methods for beer production were known in England at the end of the fourteenth century. Production of beer using hops on a commercial scale dates from the sixteenth century. As a result of these combined factors, England lagged behind the rest of Europe in brewing methods by almost two hundred years.33 When commercial beer production did begin in England, the first brewers were immigrants, bringing their techniques from Holland and Germany. This group, largely male, displaced the English alewives as producers.34 A foreign product made from foreign ingredients, by immigrants who took work away from poor women, was likely to have its detractors. The suitability of beer for Englishmen was debated by Andrew Boorde in his Dietarie of Health (1545?): ‘Ale for an Englysche man is a naturall drynke.’ Beer, however, ‘…is a naturall drynke for a Dutche man. And nowe of late dayes it is much bred in Englande, to the detriment of manye Englysche men specially it kylleth them y which be troubled with the Colycke and the stone…it doth make a man fatte and doth inflate the belly, as it doth appearance by the Dutche mens face and bellyes.’35 Beer production nonetheless increased, to ale’s disadvantage, and a pecking order emerged assigning roles and values to the most popular classes 32 Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, p. xx. 33 Sambrook, Country House Brewing in England, p. 133. 34 McBride, ‘A Natural Drink for an English Man’, p. 183. 35 Boorde, Here followeth a compendius regiment, or dietarie of health, part X.

78 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

of alcoholic beverage. A pamphlet containing ‘a dialogue’ between beer, ale, wine, nutmeg, sugar, toast, tobacco and water as the dramatis personae described their various parts: Wine – a gentleman; Sugar – his page; Beer – a citizen; Nutmeg – his apprentice; Ale – a countryman; Toast – one of his rural servants; and Water – a parson. They trade puns and parry insults, matching their wits in a contest to affirm their virtues. The quarrel escalates, almost to blows, when the calming influence of water brings them together for a song, ‘I generous Wine am for the Court / The Citie calls for Beere / But Ale, bonny Ale, like a lord of the Soyle, / In the Countrey shall domineere.’36 This personification of the popular comestibles in a debate play may have been written to be performed as an interlude during a play at Cambridge, intended for James I.37 The author, one ‘Gallobelgicus’, claims the original was written in ‘Dutch’, lending an ironic tone to the virtues expressed by English ale within the text. This discourse continued into the seventeenth century, as seen in John Taylor’s translation of Drinke and welcome. Allegedly written in Dutch by the ‘painful and industrious’ Huldricke Van Speagle, ‘grammatical brewer of Lubeck’, the prejudice against beer and hops is affirmed, ‘Beere is but an Upstart and a foreigner, or Alien, in respect of Ale, it may serve instead of a better; Nor would it differ from Ale in any thing, but onley that an Aspiring Amaritudinous Hop comes crawling lamely in, and makes a Bitter difference betweene them’.38 Despite the perception of beer as an intruder, the more favourable economics of beer production could not be ignored. Hopping precluded the use of spices for preservation, as the keeping quality of the brew was substantially improved. Without the danger of spoilage, beer could be produced in larger quantities than ale, on a commercial scale, with greater opportunity for profit. By 1751 beer was embraced as a wholesome alternative to the evils of pernicious gin, another Dutch import. The diptych of Beer Street and Gin Lane by Hogarth depicted the wholesome nature of ‘English’ beer and the destructive power of gin, while the accompanying text extolled the virtue of the adopted brew in chauvinistic terms: ‘Beer Happy Produce of Our Isle’. The ale of ‘Old England’ suffered a loss of status and became a drink relegated to the elderly and infirm, and beer became an icon of Britishness. Beyond their use for flavour and display in eating and drinking, spices had important medicinal roles. The use of spices as medicines built on the 36 Gallobelgicus, Wine, Beere Ale and Tobacco, p. 22. 37 Gallobelgicus, p. 19. 38 Taylor, Drinke and Welcome, p. 3

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

79

earlier skills of the medieval herbalist and the contents of the ‘physick’ garden. Their rarity, exoticism, and novelty held open the possibility that they could possess restorative powers as yet undiscovered. Many tropical spices, and later-introduced stimulants such as coffee and tea, were first used as medicines, and it was difficult to distinguish the apothecary from the grocer, as both offered medicinal cures. A formal separation between the two was not made until the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries was established in 1617 by royal charter.39 Sugar was also found at the apothecary, both as a sweetener for bitter medicines and for its purported medicinal qualities. Compound remedies, or electuaries, made with sugar were offered for a variety of ailments, often under brand names to allow consumer identification. The term electuary was jumbled into the word ‘treacle’, and ‘London treacle’ was once offered as a medicine. Sugar was credited with many spurious medicinal qualities. At one point, it was even recommended as a dentifrice. While sugar may not have been effective as a toothpaste, 40 many spices were accurately recognised for their intrinsic value as remedies. Cloves were identified as numbing the mouth when chewed—oil of clove is still used as a topical anaesthetic in dentistry. Quinine from the cinchona tree was the earliest effective anti-malarial drug available. Early explorers who searched for direct routes to ‘India’ to import spices and silver also became horticultural prospectors who fossicked in the jungles of South America and Asia for new medicines. The allure of the exploration was untold prosperity, and perhaps even a cure for a disease as deadly as bubonic plague. Spices were not effective, however, in their use against the plague. Internal remedies ranged from panaceas such as aqua mirabilis to plague water. Recipes for these electuaries often contained pepper, cloves, ginger, galangal, and nutmeg with even more unusual ingredients, including ground pearls and gold described in treatises such as John French’s Art of Distillation (1651).41 Unsure of the source of the disease, many attempts focused on curing the ‘bad air’. Fumigations were recommended, with spices for the rich, or with brimstone, for the poor. Out in the street, protection was available in the form of elaborately decorated metal pomanders (from pomme d’ambre), or quilted taffeta bags, filled with aromatics, herbs and dried flowers. A typical prophylactic winter mixture included nutmeg, cinnamon, ambergris, cloves, and myrrh. Hung around the neck, to be worn near the region of the heart, these were meant to prevent entry of disease. While they smelled sweet, 39 ‘History’. The Society of Apothecaries, 2022. http://apothecaries.org/history 40 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, p. 111. 41 French, Art of Distillation, p. 52.

80 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

and afforded another opportunity for conspicuous display of wealth, they did nothing to prevent the contracting the disease, as was noted by Edwards in his Treatise concerning the plague and the pox (1652). 42 Imported Seville oranges, studded with cloves perfumed the house as an early form of air freshener, and another show of means. Additional precaution was achieved by carrying nosegays of flowers—such as the pocket full of posies in the children’s nursery rhyme—to ward off the Black Death. 43 All these methods provided no useful protection against contracting, or—once infected—curing bubonic plague. Dietary advice, however, given to persons of lesser means may actually have saved their lives: ‘Let every man’s Diet be moderate and of such Nourishments as are least subject to putrefie and corrupt.’44 As the opening line of the first section of Thomas Wharton’s Directions for the prevention and cure of the plague – Fitted for the poorer sort in 1665 stressed, diet is paramount for good health. Unfortunately, even for the poor, it was not that simple. The most popular theory of dietary science, according to the ancient Greek physician Galen, was very complicated. The system involved a multi-layered matrix balancing the four humours located within each person: blood, phlegm, yellow, and black bile. Humours corresponded to the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air. Each of the humours was classified according to moisture and temperature, and combinations of these gave rise to complexions. A complexion was comprised of a pair of elemental attributes: hot/cold, moist/dry (for example hot and moist). The humoral complexion was used to classify the disposition of an individual as sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholic. 45 Followers of Galen went on to classify all food and drinks which, being made out of the elements, could be assessed according to their nature as being hot or cold, dry or moist. These major distinctions were further refined by measuring these attributes by three levels or degrees. When the food was prepared, the chosen cooking method could also impact the evaluation of the ingredients. The nature of the individual, the raw food, and the cooking method had to align in such a way as to produce a harmonious result. Spices assisted in this regard, as their various properties made it possible to modify both the food and cooking method to mitigate undesirable attributes through judicious selection and combination. 46 For 42 Edwards, Treatise concerning the plague, p. 9. 43 Turner, Spice, p. 176. 44 Wharton, Directions for the prevention and cure of the plague. 45 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, pp. 242–243. 46 Freedman, Out of the East, pp. 52–54.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

81

example, moist and cold foods, such as fish, often required the hot and dry quality of spices for balance. The skill of the cook was often required to cope with the particular dietary requirements of guests, the impact of seasonal change on the humoral disposition of a particular foodstuff, or the unavailability of a key ingredient. Proportion and order were key elements of Galenic theory: ‘But whether one or another limit is set on what is out of proportion, it is quite clear that all disproportion must set in relation to something…the preservation of health is through whatever is similar, whilst the cure for diseases is through whatever is opposite.’47 Cuisine, diet, science, and medicine were intertwined through Galen’s theory, which controlled not only internal equilibrium, but also one’s relative place in the cosmos. Despite these deeply entrenched patterns of consumption, the use of spices in French courtly cuisine changed during the seventeenth century. The emphasis on exotic flavours sourced from foreign climates was replaced by attention to the intrinsic flavours of ingredients, more delicately seasoned with domestic herbs. The luxury that had been conferred by rare and expensive spices was replaced with a refined mode of dining where culinary technique was the marker of sophistication and good taste.

The Emergence of Delicate Dining The history of French courtly cuisine is an integral and prominent part of French culture and intangible heritage, referred to as patrimony. While the food of any culture is significant to its members, French culinary traditions and techniques were systematically organised, codified, and developed into a culinary hegemony that reigned for nearly four centuries and transformed early modern European food habits. In the middle of the seventeenth century, French cuisine emerged as a dominant force in the development of cooking techniques when French chefs proclaimed their departure from the pan-European traditions linked to classical tradition by identifying, in print, the flavours and spices now associated with classic French cuisine. The widespread publication of cookbooks, which began with Le Cuisinier françois by Pierre François, alias La Varenne in 1651, communicated this dramatic, and unilateral, move by French chefs away from the homogenous court cuisine which emphasised the use of exotic flavours. While pepper, cloves, and nutmeg endure in 47 Grant, Galen on Food, p. 42

82 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

minute quantities in French cuisine, other spices such as grains of paradise, galangal, and cardamom disappeared. Until the seventeenth century, there was a monolithic tradition of court cookery which meant that aside from differences in regional produce, the foods of one Western European medieval court feast were much the same as those of another. While these were not identical cuisines, the cooking methods were very basic and similar. Any differences were muted by an overwhelming emphasis on spectacle, colour and illusion, rather than on taste, which was characterised by the ubiquitous presence of spices, used with abandon as a mode of conspicuous consumption. Le Cuisinier françois, however, de-emphasised this dominant element in favour of more refined and subtle flavours sourced from within France. This radical, and unilateral, shift established a break with the traditions of antiquity and contemporary culinary homogeneity. French haute cuisine was the first culinary tradition to distinguish itself from the cuisines of other European courts, but La Varenne confidently anticipated that other countries would emulate la nouvelle cuisine: ‘other Nations may very well be stirred to conform themselves’. 48 He not only moved away from ancient spices and techniques, he also turned inward to identify, privilege, and codify French flavours. Furthermore, he staked the claim for culinary superiority in the name of France: ‘Our France, bearing honour above all nations in the world in its civility, courtesy, and decorum in all manners of conversation is not least esteemed for its comely and dainty fashion of dining’. 49 Le Cuisinier françois was not only the first self-proclaimed French cookbook, it was also the first cookbook from France translated into English. It was so popular it was re-issued in eighteen editions in England and translated into German and Italian. The first English translation, a faithful translation of the French text, declared, ‘My Lord, of all the cooks in the world, the French are esteem’d the best.’50 It was a well-written work, conceived as a whole, organised and indexed systematically, beginning with the base of French cooking—a recipe for stock. A notable advance was made by describing the maxing of a roux—using butter and flour to thicken sauces, a new technique, more refined than the sauces of the past, thickened with bread, ground almonds, or blood. Early versions of sauces later codified in the nineteenth century by Antoine Carême into the classic mother sauces and their thousands of variations appeared first in Le Cuisiner françois and 48 La Varenne, Le Cuisinier françois, np. 49 La Varenne, np. 50 La Varenne, p. 1.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

83

included: sauce Espagnole (or brown sauce), sauce Robert (onions, butter, wine reduction and mustard), and hollandaise. La Varenne’s recipes began the departure from the heavily spiced foods linked to Antiquity, preferring the intrinsic flavour of the food itself—he used the term au naturel as a cooking term for the first time. A groundswell of support followed as other chefs and authors rallied around the concept of distinctly French flavours, produced from French ingredients. In 1654 Nicolas de Bonnefons published Les Délices de la campagne, extolling the virtues of French plants and vegetables. Characteristic of La Varenne’s move away from strong spices towards fines herbes, Bonnefons referred to parsley as ‘our French spice, which gives flavour to an infinity of preparations, and is used as much for its taste as for its colour’.51 By 1691, twelve new books followed publication of Le Cuisinier françois in seventy-five editions.52 As the number of specifically French publications increased, they increasingly rejected foreign spices and flavours and emphasised the unique qualities of French cuisine, made from French ingredients. Bonnefons was only one of many who advised cooks to ‘leave depraved ragouts to the foreigners, who never enjoy any good food except when they have cooks from France’.53 The reconfiguration broadcast by La Varenne is claimed by the author in his preface as the result of a decade in the kitchens of the Marquis d’Uxelles and in service to the French Army. The substantial nature of those changes suggests an even longer period in the making, and the efforts of many more chefs. An absence of evidence in the form of recipes, manuscripts or cookbooks of the intervening period make it difficult to determine precisely why this transformation occurred, or when it began. Some evidence can, however, be inferred from an English cookbook published in this period that food fashions were changing. Four out of f ive editions of John Murrell’s New Booke of Cookerie beginning in 1617 and up to 1641, boasted of additions wherein ‘All set forth according to the now, new, English and French Fashions.’54 These editions give some indication that food fashions were not static, but no significant advances in technique are discernible, no new ingredients were introduced, and 51 Bonnefons, Les Délices de la campagne, p. 75. 52 Pitte and Gladding, French Gastronomy, p 93. 53 Bonnefons, Le Jardinier françois, np. 54 Murrell, New Booke of Cookerie. The 1617 edition contains 124 recipes, many of which are not identified by a specific origin. For the recipes where an origin is given, their quantity is as follows: 37 ‘English’; 15 ‘French’ and 3 ‘Florentine’ or ‘Italian’.

84 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

there is no indication in these texts that a wholesale departure from a tradition of spice use was imminent.55 A persuasive myth was propagated in the late eighteenth century that suggested an earlier, external influence as the explanation for the French break with the culinary traditions of the past. The contested origin of French cuisine demonstrates the prestige that was ascribed to culinary excellence and the early modern association of ‘national’ cuisine with ‘national’ identity. Observers in Italy, as well as in France, credited Italy as the source of French culinary expertise. In d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, the chevalier de Jaucourt noted: The Italians first inherited the remains of Roman cuisine. It is they who introduced the French to fine dining, whose excesses several of our kings tried to repress through edicts, but in the end it triumphed over the law during the reign of Henri II. So the ultramontane cookscame to establish themselves in France, and it is one of our least debts to this throng of corrupt Italians which served in the court of Catherine de Médicis56

Count Giovambatista Roberti, writing in 1785, echoed this myth of origin, with a begrudging acceptance of the ascendancy of French cuisine: And yet (who would credit it?) the art of cookery arrived in France from Italy during the reign of Henri II, when Italians in great number accompanied Queen Catherine de Medici. But the French, who cannot deny this, might well reply with the words of Livy: ‘…Yet those good elements that were only just becoming apparent at the time were the seeds of the forthcoming prosperity.’ Nowadays, the French reign supreme in the science of flavours.57

D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie cited Montaigne’s discourse with his Italian kitchen clerk, formerly in the employ of Cardinal Carafa, in support of the purported origin of French cuisine. The dialogue illustrates a cultural exchange but was used by Montaigne as an example of how eloquence and jargon were pervasive, not limited to political oratory, but extended to 55 Murrell, New Booke of Cookerie, p. 20. The recipe for Capon Larded with Lemons in the French fashion is typical of the continuity of flavours from the previous era, and calls for whole mace and nutmeg, dates, currants, ground almonds and verjus. 56 Jaucourt, ‘Cuisine’. 57 Roberti, ‘Ad un professore di Belle Lettere nel Friuli’, vol. 3, p. 34.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

85

an activity as basic as eating. In the portion of his essay ‘On the Vanity of Words’, as included in the entry for ‘cuisine’ in the Encyclopédie, he relayed the complexity of Italian cuisine: he gave me a lecture on this science of the gullet with magisterial gravity and bearing, as if he had spoken on some great point of theology…he enumerated the differences of appetite…the administration of sauces, first in general, and then specifying the qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads according their need, the means of decorating and embellishing them…Next he preambled on the order of a service full of beautiful and important considerations, and all inflated with rich and magnificent words, and those even that are used to discuss the government of an empire.58

Montaigne’s emphasis was not on the advancement of French cuisine, which he referred to disparagingly as the ‘science of the gullet’. Instead, he focused on the misplaced seriousness of the discourse—words reserved for government, jurisprudence and religion are misapplied in descriptions of food. Jaucourt’s inclusion of the excerpt from ‘On the Vanity of Words’ reinforced the mythical Italian origin of French cuisine, incidentally, but this was merely a by-product of the critical tenor of the rest of the entry: This art of flattering taste, this luxury…of fine dining of which so much is made, is what is called in society cuisine par excellence. Montaigne defined it most briefly as the science of the gullet, and Monsieur de la Mothe le Vayer, Gastrology. All these terms properly designate the secret, reduced by scientific method, of eating beyond what is necessary…59

Jaucourt continued to chart the trajectory of cuisine from primordial necessity to curiosity, experimentation, sensuality, and corruption. His genealogy placed Asia as the point of origin for the unnatural desire to innovate and over-complicate food through their use of native spices. The transmission of this behaviour is accomplished through foreign trade in spices: The Asians, more voluptuous than other peoples, first employed all the produce of their climates in the preparation of their dishes. Commerce 58 Jaucourt, ‘Cuisine’. 59 Jaucourt, ‘Cuisine’.

86 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

brought these productions to their neighbours. Man chased after riches, only loving their enjoyment in order to furnish his voluptuousness and in order to change simple and good food into something more abundant, more varied, more sensually prepared, and as a result more harmful to health. Thus, delicacy of the table passed from Asia to the other peoples of the earth. The Persians communicated to the Greeks this branch of luxury, which the wise legislators of Sparta always vigorously opposed.60

From the Greeks to the sybaritic dining of the Romans, Jaucourt’s timeline finally arrived in Italy, and cited Montaigne. Considering the entry as a whole, which defined cuisine as ‘so many pleasing poisons prepared to destroy the temperament and to shorten the length of life’, the inclusion of Montaigne’s dialogue was apt as part of an indictment of cuisine as a corruption of natural appetite.61 Citing Italy as the source of cuisine served to distance France from the negative associations of the ‘painful science’—the art of corruption did not originate from within, even if each country suffered from ‘general corruption’. Nonetheless, Jaucourt was content to proclaim the pre-eminent position of France: Grasping the flavours which should dominate in each dish, the French soon surpassed their masters, and made to forget them: from that moment, even if they have challenged them, even on important things, it seems that they have found nothing so gratifying as seeing the taste of their cuisine surpass that of other opulent kingdoms, and to reign without competition from the one end of the globe to the other.62

While Catherine de Medici’s household staff were in a position to influence courtly cuisine, there is no evidence that Italian chefs in this period had made a wholesale move to reject foreign spices as the French did.63 This is also supported by the timing of the shift in French cuisine that did not begin until the seventeenth century. 60 Jaucourt, ‘Cuisine’. 61 Jaucourt, ‘Cuisine’. 62 Jaucourt, ‘Cuisine’. 63 Italian Renaissance courtly cuisine did expand the homogenous culinary repertoire of the Middle Ages through a classical revival, embracing the publication of texts from Antiquity, such as Apicius’ De re coquinaria in 1498. By comparison French cuisine was ‘stagnant’. Strong, Feast, p. 138.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

87

While the myth of Italian influence has been dispelled, most notably by Wheaton, the Medici role in the development of courtly cooking has not been completely discounted.64 Wheaton relocates Catherine de Medici’s impact on French cuisine to the importance of her travelling banquets. While these are often overlooked, eclipsed by her purported introduction of Italian culinary traditions, these peripatetic feasts disseminated the cuisine of the court throughout France.65 Unlike the courtly masquerades for which she was known, which combined theatre, dance, and dinner—Catherine de Medici’s Grand Voyage de France was a two-year tour of the kingdom, bringing the physical presence of the king and the court to the countryside. With Charles IX, then only fourteen, the royal entourage travelled to far-flung corners of the realm to raise the profile of the court. While the Grand Voyage was not primarily designed to showcase culinary expertise, it offered a glimpse of royal cuisine to every region. The logistics of cooking for large numbers also required additional kitchen help at each stop. The necessity to employ local chefs, artisans and servants also presented an opportunity for an exchange of knowledge with local practitioners and exposure to the current mode of courtly dining, which would not otherwise have been so widely communicated.66 Catherine de Medici’s early version of the political whistle-stop tour incidentally promoted the circulation of culinary ideas at a level which would only be surpassed by the agency of the printing press. The emergence of French cuisine occurred in the same era as the establishment of the Académie française (1635), the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (1648) and the Académie des sciences (1666). No institution was established to regulate the quality of French haute cuisine, or safeguard its traditions, yet the establishment of a uniquely French mode of royal eating emerged in an environment where state-sponsored institutions exercised considerable control over the production of culture, especially when it served to glorify the king. Unlike painting or architecture, however, cuisine is ephemeral, and is preserved only through derivative representation in other cultural forms. Music is equally temporal, but a system of graphic representation, neumes, was developed in the ninth century to promote uniformity in the performance of a given work.67 Cooking, however, retained an emphasis on oral tradition until the seventeenth century. 64 Wheaton, Savoring the Past, pp. 43–48. 65 Strong, Feast, p. 147. 66 Wheaton, Savoring the Past, p. 51. 67 For a discussion on the origin of neumes, see Randel, Harvard Dictionary of Music, 561.

88 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Manuscript collections of recipes, or receipts, appeared in the fourteenth century, but most were not conceived as cohesive texts, originating from a single author.68 The number of authors and readers corresponds with low literacy rates in early modern Europe. In seventeenth-century France, 71% of the population could not read or write.69 The emphasis on verbal communication of skills from accomplished practitioners to apprentices was a standard practice which did not require a written record. Guild restrictions also prohibited the dissemination of trade secrets by members. Royal cooks were exempt from guild membership, so the proscription on publication did not apply. There was no demand, however, for a comprehensive text from trained practitioners who only required the assistance of an aide-mémoire or desired a record of what had been served at a particular meal.70 Interest in cooking techniques from the consumers of cuisine already existed as seen in the demand for recipe compilations. This demand increased as the proliferation of printed material rose, and whet readers’ appetites on diverse subjects.71 Texts about the relationship between health and diet were popular, as were travel narratives. The cookbook bridged these two genres as it addressed health and nutrition in its didactic prefaces and transported the reader into the uncharted waters of culinary secrets. Even though chefs in noble employment were not prohibited from publishing their recipes, revealing professional techniques to the public still had a stigma attached to it. This is seen in the prefaces of early cookbooks, which attempted to legitimise this breach of confidentiality by citing the public good as the motivation to publish. In his dedication to Le Cuisinier françois, La Varenne first tantalized the reader with the prospect of the forthcoming content, ‘…I have found the secret of how to prepare meats…’, while making a case for sharing his knowledge, ‘…I think the public should benefit from my experience… I have therefore set down in writing what I have practiced…’72 68 Four manuscripts are associated with the best-known French recipe collection Le Viandier de Taillevent (1314?–1395), attributed to Guillaume Tirel. 69 Buringh and Van Zanden, ‘Charting the “Rise of the West”’, p. 434. 70 The best English example is the royal recipe collection of the master cooks of Richard II (r. 1377–1399) in the form of a vellum scroll, The Forme of Cury, written c. 1390. The copy held win the British Library was compiled in the 1420s (shelfmark Add MS 5016). The format of the manuscript suggests it was dictated by the cooks to a scribe. 71 The level of demand is supported by data collated by Philip and Mary Hyman: ‘From 1480-1800 cookbooks were an important segment of French publishing. We have counted fifty distinct texts on culinary subjects from that period…these fifty texts were published in 472 different editions.’ In Flandrin and Montanari, Food: A Culinary History, p. 394. 72 La Varenne, Le Cuisinier françois, np.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

89

The author, in his note to the reader, explicitly stated his intent and addressed multiple audiences simultaneously. His primary audience was fellow practitioners who required assistance, but he also acknowledged households and servants of lesser means, again referencing utility: I have thought it fitting to give you some advise concerning the design and use of this Book whereof I am the Author, without vanity. My intention is not to displease or offend anybody, though I do not doubt that some ill-willers, or some envious, will speak of it at random; but my intention is to serve and succour them who shall stand in need of it, whereof many not having the experience and the memory in readiness, will not, or dare not presume to learn what they know not…Some do believe that they wrong themselves in taking counsel concerning that thing, which belike, they ought to be skilful in. Some others having no acquaintance with those who could teach them, are ashamed to present themselves without a reward, which their want cannot give them leave to reach to. Therefore, because I love dearly them of my calling, I have esteemed it of my duty to impart unto them that little which I do know, & so to deliver them out of this trouble.73

In anticipation of the criticism that his publication will would generate, La Varenne attempted to ward off claims of ‘vanity’ or ‘offense’, affirming his mission was to enable other cooks too proud or too mean of station to ask for counsel. Even the index to the volume was aimed at both the professional, with an assumed body of knowledge, and the uninitiated: I have intermixed the table and the making of pastry works according to the seasons, and other small household curiosities useful for all sorts of persons. If you find some articles in the tables which be not in the discourse, blame me not, I have omitted them because they are common, and I have put them in the tables to put one in mind of them.74

While the cookbook was structured primarily as a tool for trade practitioners who only needed a reminder of the obvious, it also contained material more suitable for the everyday life of the wider public. Utility was again invoked as a reason for authoring the text in the address from ‘The Book Seller to the reader’. This was first couched in terms of 73 La Varenne, np. 74 La Varenne, np.

90 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

nutritional health, and quickly followed by the promise of thrift. Haute cuisine was rationalised as frugal when it eliminated the need for medicines, which would most likely have been made from expensive spices. Le Cuisinier françois went one step further by providing remedies to unnecessary expenses suffered by common households. This trinity of dietary science, cooking and household management served the publisher’s ends by appealing to a broader audience through cross-marketing, simultaneously proclaiming the novelty of the text and associating it with the well-established genres of nutritional science and household management: This Book, the matter and the title whereof do seem new, because the like was not as yet printed…this book tends only to the preserving and the keeping of health in a true and constant course, in teaching how to correct the vitious qualities of meats by contrary and several seasonings…it is sweeter by far to make according to one’s ability an honest and reasonable expense in sauces and other delicacies…than to spend vast sums of money in drugs, medicinal herbs, potions and other troublesome remedies…This hath persuaded me, after many solicitations…to let it see the light and set it forth…it is not only useful, but necessary, because that he doth not only set out the finest and daintiest fashions…which are served upon great men’s tables, but he also gives you also the precepts of the most common and ordinary things…which do only make a regulated and moderate expense…75

Moreover, this can all be accomplished through knowledge of domestic herbs revealed by the author, implicitly replacing foreign ingredients: He teaches you the fashions of thousands of kinds of vegetables and other victuals, which are found plentifully in the country, where for the most part many are ignorant of the means of making them ready with credit and contentment; and in this manner, with great reason I have done this good service to the public, not only for daintiness, but also for necessity’s sake.76

By simultaneously invoking refinement and utility the author not only increased the appeal for different audiences, but also linked the two concepts as integral elements of the new cuisine. ‘Daintiness’, the primary 75 La Varenne, np. 76 La Varenne, np.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

91

goal, is achieved by eschewing the profusion of foreign ingredients, which are proclaimed to be an unnecessary expenditure, rendering medicines obsolete—as long as one cooks well.

Rejection of Refinement: English Resistance to French Cuisine The importance of spices in dietary science and courtly culture underscores the dramatic nature of the shift to native flavours in French cuisine. More than twenty cookery and household management books were published in England during the period of French silence, yet none of these reflected a move away from using spices.77 When Le Cuisinier françois was translated and published in England in 1653, English cuisine was largely indistinguishable from the pan-European traditions still in place, so there was great potential for change through the introduction of a new mode of cookery. As French cuisine became the dominant culinary fashion, English foodways should have been susceptible to a comprehensive transformation after such a long period of stagnation. French influence, however, did not take hold in any real way, and the use of medieval cooking techniques and flavours continued, preserved today in a canon of celebratory British cookery. Why was England impervious to the power of the French culinary hegemony? What prevented this cultural exchange from taking root? Stephen Mennell, utilising Norbert Elias’ theory of emulation, suggested that French cuisine benefitted from an uninterrupted centralised court that emphasised social display through manners, art, architecture, and food.78 The English court of Charles II, following the Restoration, lacked the cohesive influence necessary to transmit court fashions through emulation. This disruption to courtly emulation was further diffused by the physical absence of the gentry at court, who were busy tending to their country estates. In France, the noblesse d’épée were obliged to assert and defend their rank through display, in order to differentiate themselves from nobles de robe. This was especially important as the former had been ‘defunctionalised’ through loss of independent military and administrative power. English nobility and gentry had not suffered this loss of independent power, and thus felt fewer pressures to entertain lavishly.79 77 Lehmann, British Housewife, p. xxx. 78 Mennell, All Manners of Food, pp. 119–121. 79 In contrast to a one-directional, ‘top-down’ model of emulation and display, the questions raised by a theory of ‘bubble-up’ emulation have not been explored in the development of national

92 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

In an age of novel goods and comestibles, the arrival of la nouvelle cuisine in England could have revolutionised the eating habits of upper-class consumers, but the move away from spices to novel methods of preparation was not met with universal approval on the other side of the Channel. English critics of French cuisine in the seventeenth century often cited expense as the reason for not embracing the new French methods, despite the ‘utility’ and ‘public good’ La Varenne proclaimed as virtues of his new cuisine, both in the 1651 French edition and the 1653 English translation. The English edition of The French Cook proved popular enough for a new edition to be printed in 1654, but the text was modified from the French version to include fourteen ‘new’ recipes that targeted the English reader. The allegedly new offerings were simply revisions of old recipes prepared with spices suited to the English palate, presumably an attempt to curry favour with traditionalists reluctant to abandon their established foodways in the name of novelty. English rejection of French cuisine in the seventeenth century, and its abandonment of spice in favour of technique, was characterised by the language of ‘economy’ and ‘plainness’. Recipes were often changed to reflect this theme, and this has been attributed to authors catering for an audience of limited means, but this approach assumes necessity of economy rather than a preference for economy. Modifications are also assumed to be a requirement for untrained domestic staff struggling to comprehend the techniques of refined cuisine. Not all English cookbooks were pitched to the middling sort, but analysis of these texts is often segregated from treatises on courtly cuisine, to reflect the division of the intended audience: male professional cooks in service of nobility; and women of adequate means supervising household staff—usually other women. A direct comparison of two authors writing for different audiences illustrates the potential for misreading these culinary translations exclusively as a function of class and gender, without allowing for a common desire to imprint imported cuisine with a tincture of Englishness. culinary traditions. They have been raised in costume studies of eighteenth-century dress in England and provide an alternative perspective on the forces which shaped cultural change in the period. Valerie Steele has discussed the trend for young men of the English nobility to dress in the rustic, country clothes of the working class as early as 1720. Lord Chesterfield decried this trend of young gentlemen who look like ‘grooms, stagecoach men and country bumpkins’ with ‘brown frocks and leather breeches…their hats uncocked and their hair unpowdered’. This affected rejection of top-down emulation may have been a declaration of English liberty from the prescriptive French requirements of display—or it might have been a comment on the futility of attempting to differentiate social status by dress in the absence of enforceable sumptuary laws. Steele, Paris Fashion, p. 27.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

93

A seventeenth-century French dish known for its refinement of technique was bisque, an elaborately garnished soup, first printed in La Varenne’s Le Cuisinier françois in 1651. Hannah Woolley’s comments regarding bisque as ‘a Miscellaneous hodgpodg of studied vanity’, ‘put together with all this cost and trouble…by some rare whimsical French cook’,80 appeared in a manual directed at both mistresses and servants. While Woolley is important as one of the first female cookbook authors, the recipe she refers to is nearly identical to that of Robert May, suggesting that the publisher of The Gentlewoman’s Companion produced this work under her name.81 The comments would be typical in later eighteenth-century manuals addressed to the lady of the house, filled with polemics and Francophobia, but here are tempered with grudging appreciation of the dish despite its profligate fussiness, ‘I know I have tried your patience in the description of a Dish, which though it be frequently used in Nobleman’s houses…yet I cannot approve of it…I have inserted it not for your imitation, but admiration.’82 Rather than dismiss (or omit) the dish entirely, the editorial comments suggested that unlike many other French recipes that could be adapted to reflect English tastes, ‘bisk’ could not be successfully translated by the frugal cook, and was best avoided. In contrast, William Rabisha’s bisk transformed the original recipe into an English version, augmenting the complexity with ingredients French chefs had excluded from the new cuisine. Rabisha’s text, The Whole of Cookery Dissected, was directed to professionals, and he considered himself a cosmopolite: I have served as Master Cook to many honourable families…both in this my Native Country, and with Embassadors and other nobles in certain in foreign parts…having through Traditions and my constant practical experience… received knowledge herein, and considering the world is a body and every individual and rational soul a member thereof, and that man was not born for himself, but for the good of the whole, it is but to pay tribute unto her… to return this…into the same treasury from which it was received…83

He also ‘gave back’ to young practitioners, as part of his duty as an accomplished master to share with younger artisan, although doing so in such a 80 Woolley, Gentlewoman’s Companion, p. 121. 81 Lehmann, British Housewife, p. 50. 82 Woolley, Gentlewoman’s Companion, p. 121. 83 Rabisha, ‘To the Reader’ in The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, np.

94 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

public manner betrayed the secrets of the trade. He allayed fears of other cooks who worried that cuisine could be practiced by any who read the text, ‘divers Brethren of my own Fraternity may open their mouths against me for publishing this Treatise, pretending that it may teach every Kitchen wench and such as never served their times…’, but ‘…they are mistaken who think that a Tract of this kind can be very beneficial to such as have never been in the same measure Practitioners’.84 These statements emphasised that his treatise was concerned with courtly cuisine which was inaccessible to the uninitiated. In comparison to Hannah Woolley’s comments about bisk, Rabisha’s prefatory statements for the same recipe cannot be interpreted as measures of necessary thrift, nor as an attempt to simplify technique for an aspiring audience, which he purposely excludes. Instead, they speak of an identity and tradition of cultural borrowing which valued improvement as much as innovation in the production of luxury: There is a grand meat called a Bisk & it is much mended by the English, of what was practiced by the French, according to their Original, because an English man never thinks a thing well, nor rich enough, but usually doth augment according to reason and disalloweth unnatural compositions.85

Daniel Defoe later echoed this tendency in England of modification rather than creation in ‘A Plan of the English Commerce’ in 1728: It is a kind of proverb attending to the character of Englishmen, that they are better to improve than invent, better to advance upon the designs which other people have laid down, than to form schemes and designs of their own, and which is still more, the thing seems to be really true in fact, and the observation very just.86

While patterns of consumption, production, and cultural appropriation had changed by the time Defoe made this observation in the late 1720s, he recognised this as a mode of economic behaviour which was already well established. Imitation, augmented by adaptation and improvement was a 84 Rabisha, np. 85 Rabisha, Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, p. 38. Paradoxically, the ‘much mended’ recipe which follows requires twenty-eight ingredients as diverse as sweetbreads, cockscombs, artichokes, lemons, pine nuts, lamb’s tongue, fried oysters, bacon, and potatoes—not to mention whole nutmegs, mace and claret gravy. 86 Defoe, A Plan of the English Commerce.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

95

successful model, but even a trade enthusiast like Defoe saw its pitfalls in practice, ‘I take this indeed to be a French humour, or a spice of it turned English; and, indeed, we are famous for this, that when we do mimic the French, we generally do it to our hurt, and over-do the French themselves.’87 His remark is revealing in this discussion as, in context, it addressed the potential problem of superficiality in cultural borrowing. It is especially appropriate that he used the word ‘spice’ here figuratively to illustrate the unsuccessful English attempt to transform the ‘French humour’. Not all English culinary texts embraced emulation of the French mode of refined dining and elaborate technique. The virtues of plain eating were the topic of an English ode dedicated to a single dish—the salad. John Evelyn’s panegyric, Acetaria, published in 1699, glorified the simplicity of uncooked greens. He warned of the dangerous fashions of ostentatious eating imported from abroad, capable of toppling civilisations: Verily the Luxury of the East ruin’d the greatest Monarchies; first the Persian; then the Grecian; and afterwards, Rome herself. By what steps see elegantly described in Old Gratius…‘Neighb’ring Excesses being made thine own/How art thou fall’n from thine old Renown’…But as These were the Sensual and Voluptuous, who abus’d their Plenty, spent their Fortunes and shortn’d their lives by their Debauches, so never did they taste the Delicacies and true Satisfaction of a sober Repast…88

Contrary to any assertion that food was not important for social display in England, importance is communicated through an inversion of value— privileging plainness. Plainness should not, however, be confused here with natural flavours. Instead, this ‘simplicity’ refers to an expression of Englishness by not following the ‘true’ French recipe. Luxury in the f irst wave of nouvelle cuisine was linked not only to cost of the ingredients, but also to elaborate techniques. Sauces, based on ‘essences’ or ‘fonds’, required expenditure on ingredients, time, and technical skill. The expense involved in such techniques is exemplif ied in an eighteenth-century culinary myth retold by Brillat-Savarin in The Physiology of Taste (1825). In the myth, the Prince de Soubise (1715–1787) queried the budget for a dinner, noting the cost for f ifty hams. When asked if he intended to feed the Prince’s whole regiment, the chef, Bertrand, replied that only one would be on the 87 Defoe, Complete English Tradesman, p. 319. 88 Evelyn, Acetaria, pp. 182–183.

96 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

table—the others would be made into sauces: ‘Bertrand, You are robbing me. This article will not do.’ Bertrand replied: ‘Monseigneur, you do not appreciate me! Give me the order and I will put those f ifty hams in a chrystal flask no longer than my thumb.’ Brillat-Savarin noted: ‘What could be said to such a positive operation? The Prince smiled, and the hams were approved.’89 English cooks rebelled in the face of such luxury and the systemic rules of French cuisine by implementing shortcuts. These shortcuts translated imported luxury, including luxury in the form of technique. Hannah Woolley’s recipes for courtly dishes are imitations of French recipes simplified for the means, and preference, of her various readers. In The Queen-like Closet, her introduction sets the tone for the volume: ‘I shall not set an Apish Example every Day or Week to follow ridiculous and foolish Fancies.’90 Her recipe for an olio was merely an assembly of separately prepared elements, which oversimplified comparable French versions. The olio was meant to be benefit from cooking the constituent elements together, but this technique required more attention to the different cooking times for each item, so that none were overcooked.91 The finished dish would have the appearance of a genuine olio, but an experienced diner would have discerned the lack of unified flavours. Woolley included a number of dishes to be made ‘in the French fashion’, including a recipe for ‘kickshawes’.92 ‘Kickshaw’ was an English corruption of the French culinary term ‘quelque chose’, originally referring to a wide variety of small fancy dishes used to fill the empty spaces left by larger platters and plates in seventeenth century French table service. Hannah Woolley’s version of kickshaws were small puff pastries filled with meat or fruit, cut in ornamental shapes. While her recipe was a faithful translation of the type of item that could constitute a ‘quelque chose’, the English term kickshaw came to represent, as a culinary synecdoche, all of French cuisine. As a catch-all term in French (literally ‘something’) for any of a number of preparations, English usage extended the generality of the term with negative meaning to the attempted imitation of nouvelle cuisine, suggesting that the result lacked substance. In the early eighteenth century, Addison’s comments in the Tatler on the English fashion for French food conveyed the persistent derogatory connotation: 89 Brillat-Savarin, Physiology of Taste, p. 63. 90 Woolley, Queen-like Closet, (preface to reader). 91 Woolley, Queen-like Closet, p. 197; and Lehmann, The British Housewife, p. 51. 92 Woolley, Queen-like Closet, p. 285.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

97

I was now in great hunger and confusion when, methought, I smelled the agreeable flavour of a roast-beef…I saw a noble sirloin on the side-table smoking in the most delicious manner. I had recourse to it more than once, and could not see, without some indignation, that substantial English dish banished in so ignominious a manner to make way for French Kick-shaws.93

Baffled by a profusion of unrecognisable French food, Addison had to rely on smell, rather than appearances, to guide him to a ‘substantial’ dish, and dismissed all the French food as ‘kickshaws’. Samuel Johnson emphasised the failed translation of French in the mid-eighteenth century in his definition of a kickshaw: ‘A dish so changed by the cookery that it can scarcely be known.’94 Oversimplification in this attempt to domesticate French recipes to English values ultimately resulted in a transmogrification of the original. That French cuisine had become an organised system which demanded adherence to produce the desired outcome was completely misread—if not ignored—by English authors and consumers alike. Perhaps the most appropriate contemporary word to describe English re-workings of French technique is ‘garbled’, both in the sense of sifting impurities from genuine goods and introducing errors in a message through inaccurate decipherment. In the transmission of recipes from French authors to English readers technique was distorted, not merely lost in translation, but altered through an emphasis on economy. This ‘sifting’ of language produced a derivative form of cuisine, distantly related to the original. This aligns with the practice of ‘garbling’ bulk shipments of spices which often contained debris, either by accident, or through sharp business practice. Letters of instruction to EIC supercargoes routinely included the admonition to ensure spices were well-garbled, both to ensure the quality of the goods and to avoid the additional weight.95 The foreign material removed from shipment, called garbellatura was not discarded, but sold at a fraction of the price of the genuine article, as its prolonged contact had imbued it with some of the qualities of the superior product.96 French culinary technique, communicated to English readers through the language of frugality, was a metaphorical equivalent of the garbellatura. Despite the influence of 93 Addison, The Tatler, p. 10. 94 Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language. 95 IOR/E/3/95 595. General letter of Instructions, July 3, 1706, ‘wherefore we do hope you will take effectual care to lessen all you can our expense…and to increase the yearly return of Pepper’. 96 Freedman, Out of the East, p. 124.

98 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

French cuisine, spice remained as a feature of English cookery as a ‘small luxury’ looking backwards to established food traditions and antiquity, and forward to the promise of mercantile prosperity.

Disconnected Relationships: Price, Value, Supply and Demand The affordability of spices increased when prices, measured by the Surat price for cloves, dropped by 50% in the period from 1630–1650 as a result of competition between English and Dutch East India Companies.97 Pepper suffered from oversupply in Europe from 1630, as reflected in a letter from EIC agents in Surat to factors in Masulipatam on the 29th of September, ‘for a while by reason of a great clogg and base esteem of Pepper in Christendom, now sold 16 d. and 17 d. …they do restrain us to the provisions of only 1,000 or 1,200 tonns of pepper at the most by the yeare.’98 Despite the drop in prices, however, cloves were still sought after. The Surat factors’ letter instructs the Bantam factors: Macasser should yield you such abundant quality of cloves as the great hopes you give do encourage, and that there should be no overplus at all… Yet do they not confine you to any limitt at all in Cloves, to the purchasing whereof we shall not only supply you to the utmost of such summes as are provided by the Company, but even also to the utmost of our own Credits.99

Ultimately, England lost the ‘Spice Race’, but their defeat by the Dutch for monopolistic control of the Indonesian spice production forced the EIC to diversify its cargoes and trading patterns, contributing to the company’s longevity, and development of the colonial empire in India. England concluded its struggle for control of the Indonesian nutmeg-producing island of Run through the Treaty of Banda, in exchange for all of the Dutch possessions in the New Netherlands, including the territory occupied as New Amsterdam, renamed by the English as New York.100 Despite extreme measures taken by the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) to maintain price levels by carefully controlling supply, the economic value of spice continued to drop as overall demand decreased. Although the explicit value of the 97 Prakash, ‘Euro-Asian and intra-Asian trade’. 98 Foster, English Factories in India, p. 53. 99 Foster, English Factories in India, p. 53. 100 Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, p. 362.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

99

global spice trade decreased for the companies, spice retained symbolic value identified with English prosperity through mercantile trade and sea power. This cultural value is demonstrated in its presence in English poetry, economic debate, and cuisine.101 Spice conveyed an image of exoticism in poetry that could not be achieved by referencing ‘calico’ or ‘textiles’. Dryden chose spice as the symbol of mercantile conquest at the end of ‘Annus Mirabilis’, his account of war, plague and fire published in 1667. London rises like a phoenix from the ashes to reclaim her glory as a centre for Asian trade: And while this famed emporium we prepare / The British ocean shall such triumphs boast / That those who now disdain our trade to share / Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast / …Thus to the Eastern wealth through storms we go / But now the Cape once doubled, fear no more; / A constant trade-wind will securely blow, / and gently lay us on the spicy shore.102

The poem is liberally sprinkled with allusions to aromatics, incense, and exotic fragrances, to such an extent that it becomes self-referencing, overspiced like the cuisine to which it alludes. Timothy Morton has referred to this evocative literary use of spice as culinary ekphrasis and fantasia, simultaneously creating a sense of immediacy and transporting the reader to another realm. In an historical sense it is clear that spice functioned as an immediately recognisable symbol of mercantile trade connected to English identity, even though spice had ceased to be the most significant import of the EIC. Alexander Pope employed spice as a poetic device to signify the East Indies trade, transported in ships built from the oaks in Windsor Forest (1704): ‘Or under southern skies exalt their sails / Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales’.103 Spices also appear as perfume in Belinda’s list of imported luxuries in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712): ‘Unnumber’d Treasures ope at once, and here / The various Off’rings of the World appear; / This Casket India’s glowing gem unlocks / And all Arabia breathes from yonder box’.104 Through her consumption of exotic goods, Belinda is the personification of the fruits of long-distance trade, ‘deck’d with all that Land and Sea afford’.105 101 Morton, Poetics of Spice, p. 36. 102 Dryden, Poems of John Dryden, vol. 2, p. 201. 103 Pope, Windsor Forest, vol. 1, pp. 391–392. 104 Pope, Rape of the Lock, vol. 1, pp. 129–132. 105 Pope, vol. 5, p. 11.

100 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Trade and spice were themes connected in William King’s mock-heroic poem The Art of Cookery (1712). King wrote The Art of Cookery in response to a new edition of the antiquarian culinary text by Apicius, De Re Coquinaria.106 His parody embraced spice and other goods imported through maritime trade, such as sugar and porcelain: ‘Make your transparent Sweet-meats truly nice / With Indian Sugar and Arabian Spice…Let Plates and Dishes from China brought, / With lively paint and earth transparent wrought.’107 The transparency of the cook’s products is paralleled by the fine quality of the translucent Chinese porcelain, connecting the imported comestibles, the imported goods, and the skill of the British chef in an interlocking relationship. King went on to defend the traditional cookery of Britain, but allowed for the incorporation of novelties brought into use by trade: ‘Be cautious how you change old bills of fare / Such alterations should at least be rare…Fresh dainties are by Britain’s traffic known, / And now by constant use familiar grown’.108 His admonition to preserve tradition was not unqualified, but acknowledged the changing contours of cultural practice, strongly influenced by British trade. Further support for spice appeared in the annotations that followed the poem, where King refuted claims that Apicius did not use pepper. He argued, satirically, for the liberal use of spices: we should be able to bear the bitterness of Hops in our common drink: and therefore, we shou’d not be averse to Rue, Cummin, Parsley Seed, Marshmallows, or Nettles with our common Meat, or to have Pepper, Honey, Salt, Vinegar, Raisons, Mustard, and Oyl, Rue, Mastick, and Cardamums strown promiscuously over our Dinner when it comes to Table.109

Through his exaggeration of the quantity of spices (strewn promiscuously) and reference to antiquated ingredients (honey, vinegar, rue, mastic), King drew a comparison between innovation and tradition in the two most ‘common’ products connected to Britishness: beef and beer. As previously discussed, the techniques to produce hopped beer were imported from the Continent, but the origins of this innovation that displaced English had largely been forgotten. King argued through hyperbolic comparison that the forgotten methods of cookery and spices are likewise a part of the 106 Applebaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, p. 87. 107 King, Art of Cooking, vol. 3, p. 79. 108 King, Art of Cooking, vol. 3, p. 73. 109 King, p. 93.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

101

tradition of British beef. Coupling his defence of pepper in Apicius, to his alliance of spice with iconic British beef and beer, King not only invested spice with value as an identifier of Britishness, but also imbued it with the enduring virtues of classical antiquity. The use of literary devices to support the value of spice as an English import was not limited to early eighteenth-century poets. From the middle of the seventeenth century, economic writers employed spice as a familiar symbol in their discussions of mercantile trade. As a product explicitly linked to the trade of the East India Company, pepper was used in an economic tract by Thomas Mun, mercantilist apologist and a director of the EIC, as a metonym for the import and sale of luxury goods. Evaluating spice, and other luxuries, in terms of trade allowed for an economic rationalisation of luxury consumption in terms of the national good, decoupled from the moral debate of luxury.110 Mun simultaneously denounced luxury spending and frugality, as an excess of either is damaging to trade, and to England. On the one hand, ‘Silks, Sugars, and Spices are unnecessary wants’,111 but in the absence of consumption, there will be no trade, ‘what will become of our Ships, Mariners, Munitions, our poor Artificers and many others?’112 More importantly, trade benefited the whole of England as ‘The School of our Arts, The supply of our wants, The employment of our poor, The improvement of our Lands, The Nurcery of our Mariners, The Walls of the Kingdoms, The Means of our Treasure, The Sinnews of our wars, The terror of our Enemies.’113 Mun used pepper as a familiar commodity to explain the value of mercantile trade relative to domestic production of goods. Pepper was bought in the Indies, shipped to England, and surpluses were re-exported to other countries, ‘neither is there less honour and judgment by growing rich in this manner upon the stock of other Nations, than by an industrious encrease of our own means.’114 He then drew a parallel with the benefits enjoyed from manufacture of textile from imported silk in England, and concluded with examples of domestic resources—iron ore and wool, which only realise their full value once transformed into merchantable goods. The progression led the reader from foreign commodity made valuable by English mercantilism; to foreign commodity made valuable by English industry; and finally domestic 110 Berry, Idea of Luxury, pp. 104–105. 111 Mun, England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, p. 178. 112 Mun, p. 148. 113 Mun, p. 220. 114 Mun, p. 27.

102 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

natural resources, made valuable by English industry. This analysis not only rationalised the profitability of the carrying trade relative to the value of domestically available natural resources, but also transformed the Indian spice through a process of economic naturalisation into an English good.115 Even so, in this same period, English attitudes toward ostentation in food were negative, as a focus on cuisine did not benefit the nation through increased trade, as did fashion and building. Sir Josiah Child, governor of the EIC, commented in the last decade of the seventeenth century on the shift in consumption away from displays in food towards spending on goods for the home, which was a result of, and a boost to trade: since our Trade increased, tho the generality of our Nation are grown richer…and consequently more splendid in Cloaths, Plate, Jewels, Household stuff and all other outward signs of Riches, yet are we not half so much given to Hospitality…as in former days, when our greatest expense was upon our Bellies, the most destructive consumption that can happen to a nation and tending only to nourish idleness, luxury and beggary.116

This differentiation of patterns of consumption through economic utility legitimises luxury in the purchase of durable household wares. Porcelain, silver-plate, furniture, and clocks could be acquired with impunity, because their purchase supported England’s mercantile trade. Ostentatious consumption of cuisine, however, was not merely lacking in benefit, it was destructive to the England’s well-being. Production of luxury goods in France for domestic consumption and export had been emphasised first by Henri IV in 1602, by importing proprietary technological skills in the manufacture of mirrors, glass, furniture and tapestries; introducing the cultivation of silk; and protecting vulnerable industries through tariffs.117 Colbert’s later vision of mercantilism extended from economic self-sufficiency in production of luxury goods to the development of centralised state-sponsored cultural institutions, to achieve superiority and self-reliance in Europe in the areas of music, dance, belles-lettres, painting and sculpture, and architecture. Expenditure on the arts was not prioritised above spending on war, but Colbert stressed the 115 Forman, ‘Transformations of Value’, pp. 622–623. 116 Child, New Discourse of Trade, p. 56. 117 ‘Manufactures Nationales Présentation.’ Manufactures nationales | Mobilier National. Ministère de la Culture, 2017. http://www.mobiliernational.culture.gouv.fr/fr/nous-connaitre/ les-manufactures/manufactures-nationales.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

103

need for Louis XIV to continue to promote the arts even in times of fiscal difficulty, ‘they will help to perpetuate his grand and glorious deeds’.118 As in industry, France was sometimes forced to innovate and re-create cultural institutions to suit France, transforming Italian opera into a French institution—written for a French audience, performed by a French company, in French. Pierre Perrin, a poet originally charged with the task of fitting the French language to opera, considered it unacceptable that ‘a nation everywhere victorious be conquered by foreigners in the knowledge of these two fine arts, poetry and music’.119 A position of pre-eminence in the culinary arts to promote the glory of the king was no less desirable an instrument of cultural imperialism. In the formative years of strategic foreign trade policy, which would later be fulfilled by Colbert, France lacked the maritime capacity to contest Dutch and English claims in the spice race, despite an abortive first attempt at the Compagnie des Indes in 1604 funded by Henri IV.120 Unable to compete in the import of tropical spices, France turned inwards in the seventeenth century to create an import substitute which abandoned the foreign tastes of spice and sugar. The quest for porcelain production technology provides a useful analogy for the development of import substitution. Delft pottery imitated Chinese porcelain but was unable to compete on the basis of a marginal difference in price. In order to differentiate technologically inferior earthenware, Delft potters did not produce identical wares, choosing to produce tiles, which the Chinese did not manufacture.121 Through the innovations promulgated by La Varenne, French cuisine was re-invented. It was differentiated from the pan-European traditions of the past dependent on imported spice and emerged as a symbol of French cultural excellence. That cuisine served as an effective medium to glorify the king and France is confirmed by reports of Louis XIV’s entertainments. The importance attached to the image of the court extended to every component of royal banquets, including the quality of the cuisine, as reported in the Mercure Galant: ‘The collation of the first ball was superb. France grows in magnificence daily, and it may be that nothing like it has ever been seen.’122 Cuisine can in this way be seen as an innovative product of the mercantile age, a 118 Colbert, Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert, p. 331. 119 Perrin, Oeuvres de poésie, p. 121. 120 Irwin, ‘Strategic Trade Policy and Mercantilist Trade Rivalries’, pp. 138–143. 121 McCants, ‘Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard of Living’, p. 459. 122 Mercure Galant, October, 1677, p. 109.

104 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

luxury good produced for both domestic consumption and export abroad. Unlike the proprietary manufacturing technologies jealously guarded by Italy to maintain monopolistic control, French culinary techniques, were widely broadcast as cookbooks were translated into a dozen languages, each edition proclaiming the superiority of France. As an export, la nouvelle cuisine would become the dominant mode for courtly entertaining across Europe in the early eighteenth century. Like other luxury goods destined for export, culinary technique was subjected by its practitioners to a process of codification. Colbert’s draconian code of quality control in the manufacture of textiles, for example, was paralleled by the move towards a highly structured system of cooking methods. Organised by stocks, sauces, and ingredients, cross-referenced and indexed, grouped categorically, French cuisine in the middle of the seventeenth century was marked by culinary pronouncements. This continuation of rules and laws is visible in the next wave of cuisine which arrived in 1674, led by the author known only as L.S.R. His tone anticipated the discourse of chemistry when he described his cuisine as ‘a true science…with rules and methods the likes of which have never been seen before’.123 Further, he dismissed the earlier work of La Varenne for indiscriminately producing ‘an inf inity of…abominations only suffered by Arabs…rather than in a pure climate like ours, where propriety, ref inement and good taste are the object of our most solid enthusiasms.’124 By 1717, the reputation for French cuisine was so well established that it was cited by one of Montesquieu’s characters in The Persian Letters as evidence of French resistance to foreign influences, in matters of taste: ‘Nothing seems more splendid to them than to see the taste of their cooks dominating from north to south.’125 The cuisines of France and Britain were the metaphoric equivalents of their contrasting trade and political policies. British cookery was characterised by its stability—an important economic factor in the carrying trade—the commodity cargoes of spices aligned with the cuisine of commodities. French cuisine found a parallel in the demand for, and production of luxury goods and the innovations necessary to succeed in that market. The same notions of obligation and financial disinterest that required French nobles to be conspicuous consumers at court, also hampered investment in the under-capitalised Compagnie des Indes. A former French Navy commissaire, 123 L.S.R., L’Art de bien trâiter, np. 124 L.S.R., p. 7. 125 Montesquieu, ‘Lettre C’, p. 244.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

105

André François Déslandes, bemoaned the lack of long-term commitments to commerce, ‘the French are in a hurry to enjoy themselves [se hâtent de jouir]…In general the French fail themselves. They are only touched by the agreeable arts, by arts that simultaneously flatter their taste for sensuality and indolence.’126 In Food: The History of Taste, Brian Cowan cites the triumvirate of printing press, compass and gunpowder as formative factors influencing cuisine in the seventeenth century.127 The agency of cookbooks disseminated the ‘secrets’ of revolutionary cuisine, which was itself influenced by exploration and imperialism, and the discovery of new foods. These factors alone, however, neglect the important role played by the advent of the joint-stock company and the effect of strategic trade policies on the definition and production of cuisines which were identif ied with the nation-state in England and France. During the seventeenth century, the cuisines of both countries were metaphoric equivalents of their economic policies. French chefs practised import substitution, replacing foreign spices with domestic herbs and refined technique, while Asian spices imported by the English East India Company were transformed into English goods through a process of economic naturalisation. Spices, however, were not a new comestible and had been used in England and France for centuries. By contrast, the arrival of previously unseen foreign comestibles, such as coffee and tea, posed a different challenge to the established cultural practices of English and French consumers. Beyond the basic necessity that the new beverages were safe for consumption, there were concerns not only about the unknown properties and physical effects of these new drinks, but also about their origins and associations. Was it appropriate for an English or French consumer to embrace a beverage popular in the Ottoman Empire or China? Even as such questioning confirmed the concern with matching culture and geography, another obstacle to acceptance was the expense of the new brews. Coffee was initially prohibitively expensive on both sides of the Channel. Yet even as prices declined, they were still denounced as superfluous luxuries. Ultimately, the success or failure of new things to eat, drink, or ingest depended on how the respective culture was able to negotiate these issues as they related to the character and values consumers ascribed to themselves in terms of Englishness or Frenchness. 126 Déslandes, Essai sur la marine et sur la commerce, pp. 48–49. 127 Cowan, ‘New Worlds, New Tastes’, p. 197.

106 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Bibliography Manuscript Sources Bibliothèque national de France, Paris Le Viandier de Taillevent (1314?–1395), FRBNF31429234. British Library, London Charles II, warrant to Attorney General, March 24, 1661/2, Sloane MSS 856 fo. 10. East India Company General Correspondence, India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/E/3/95; IOR/E/3/87 ff.65v-69.

Printed Primary Sources Addison, Joseph. The Tatler, No. 131, February 1709–1710; No. 148, March 21, 1709–1710. Bonnefons, Nicolas de. Les Délices de la campagne. Paris: La Compagnie Marchands Libraires du Palais, 1665. Bonnefons, Nicolas de. Le Jardinier François. Paris: Chez Pierre des-Hayes, 1651. Boorde, Andrew. Here followeth a compendius regiment, or dietarye of health. London: H. Iackson, 1576. Child, Sir Josiah. A New Discourse of Trade… London: John Everingham, 1692. Colbert, Jean Baptiste. Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert. Paris: Impr. impériale, 1861–1873. Defoe, Daniel. The Complete English Tradesman. London: Charles Rivington, 1726. Defoe, Daniel. A Plan of the English Commerce. Being a Compleat Prospect of the Trade of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign. London: Charles Rivington, 1728. Déslandes, André François. Essai sur la marine et sur la commerce. Amsterdam: François Changuion, 1743. Dryden, John. The Poems of John Dryden, ed. Paul Hammond. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Edwards, (forename unknown). A Treatise Concerning the Plague and the Pox. London: Gartrude Lawson, 1652. Evelyn, John. Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets. London: B. Tooke, 1699. Foster, William. The English Factories in India 1630-1633: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office, Bombay Record Office, etc. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. French, John. The Art of Distillation, or, A Treatise of the Choicest Spagiricall Preparations Performed by Way of Distillation. London: E. Cotes, 1651. Gallobelgicus, Wine, Beere, Ale and Tobacco, Contending for Superiority. A Dialogue. London, Thomas Coates for Iohn Grove, 1630.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

107

Le Grand cuisinier de toute cuisine, Paris: J Bonfons, 1540. Hippocrates, On Airs, Waters, and Places. Translated by Francis Adams. London: Sydenham Society, 1849. Internet Classics Archive, nd. http://classics.mit.edu/ Hippocrates/airwatpl.mb.txt Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. ‘Cuisine.’ Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, etc., eds. Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. University of Chicago: ARTFL Encyclopédie Project (Spring 2016 Edition), Robert Morrissey and Glenn Roe (eds), http://encyclopedie.uchicago.edu/ Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionarys of the English Language: In which the Words are Deduced from Their Originals, and Illustrated in Their Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers, to which are Prefixed, a History of the Language, and an English Grammar, Volume I. London: W. Strahan, 1755. Joinville, Jean de. The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Seventh Crusade, Thirteenth Century. Trans. Ethel Wedgwood. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1906. King, William. The Art of Cooking. In The Original Works in Verse and Prose of Dr William King, 3 vols. London: N. Conant, 1776. La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. Le Cuisinier françois, eds. J.L. Flandrin, P. Hyman, and M. Hyman. Paris: Montalba, 1983. L.S.R. L’Art de bien trâiter. Paris, F. Léonard, 1674. Merret, Christopher. Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines, presented to the Royal Society. By Dr Merret. Published in Walter Charleton, Two Discourses. London: R. W. for William Whitwood, 1669. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat. Lettres persanes. Paris: P. Pourrat Frères, 1831. Mun, Thomas. England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade Or The Ballance of Our Forraign Trade is the Rule of Our Treasure. London: J.G. for Thomas Clark, 1664. Murrell, John. New Booke of Cookerie. London: M. F. for Iohn Marriot, 1641. Pegge, Samuel. The Forme of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery. London: J. Nichols, 1780 [1390]. Perrin, Pierre. Les Oeuvres de poésie de Mr. Perrin. Paris: Estienne Loyson, 1661. Pisan, Christine de. Le Tresor de la cité des dames de degré en degré et de tous estatz. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg, 2008. http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/26608/26608-h/26608-h.htm Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock, The Poems of Alexander Pope, vol. 2, ed. Geoffrey Tillotson. London: Methuen, 1940. Pope, Alexander. Windsor Forest, Alexander Pope: The Major Works, ed. Pat Rogers. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Prakash, Om. European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Rabisha, William. The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and Fully Manifested, Methodically, Artificially, and According to the Best Tradition of the English,

108 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

French, Italian, Dutch, &c., or, A Sympathy of All Varieties in Natural Compounds in that Mystery. London: E.C., 1675. Roberti, Giovambattista. ‘Ad un professore di Belle Lettere nel Friuli’. In Opere: Coll’aggiunta degli opuscoli postumi dello stesso autore, colle notizieintorno alla sua vita, e con un saggio delle sue lettere familiari. Bassano: a spese Remondini di Venezia, 1797. Taylor, John. Drinke and Welcome: or The famous historie of the most part of drinks in use now in the kingdoms of Great Brittaine and Ireland. London: Anne Griffin, 1637. ‘Le territoire de Beaune abonde en safran et les habitants des environs en font un grand trafic’. Chroniqueur, 1780. Wharton, Thomas. Directions for the Prevention and Cure of the Plague – Fitted for the Poorer Sort. London: J. Grismond, 1665. Woolley, Hannah. The Gentlewoman’s Companion, or a Guide to the Female Sex. London: Dorman and Newman, 1673. Woolley, Hannah. The Queen-like Closet; or, Rich Cabinet Stored with All Manner of Rare Receipts for Preserving, Candying & Cookery. Very Pleasant and Beneficial to All Ingenious Persons of the Female Sex. London: R. Lowndes at the White Lion in Duck-Lane, near West- Smithfield, 1670.

Secondary Literature Applebaum, Robert. Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: Literature, Culture, and Food Among the Early Moderns. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Bartolomeus Anglicus. Batman upon Bartholome, his booke, De proprietatibus rerum, trans. John Trevisa, ed. Stephen Batman. London: Thomas and Lucretia East, 1582. Bennett, Judith. Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World 1300-1600. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Berry, Christopher J. The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste: or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. Trans. M.F.K. Fisher. New York: Heritage, 1949. Buringh, Eltjo and Jan Luiten Van Zanden. ‘Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, a Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries’. The Journal of Economic History 69: 2 (2009), 409–445. Cherry, John. ‘Late Fourteenth-Century Jewellery: The Inventory of November 1399’. The Burlington Magazine 130: 1019 (1988): 137–140. Colquhoun, Kate. Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking. New York: Bloomsbury, 2007.

Primary Sauces: The Rise of Cookbook s, Cuisines, and Corpor ations

109

Cowan, Brian. ‘New Worlds, New Tastes: Food Fashions After the Renaissance’. In Food: The History of Taste, ed. Paul Freedman. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. 197–231. Flandrin, Jean-Louis, and Massimo Montanari, eds. Food: A Culinary History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Forman, Valerie. ‘Transformations of Value and the Production of “Investment” in the Early History of the East India Company’. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34: 3 (2004), 622–623. Freedman, Paul. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Goodman, Jordan. Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Grant, Mark. Galen on Food and Diet. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Hyman, Phillip and Mary Hyman. ‘Printing the Kitchen: French Cookbooks, 1480-1800’. In Food: A Culinary History, eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. Trans. Albert Sonnenfeld. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Irwin, Douglas A. ‘Strategic Trade Policy and Mercantilist Trade Rivalries’. The American Economic Review 82: 2 (May 1992). Laudan, Rachel. ‘The Birth of the Modern Diet’. Scientific American (August 2000), 62–67. Lehmann, Gilly. The British Housewife: Cookery Books, Cooking and Society in Eighteenth- Century Britain. Devon: Prospect Books, 2003. McBride, Charlotte. ‘A Natural Drink for an English Man: National Stereotyping in Early Modern Culture’. In A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in SeventeenthCentury England, ed. Adam Symth. Cambridge, U.K. and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 2004. McCants, Anne E.C. ‘Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard of Living: Thinking about Globalization in the Early Modern World’. Journal of World History 18: 4 (2007), 433–462. Mennell, Stephen. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996. Milton, Giles. Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. New York: Penguin, 2000. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin, 1986. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Morton, Timothy. The Poetics of Spice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

110 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Mukherji, Panchanandas, ed. Indian Constitutional Documents (1600-1918). Vol. I. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co. 1918. Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds the History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Pitte, Jean-Robert, and Jody Gladding, French Gastronomy: Geography of a Passion. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002. Randel, Don Michael. The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Sambrook, Pamela. Country House Brewing in England 1500-1900. London: Bloomsbury, 1996. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants. Trans. David Jacobson. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Standage, Tom. An Edible History of Humanity. New York: Walker & Company, 2009. Steele, Valerie. Paris Fashion: A Cultural History. London: Berg, 1998. Stern, Philip. The Company State: Corporate Sovereignty & the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Strong, Roy. Feast: A History of Grand Eating. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Toussaint-Samat, Marguelonne. A History of Food. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 1994. Turner, Jack. Spice: The History of a Temptation. New York: Vintage Books, 2005. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Wild, Antony. Coffee: A Dark History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005.

Websites Manufactures nationales | Mobilier national. ‘Manufactures nationales présentation.’ Ministère de la Culture, 2017. http://www.mobiliernational.culture.gouv. fr/fr/nous-connaitre/les-manufactures/manufactures-nationales The Society of Apothecaries. ‘History’. The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, 2022. http://apothecaries.org/history

3.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café? Abstract In this chapter, I compare the different trajectories of the development of the Parisian café and the earlier London coffeehouse, in conjunction with the introduction and transmission of the coffee habit in England and France. Despite the circulation of ideas through the intelligentsia, diplomats, and merchants, it took an extra forty years for the French café to appear in Paris. I consider the role of the Franco-Ottoman political relationship, commercial diplomacy, and the mythical influence of Turkish diplomatic envoy, Soliman Aga, in communicating coffee culture to Parisian nobles. I explore how the café in late-seventeenth-century France is a representation of grandeur of the State, and why the English model of the coffeehouse did not succeed in France. Key words: coffeehouse, café, early modern, autarky, grandeur

…we may, with no less truth than plainness, give this brief character of a wellregulated coffee-house ( for our pen disdains to be an advocate for any sordid holes, that assume that name to cloak the practice of debauchery), that it is the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, an academy of civility, and free-school of ingenuity. Anon., Coffee-houses vindicated, 1675 In some of these houses they talk news; in others, they play draughts. There is one where they prepare the coffee in such a manner that it inspires the drinkers of it with wit; at least, of all those who frequent it, there is not one person in four who does not think he has more wit after he has entered that house. But what offends me in these wits is that they do not make themselves useful to their country. Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1721

Van Dyk, G. Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463720175_ch03

112 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

When coffee first appeared in England and France in the first half of the seventeenth century, observers in both places did not describe the drink as intrinsically enjoyable. Despite these reservations of the palate, this unknown beverage imported from Yemen rapidly became the fashionable beverage of choice across much of Europe. Unpleasant in taste, foreign in origin, with potentially enervating physiological effects, how did coffee overcome these obstacles to gain acceptance in England and France? In what ways did the institutions of sociability constructed around the consumption of coffee outside the home play a role in its acceptance? More importantly, how did coffee consumption come to characterise the national identifications of both British and French political cultures in such distinctive ways? And how did the coffeehouse and café reflect the political economies of England and France respectively? An examination of the development of the coffeehouse and café adds to our understanding of the chronology of how conceptions of goods and cultural identity changed beginning in the middle of the seventeenth century. At the same time that effervescence was added to French wines and cookbooks revealed the secrets of court cuisine, new comestibles like coffee and tea were introduced. In evaluating the contingent success of these new developments, the connection between culture and economics is often overlooked, and the acceptance of the new beverages is almost exclusively analysed through the lens of national history. The early history of coffee and institutions that popularised its consumption offers an opportunity to evaluate the comparative acceptance of a new comestible, as opposed to an innovation in winemaking or the rejection of an existing culinary tradition, across the cultural landscape of England and France.

Mercantilism, Myth and Grandeur in the Development of Sociable Spaces In the middle of the seventeenth century, the London coffeehouse emerged as a public venue characterised by egalitarian male sociability and informal networks of information and discourse. As a space, the interior of a coffeehouse was unremarkable, and could scarcely be distinguished from a tavern or alehouse in terms of its furnishing or decoration. Instead, coffeehouses differed from taverns as spaces dedicated to various forms of discourse. Coffeehouses attracted a predominately male clientele interested in specific topics, such as science, commerce, politics, literature and journalism. Polymath scientists, political pundits, East India merchants, poets

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

113

and Grub Street scribblers each had their own institution where views were exchanged, curiosities examined, and hypotheses tested. Initially a product of the interregnum, the coffeehouse filled a vacuum created by the beginning of the Restoration, fuelled by a common desire for novelty, news, and unfettered discourse. Across the Channel, public coffeehouses first appeared in Marseille in the early 1670s, some twenty years after the first English coffeehouse opened in 1652. It took another ten years for the Parisian café to develop into a venue that attracted the attention of the metropolitan elite. The successful model of the Parisian café—as seen in Café Procope, which opened in the late 1680s—was a fashionable space designed for sociability and display. The enduring form of the café functioned as an alternative space to the royal court and the salon and fostered cultural and political discourse between men and women. Unlike the salon, the café did not require an invitation, but the quality of one’s wit, intellect and comportment determined acceptance into an inner circle of intelligentsia or literati. Despite its late start, the Parisian café survived to become an icon of Frenchness, while the London coffeehouse was transformed into clubs and taverns. In part, these changes were responses to microeconomic factors: cheaper tea in England imported by the East India Company overtook coffee as the drink of choice in the eighteenth century; and the increased availability of coffee in France spurred the development of spaces for public consumption and led to the pursuit of botanical imperialism in French colonial territories. Previous studies of coffee consumption, and the development of sociable spaces dedicated to its consumption have located the significance and success of the beverage and the institution in various areas. Using an anthropological framework, some historians have reified coffee as both an agent of the pre-industrial revolution and a drug used to manage an unruly workforce.1 Other discussions have attributed a desire for respectability through consumption in a rational male space or the draw of social emulation to coffee’s appeal and influence on cultural practices.2 Traditional economic explanations explored the role of micro-economic factors, but often assumed both rational consumers and pre-existing demand ready to respond to the supply of new goods, limited only by price and income.3 Each methodology addressed a similar question, from a different perspective: 1 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, pp. 97–99. 2 Smith, Consumption and the Making of Respectability. 3 A comprehensive review of these previous studies is supplied in Cowan, Social Life of Coffee, pp. 7–10.

114 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

how was coffee accepted, and what does that tell us? While the various approaches succeeded at different levels, each also raised a number of corollary questions taken up in this chapter. Functionalist arguments about the adoption of the coffee habit focus on the uses of the beverage, and the corresponding meaning associated with that consumption. Proponents of functionalism suggest that early modern consumers made their choices in an attempt to emulate a social class, or that the requirements of a social class necessitated consumption of a good.4 Traditionally, a trickle-down theory of emulation posits the attempt of aspiring lower classes to imitate the habits of the aristocratic elite. The functional need for a particular class to consume a good, however, has been suggested not only for the social display of wealth or respectability, but also for the productivity of the working class. The multiple uses and meanings of a good for different classes in the same social hierarchy, however, contradict functionalist arguments about coffee. Whether centred on sobriety and productivity or conspicuous consumption, these arguments do not provide a complete explanation for the adoption of the coffee habit. The role of ideological, social, and economic forces, by comparison, provide more convincing explanations of the subjective motivations for the origins of consumer demands. In England, the desire to consume new goods, and coffee in particular, was driven by the cultural ideal of curiosity espoused by the seventeenth-century community of English gentlemen referred to as the ‘virtuosi’, whose endorsement helped to create demand for coffee.5 In France, the introduction of coffee in the seventeenth century emerged from Franco-Ottoman political and trade relations, stimulated further in the century that followed by competing claims for scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment.6 While these forces of supply and demand provide the context for coffee consumption in England and France during this period, the resistance to the development of the cultural practice or social institution in France remains unexplained. By employing a transnational approach to compare the way coffee was introduced and sociable institutions were constructed in both countries, it is possible to understand how the separate trajectories of these developments in England and France reflected and influenced the political economy of each nation-state. More specifically, the 4 Elias, Court Society. 5 Cowan, Social Life of Coffee. This substantial contribution to the study of the social context of coffee consumption is almost exclusively focused on England but suggests that the influence of the virtuosi in England on the development of this practice was mirrored by their French counterparts, with a similar trajectory. 6 Spary, Eating the Enlightenment.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

115

comparative delay in the development of the café relative to the coffeehouse is related to larger economic issues: the alternative responses to mercantilist trade; the differing cultural factors affecting the introduction of exotic beverages and foodstuffs through trade; and the process of naturalisation for imported comestibles in these two countries. In effect, the political economy was folded into the cultural institutions that developed around the consumption of these drinks—the coffeehouse and the café—marking them as English or French. Coffee received a mixed reception in both England and France when it was first introduced in the seventeenth century, but through different cultural processes it became a normative social practice in each nation. There are clues to the question of cultural difference in the contrast between the early French ideal of economic self-sufficiency, or autarky, with the mercantilist maritime trade of England. These differences were also reflected in in the trajectories of their adoption of coffee as a new beverage, and the construction of sociable institutions outside the home designated for its consumption. The difference in the popularity of coffee in England and France was linked to political economy, foreign trade, and the development of sociable environments in which it was consumed. Despite multiple points of cultural and commercial exchange, adoption of the coffee habit, and the rise of the café in France lagged comparable English consumer habits by decades. Even though coffee consumption was more easily rationalised by early modern observers on the basis that it did not promote the licentious behaviour associated with alcohol or opium, its success was contingent upon a number of factors which accelerated or delayed its acceptance. In France, coffee was first embraced by the French nobility, and its wider acceptance is related to the atmosphere of grandeur created within the conceptualisation of the café. This process is reflected in the decoration of the interior space, which featured luxury goods produced in France and referenced the commercial victory of the French economy over foreign imports. This victory was achieved through dirigiste (directed) policies that required monarchical regulation, and culminated in the establishment of colonies which enabled the pursuit of botanical imperialism. As much a part of this story is the question of how coffee arrived in France. The problem of cultural transfer in this case takes us out of the England/ France dyad, to consider the mythical agency of the Ottoman envoy, Soliman Aga, who arrived in Paris in 1669. Why was this single moment of contact with Oriental exoticism considered more influential on the coffee habits of Parisian nobles than the 3,000 coffeehouses on the other side of the English

116 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Channel? The following analysis of how coffee was accepted as a commodity and integrated into cultural practice through new sociable spaces in each country demonstrates that even in the absence of evidence of cross-cultural transmission, the history of national cultures is intrinsically transnational.

Before the Coffeehouse and Café: The ‘Turk’s Physick’ and ‘Eccentricity of a Traveller’ Before coffee arrived in Europe, Europeans discovered it ‘abroad’. Early travellers tried to familiarise the alien comestible through reference to the Ancients, and in opposition to stupefying drugs, until the beverage was naturalised through the mediation of a sociable space. English traveller George Sandys’ description of Turkish coffee habits in A Relation of a Journey begun in An. Dom. 1610 provides a typical response to a first encounter with coffee: Although they be destitute of Taverns, yet have they their Coffa-houses, which something resemble them. There sit they chatting most of the day; and sip of a drink called Coffa (of which the berry that it is made of) in little China dishes, as hot as they can suffer it: black as soot, and tasting not much unlike it.7

Sandys then invoked the approval of the Ancients by suggesting coffee is Nepenthe, the potion that cures sorrow, before citing its stimulant properties, ‘(why not that black broth which was in use among the Lacedemonians?) which helpeth, as they say, digestion and procureth alacrity’. His description turned to the negative associations of Turkish coffeehouses and argued in the same breath against another Asian drug—opium: many of the Coffa-men, keeping beautifull boyes, who serve as stales to procure them customers. The Turks are also incredible takers of Opium… carrying it about them both in peace and in warre; which they say expelleth all fear, and makes them courageous: but I think rather giddy-headed and turbulent dreamers.8

Sandys separated coffee, an invigorating beverage worthy of the Spartans, from the dissolute behaviour of the Turkish coffeehouse, with young boys 7 Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, pp. 51–52. 8 Sandys, p. 52.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

117

used as decoys to lure customers inside. Opium is presented as the inverse of coffee, capable of providing false courage, but also leading to foolishness. This parallel construction showed that not all new Asian drugs were considered desirable, nor were the Eastern modes of consumption necessarily appropriate, even if the underlying good was deemed beneficial. Coffee was f irst described by travellers like Sandys and merchants who encountered it during voyages in the East, then by physicians and scientists who examined it in Europe. In the mid-seventeenth century, coffee consumed in England was imported from Yemen by merchant traders. Before this time, however, it was a trading commodity for English merchants within Asia beginning in 1621.9 Merchants brought into contact with coffee from intra-Asian trade returned to England with coffee for personal consumption, as significant quantities of coffee were not shipped to England until 1657.10 Despite decades of familiarity with coffee through trade within Asia, English merchants did not automatically ship large quantities home, assuming demand for the new beverage on the basis of its novelty. It was not until after the first English coffeehouses had been established in the early 1650s that the East India Company committed to importing substantial quantities of coffee. The wider acceptance of coffee by early modern consumers in England was eased by the perception, as promoted by traveller’s accounts, that coffee was an invigorating comestible, not like marijuana or opium—drugs which dulled the senses. Enthusiasm for the new stimulant is found in Judge Walter Rumsey’s letter to Henry Blount regarding Blount’s travel account promoting coffee consumption in England: ‘I lately understood that your discovery, in your excellent Book of Travels, hath brought the use of the Turk’s Physick, of Cophie, in great request in England.’11 Seventeenth-century commentators who already favoured temperance saw the potential for coffee to replace alcohol, and put forward utilitarian arguments citing the benefits to commerce from the increased productivity of a sober workforce. 9 Maloni, Route to European Hegemony, p. 183. 10 Letter from Thomas Rastell to Nathaniel Mounteny (in Ahmadabad) November 8, 1630, (Bombay Record Off ice: Surat Factory Outward Letter Book, vol. I, 64). ‘Desire them to buy cinnamon and Cohoo, which is worth here at present 15 mahmudis per Mand, at which price you may embolden to buy, namely the seed called Bann and not the husks, for betwixt those two there is a great difference in price.’ The need to differentiate between the coffee bean and husk suggests that coffee was not a familiar trading commodity at the time. This purchase would have been for trade within Asia. Foster, English Factories in India. 11 Rumsey, Organon Salutis, a4.

118 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

The introduction of coffee in England presented a clear-headed alternative to the consumption of various forms of alcohol throughout the day—including the traditional morning meal of stale bread mixed with small ale, often home-brewed. Water was not potable in this period due to the presence of pathogens, and ale and beer were consumed both for hydration and caloric value as a sort of liquid bread. While there was still the potential for intoxication, the alcohol content of home-brewed ale was lower than the offerings at the public house or tavern. Average English family consumption in the seventeenth century was estimated at three litres for each person per day (including children).12 Accounts of beer at breakfast conjure an image of early modern Europeans stumbling about in an alcoholic fog until they emerged from their miasma by consuming coffee—the elixir of enlightenment. James Howell remarked on the increased productivity brought to England by starting the day with coffee, in the preface to Judge Walter Rumsey’s Oragnon salutis (1657): …this Coffee drink hath caused a greater sobriety among the Nations: For whereas formerly Apprentices and Clerks with others, used to take their morning draughts in Ale, Beer or Wine, which by the dizziness they cause in the Brain, make many unfit for business, they use now to play the Good-fellows in this wakeful and civil drink: Therefore that worthy Gentleman, Mr Mudiford, who introduced the practice to London, deserves much respect of the whole Nation.13

Another early adopter of the coffee habit was the English physician William Harvey, doctor to Charles I, best known for his discovery of the human circulatory system. Harvey’s brother, Eliab, brought the practice back from his travels as a merchant and shared it with William. John Aubrey’s biography of William Harvey mentions the brothers’ early use of coffee: ‘I remember he was wont to drink coffee; which he and his brother did, before coffee-houses were in fashion in London.’14 Harvey’s coffee consumption is further confirmed by the coffee pot he left to his sister in his will. In 1657, a coffee pot was not a standard household item and would have been a source of some curiosity to the recipient.15 12 Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise, p. 98. 13 Rumsey, Organon Salutis, b3. 14 Aubrey, Brief Lives, p. 132. 15 Keynes, Life of William Harvey, p. 470.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

119

Coffee was not universally embraced, even in England, in spite of the perception that its stimulant properties encouraged productivity and the respectability of sobriety. Resistance to the popular habit was often based on concerns about the foreign origin of the beverage, coupled with a denouncement of novelty. The ‘sobering’ quality of coffee was also discounted by critics who claimed it only enabled greater consumption of alcohol. English author Thomas Tryon rejected coffee as a time-wasting trend: In a word, coffee is the drunkard’s settle-brain, the fool’s pastime, who admires it for being the production of Asia, and is ravished with delight when he hears the berries grow in the deserts of Asia, but would not give a farthing of it, if it were to be had on Hampstead-Heath or Banstead Downs.16

Similarly, the faddishness and foreignness of coffee were denounced in The Women’s Petition against Coffee (1674). The anonymous author blamed the foreign beverage for killing the male libido: Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE, which Riffling Nature of her Choicest Treasures…has so Eunuch’d our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age, and as unfruitful as those Desarts whence that unhappy Berry is said to be brought.17

The petition recommended a return to English ale, which would reverse the enfeebling effects of coffee and ‘a Race of Lusty Hero’s begot, able by their Atchievments, to equal the Glories of our Ancesters’.18 English ale, not ‘foreign’ beer, was offered as a home-brewed panacea capable of restoring English reproductive capacity. While the threat of infertility and erectile dysfunction may have given coffee drinkers pause for thought, English coffee consumption continued unabated. For some observers, coffee offered an alternative to alcohol consumption and enjoyed a positive association with Eastern medicine. For critics, however, coffee only encouraged more drunkenness and was only popular because of its novelty and exotic associations. In describing its benefits, proponents never described coffee as being English, only that its properties 16 Tryon, Good Housewife Made a Doctor, pp. 213–214. 17 Women’s Petition against Coffee, np. 18 Women’s Petition against Coffee, np.

120 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

were desirable. Coffee was not naturalised like other imported commodities. Instead, its foreignness was mediated through the purposeful sociability of an English institution—the coffeehouse. Some twenty years after the first English imports, coffee was brought into France through maritime trade. Jean de la Roque, brother to the Mercure de France author Antoine de la Roque, wrote about the introduction of coffee to Marseille in 1644.19 Soon after it arrived in Marseille, local merchants embraced the beverage, and imported it for their personal use in their homes, a trend which also took hold in Lyon. Despite the popularity of coffee in Provence and Lyons, coffee was not well-known in Paris until 1669.20 An earlier introduction of coffee in 1658 by a French traveller, the polyglot and botanist Jean de Thévenot, noted by orientalist and translator Antoine Galland, in his De l’Origine et du progress du café, did not make enough of an impression for the fashion to take hold in Paris: I heard from the late Mr. de la Croix, interpreter in Turkish, that Mr. Thévenot, the traveller in the Levant, nephew of Mr. Thévenot who died three years ago, was the first who brought it to Paris for his use, on his return from his first trip, and that he often regaled his friends [with it], & that at home, he had almost always continued to practice this habit since that time.21

Thévenot’s description of Turkish coffee, included in his 1659 memoir Relation d’un voyage fait au Levant, recounts French merchants using coffee as part of their work routine, ‘When our French merchants have a lot of letters to write, and they want to be able to work all night long, they drink a cup of coffee or two in the evening.’22 While Thévenot claimed that he was the individual responsible for first bringing coffee to France, he could not make any assertion that he influenced its acceptance in Paris. Le Grand d’Aussy’s account of his presentation of coffee to guests after dinner in La Vie privée des Français was not positive, Thévenot used it in Paris, when he came back from his travels in 1658 and when he entertained, he never missed a chance to treat his guest to it. But that was only an eccentricity of a traveller, which, among a society like 19 La Roque, Voyage de l’Arabie, p. 363. 20 Le Grand D’Aussy, La Vie privée des Français, vol. 3, p. 109. 21 Galland, De l’Origine et du progrès du café. 22 Thévenot, Voyage fait au levant, p. 63.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

121

the Parisians would never catch on. To raise the status of coffee and give it some merit, there needed to be an extraordinary and striking event.23

Thévenot’s attempt to cultivate the coffee habit did not take root and was dismissed by Le Grand d’Aussy as the idiosyncrasy of a traveller putting on airs to impress his guests. Coffee had made enough of an impression, however, that it appeared in verse in the weekly La Muse de la Cour dédiée à Monseigneur le Dauphin in 1666.24 The author, Subligny, complained of a headache and recommended coffee as a more effective, and less painful, cure than being bled: Farewell: I have such a terrible headache / That I don’t know which way to turn / And if it doesn’t stop / They will order me to be bled / But I care little for bleeding / I would rather take KAVÉ [coffee]…This word KAVÉ surprises you; / It’s an Arabian drink. / Or if you prefer, TURKISH / That everyone in the LEVANT drinks; / …We find it in AFRICA, or we find it in ASIA, / It passed through ITALY, / in HOLLAND and ENGLAND / they find it very useful.25

Subligny concluded with advice on the availability of coffee in Paris, and its reputation as a miracle drug capable of re-invigorating the most fatigued of husbands: And some ARMENIANS, who are in this city, / Brought it to the FRENCH / Its virtues are unequalled, / The whole world knows this, / And for women especially it performs miracles / When their husbands drink it.26

Despite this rousing endorsement of coffee, it did not gain enough in popularity to become an established habit in noble society in Paris at the time. The stimulant properties claimed by proponents of coffee in France were also linked to impotence and nervous disorders in a thesis defence presented at the town hall in Marseille in 1679. A medical student, Claude Colomb, argued a series of questions before his examiners, including ‘Is coffee prejudicial to the inhabitants of Marseille?’27 Physicians in the city 23 Le Grand D’Aussy, La Vie privée des Français vol. 3, p. 109. 24 Subligny, La Muse de la Cour, vol. 2, p. 526. 25 Subligny, p. 526. 26 Subligny, p. 526. 27 La Roque, Voyage de l’Arabie, p. 368.

122 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

had become concerned by the rising popularity of coffee, and set up the examination as a thinly disguised attempt to validate their position by publicly discrediting its health benefits. In his response, Colomb described the action of particles in coffee: being spread into the blood…whence attacking the brain, and having sucked up the moisture there…they keep the pores open, and hinder the animal spirits which cause sleep from ascending into the brain…these particles…occasion such long wakefulness that the nervous juice which is necessary to recruit the spirits wholly failing…and thence proceed palsies and impotence.28

In this period, coffee was attacked not only on the basis of its unhealthy effects on the body, but also the impact the foreign beverage would have on consumption of wine: Among the infinite number of remedies with which the Arabians have… overwhelmed Medicine, there is none which has been more universally accepted by all nations than coffee…it is sold at a low price in public places, but even among us, this drink by the many good effects ascribed to it, has almost put down the use of wine.29

Having established that it was unhealthy, foreign and a threat to the local wine trade, the physicians from the University of Aix declared coffee was ‘harmful’ to the inhabitants of Marseille.30 Despite the proclamation, coffee consumption in Marseille remained unchanged. In this era of new comestibles, the physicians’ warnings were no match for the seductive power of novelty, even if the beverage in question was the preferred drink of ‘Arabians’.

Rationalising Luxury in Early Modern Political Economy From the middle of the seventeenth century, the nascent consumers of Europe were confronted with new comestibles and modes of consumption. London and Paris, as metropolitan centres, were inundated with a bewildering array of imported goods, foodstuffs, medicines, and beverages 28 La Roque, p. 287. 29 La Roque, p. 369. 30 La Roque, pp. 285–287.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

123

like coffee, tea, and chocolate. In the competition for the attention of the burgeoning consumer, the qualities of novelty, exoticism, and luxury were double-edged marketing tools, as has been shown in the arguments put forward by advocates and critics of coffee consumption. While the newness of a product appealed to consumers who demanded something they had never seen before, there was also the challenge of overcoming the initial apprehension of buyers confronted with the unfamiliar. Striking the balance to present products which were new, but not incomprehensible, made it difficult for new goods to gain a foothold in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Exotic provenance was another strong selling point, but again the foreign origin of goods was often met with ambivalence, especially when a new food or drink was introduced. The ability to rationalise a comestible within an existing framework of dietary science, either Galenic or Paracelsian, paved the way for acceptance beyond the shelves of the apothecary.31 Luxury, especially when coupled with exoticism and novelty, was a selling point which offered an opportunity for differentiation, provided that purchasing power was not the sole criterion for fashionable consumption. The fashion for luxury goods was legitimised on both sides of the Channel, but only in terms of the value which accrued to the public good. Bernard Mandeville’s The Grumbling Hive (1705) rationalised luxury as the driving force behind trade: ‘…whilst luxury / Employed a million of the poor / And odious pride a million more / Envy itself and vanity, / Were ministers of industry / Their darling folly, fickleness, / In diet, furniture and dress, / That strange ridiculous vice, was made / The very wheel that turned the trade.’32 A later version of this work, The Fable of the Bees (1714), was subtitled ‘Private Vices, Publick Benefits.’ This maxim encapsulates his view that luxury is immoral, but can lead to increased prosperity: ‘that private vices by the dexterous management of a skilful politician may be turned into publick benefits.’33 In France, this public good is attributed to the judicious rule of the king, while in England the public good was described in terms of the collective benefit of consumer spending. John Houghton, Fellow of the Royal Society of London and author of the weekly A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade went so far in his endorsement of conspicuous consumption as to describe the benefit to the nation of the seven deadly sins, stating in his letters, ‘Our High-Living is so far from Prejudicing the 31 Freedman, Food: The History of Taste, p. 214. 32 Mandeville, Grumbling Hive, p. 25. 33 Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, vol. 1, p. 369.

124 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Nation that it enriches it’, and noted that pride, vanity and gluttony created ‘more Wealth to the Kingdom than loss to private estates’.34 The language of English economic thought in this period reflects the relative autonomy of the English mercantile economy, despite its origins in royal-chartered joint stock companies such as the East India Company. Rather than deriving benefit from the state, the consumption generated by trade and manufacture is shown as providing benefit to the state. By the early eighteenth century, the value of trade in the small luxuries represented by imported comestibles was expressed by Addison in terms of commercial imperialism: ‘Our ships are laden with the harvest of every climate: our tables are stored with spices and oils and wines…our morning’s draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth…Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire’.35 In contrast, the French goal of autarky promulgated by the monarchy, not luxury created by merchants, is presented in Antoine Montchrétien’s 1615 Traité de l’œconomie politique.36 He denounced French consumption of foreign luxuries, but allowed that luxury is to be encouraged, but only if the French retained the profit. Montchrétien advocated economic selfsufficiency, which he claimed was achievable as spice was the only resource unavailable in France: This kingdom is so flourishing, so abundant in everything that one can desire, that it does not need to borrow anything from its neighbours…who does not know that this is the order of the entelechy of States…Only one thing you lack Great State, is knowledge of yourself and the use of power.37

Montchrétien’s assertion that order, as exercised by the absolute power of the monarch realised the potential glory of the state through economic self-sufficiency, revised the division of political and economic power put forth by Jean Bodin four decades earlier: ‘All power to rule… is public or private: the public power belongs to the sovereign who determines the laws, or in the person of the magistrates…private power lies with the heads of households.’38 34 Houghton, Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, p. 62. 35 Addison, The Spectator, No. 69. 36 Montchrétien, Traicté de l’œconomie politique. See Chapter 4 for further discussion of Montchrétien’s advocacy of colonisation to increase the economic power of the state. 37 Montchrétien, pp. 225, 234, 240. 38 Bodin, Six livres de la République, vol. 1, p. 13.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

125

In England, conversely, the private power of commerce, not the prudent ruler, ensures the public’s welfare. East India Company commissioner and economist Edward Misselden reinforced this in his 1623 treatise, The Circle of Commerce: ‘Is not gaine the end of trade? Is not the publique involved in the private, and the private in the publique? What else makes a Common-wealth but the private-wealth, if I may so say, of the members thereof in the exercise of Commerce amongst themselves and with forraine Nations?’39 Misselden’s defence of private commerce emphasises not only the benefits to the public of seemingly self-interested merchants, but also the intertwined relationship of public and private interests. This legitimisation of luxury was extended to coffee through the emergence of institutions devoted to consumption. The differing nature of the respective institutions in Paris and London are linked to the arguments put forward by writers like Montchrétien and Houghton, who rationalised luxury in terms of benefit to the state. In France, the café developed as a symbol of the grandeur enabled by absolutism and the self-sufficiency of French luxury production. Despite the enduring power of the myth that an envoy from the Ottoman Empire introduced coffee to Parisian nobility in 1669, the café emerged as a space that both reflected the economic policies of Colbert and the magnificence of France. Regulation of the guilds and the patents required to prepare and sell coffee extended the reach of the state into the private realm, which developed into a space that provided an alternative to court society by emulating its grandeur. The London coffeehouse, by contrast, offered an alternative space to the university and Royal Society. Through its nominally ‘sober’ atmosphere, the exchange of scientific ideas linked to trade and commerce mediated the foreignness and luxury of coffee through an environment dedicated to the purposeful improvement of England. Unlike the public house or tavern, a coffeehouse offered an invigorating beverage, sharpening mental acuity. Coffee offered a lucid alternative to beer and wine that dulled the mind, hindered productivity and encouraged dissolute behaviour, all of which ran counter to the clear-headed goals of the proponents of the coffeehouse—the virtuosi.

The Success of the Coffeehouse and the Influence of the Virtuosi English virtuosi were largely members of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge established in 1660, but the title 39 Misselden, Circle of Commerce, p. 17.

126 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

could be applied equally to artists, antiquarians and physicians. This group of intellectually curious men pursued knowledge not only for its own sake, but also for its practical applications in maritime trade, manufacturing, and agriculture. Notable English virtuosi included the physicist, and director of the East India Company, Robert Boyle; polymath and curator of experiments to the Royal Society, Robert Hooke; the architect Christopher Wren; the publisher and apothecary, Houghton; and the physician and collector, Hans Sloane. 40 Detractors claimed the virtuosi were merely fascinated by gimcracks and trifles, pursuing the unexplained only as long as it provided the titillation of curiosity—but the enduring legacy of experiments and discoveries of the most notable individuals refutes this claim. The early success of the coffeehouse in London has been attributed to the influence of the virtuosi, who championed the institution as an alternative public meeting space for like-minded men. 41 The London coffeehouse offered an opportunity for men to observe scientific experiments, free of the perceived pedantry and exclusion of the Royal Society. The organisation was criticised by Thomas Hobbes for only admitting members who already subscribed to the Society’s philosophy.42 This contrasted sharply with their Latin motto, Nullius in verba, loosely translated as ‘take no one’s word for it’. Robert Hooke noted that while attendance at Royal Society public lectures at Gresham College was very low, the demonstrations performed at coffeehouses were well attended, in part because the coffeehouse allowed, as he noted in his diary: ‘business and pleasure to be conducted under the same roof’.43 In its ideal form, by the latter decades of the seventeenth century, the coffeehouse provided a wealth of knowledge to a wider audience, reaching not only learned men, but also practitioners, and tradesmen, who scrutinised abstract theories through the lens of practical application. An ode to this idealised character of the coffeehouse published in 1673 as Coffeehouses Vindicated extolled its virtues: you have here the most civil so ‘tis generally the most Intelligent Society, The frequenting whose Converse, and observing their Discourses and Department cannot but civilize our manners, Inlarge our understandings, refine our Language, teach us a generous confidence and handsome Mode of Address.44 40 Hanson, English Virtuoso, pp. 9–11. 41 Cowan, Social Life of Coffee, p. 11. 42 Ellis, Coffee-House, p. 258. 43 Ellis, p. 258. 44 Coffee-houses vindicated, p. 5.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

127

Another pamphlet used biting satire to complain that the coffeehouse did not discriminate on the basis of social status. In The Character of a Coffee-house (1673), the author criticises the ‘hodge-podge’ of patrons frequenting such establishments: ‘each man seems a Leveller, and ranks and files himself as he lists, without regard to degree or order’. The pamphleteer emphasises the eclectic mix with an acerbic portrait of the denizens, both prosperous and picaresque: ‘you may see a silly fop, a worshipful justice, a griping rook, a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer, and an errant pickpocket, a reverend Nonconformist, and a canting mountebank, all blended together.’45 While the author was clearly opposed to the lack of social distinction, this egalitarianism offered an alternative space for education and information, open to all. Contemporary descriptions of coffeehouses emphasised the variety of the clientele, the availability of news, and the quality of the discourse, but were not enthusiastic in their evaluation of the interior space. The most scathing descriptions appeared in The London Spy, a monthly periodical written by Edward Ward from 1698–1700, and published as a collection in 1703, His observations on coffeehouses focus on the stench of pipe smoke and the unadorned interiors: ‘the whole room stinking of Tobacco, like a Dutch-Scoot or a boatswain’s cabin…a broken floor, like an old stable, windows mended with brown-paper; and bare walls full of dust and cobwebs.’46 Even after discounting Ward’s account as a lampoon of London society, it is clear that the company, not the décor, was the main appeal of the coffeehouse. The range of discourse and demonstrations on offer led to coffeehouses being referred to as ‘penny universities’, charging a penny for admission and became a nexus for the exchange of not only ideas, but also the latest news.47 The availability of newspapers and pamphlets, shipping reports, and share prices made the coffeehouse a crucial destination for men who desired current information, and a space in which to exchange views. Houghton noted in his weekly in 1692 the availability of daily updates on share prices at Garraway’s Coffee-House, reporting ‘what Prices the Actions bear of most Companies trading in Joynt-Stocks’, which he proposed to distribute in his periodical to all of England. 48 In the same year, Edward Lloyd published the daily marine list, detailing all English ship arrivals and departures at home and overseas. He collected this information from customers at his 45 Character of a Coffee-house. 46 Ward, The London Spy, p. 11, pp. 28–29. 47 Ellis, Penny Universities. 48 Houghton, Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, p. 1.

128 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

coffeehouse, first located in Tower Street near the Navy Office, and later from Lombard Street, closer to Exchange Alley. While the list was published and sold publicly, it was first read aloud and posted in the coffeehouse, making attendance obligatory for merchants and traders who required the most recent shipping news. Lloyd’s became a logical centre for maritime insurance underwriting, later transforming from public coffeehouse into an exclusive business where information was only available to paid members.49 Despite all the positive attributes associated with coffeehouses, the establishment was not immune to criticism. The Women’s Petition Against Coffee targeted the institution in addition to the beverage, and alleged that instead of encouraging sobriety, coffee was used as a precursor to drinking, or as cure from drinking too much. Rather than being an alternative to alcohol, coffee actually encouraged greater consumption: The Coffee-house being in truth, only a Pimp to the Tavern, a relishing soop preparative to a fresh debauch…till every one of them is as Drunk as a Drum, and then back again to the Coffee-house to drink themselves sober… Thus like Tennis Balls between two Rackets, the Fopps our Husbands are bandied to and fro all day between the Coffee-house and Tavern, whilst we poor Souls sit mopeing all alone till Twelve at night.50

The damage to marital relations was not the only casualty claimed, as the inability to reproduce was also expressed as a danger to the population, and by extension, fighting men and producers of goods, ‘the Off-Spring of Mighty Ancestors Dwindled into a Succession of Apes and Pigmies’. The suggestion that coffeehouses were not benef icial to England is strongly contrasted by the tangible value ascribed to the institution by John Houghton. He commented on the significant impact of coffeehouses on trade, manufacturing, and commerce in his weekly broadsheet, A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade (1699): ‘As to the Political uses of Coffee, I am told that our Three Kingdoms spend about a hundred Tun a year…if it were all to be sold in Coffee-houses…it would find employment for 6,174 persons…How little is this Trade when thus considered, and how greatly may it be improved’.51 Houghton specifically references his assessment in terms of political economy, expressed as potential employment. He also recognised the importance of re-exporting coffee and claimed that 49 Dale, The First Crash, p. 13. 50 Women’s Petition against Coffee. 51 Houghton, ‘A Discourse of Coffee’, pp. 316–317.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

129

domestic consumption would influence foreign demand. Encouragement of domestic consumption of goods imported by the East India Company not only benefitted the English economy at import, but also served as a model for emulation by foreign consumers, whose demands were met by re-export of company goods: Besides, what we use, we send a great deal abroad, and I doubt not but that in a short time the gain of what we send abroad will pay the first cost of all we shall spend at home, and I believe one of the best ways to make advantage of Foreign Trade is to use such Wares much at home, and that will teach all we trade with to follow our Example; it does thus in Silks, Calicoes, Pepper, Tobacco and several other things.52

Houghton also saw the complementary economic value of goods sold with coffee in the coffeehouse, as well as the utility derived from social contact: ‘Furthermore coffee has increased the Trade of Tobacco and Pipes, Earthen dishes, Tin wares, News-papers, Coals, Candles, Sugar, Tea, Chocolate and what not? Coffee-house makes all sorts of People sociable, they improve Arts, and Merchandize, and all other Knowledge’.53 For Houghton, the coffeehouse was a public venue offering not only an egalitarian social environment, but also the opportunity for improvement through the acquisition, and exchange, of practical knowledge. In the late seventeenth century, communication between the loosely defined societies of scholars in England and France—the virtuosi and the savants and curieux—allowed for the cross-cultural exchange of information about coffee. The Parisian counterparts of the English virtuosi were known variously as the curieux, and the savants. Seventeenth-century categories of disciplinary expertise were far less rigid, and there was considerable overlap between what we would consider natural sciences and the humanities. Any collective terms used in this period to describe individual intellectual pursuits should be considered fluid, and more inclusive than restrictive.54 Likewise, institutional affiliations are not definitive, as membership could be granted or withheld for any number of reasons, not limited to academic or intellectual qualification. Before the establishment of the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1666, noble men met in less formal settings in the homes of affluent curieux, 52 Houghton, p. 317. 53 Houghton, p. 317. 54 Hanson, English Virtuoso, pp. 7–9.

130 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

called cabinets. Similar to the virtuosi the membership of the cabinets also included men involved with anitiquarianism and science.55 The founding members of the Académie Royale des Sciences, however, were more accurately described as savants, polymath scientists and mathematicians, less focused on the study of the Orient.56 Originally, Colbert had envisioned a grande académie which would cover all disciplines, including the study of Oriental languages.57 In its more limited form, the French academy was overseen by Colbert, but made its own rules for organisation and operation. While he anticipated practical applications from the Academy’s investigations, their findings were not disseminated through the lectures, demonstrations or publications of the type associated with the Royal Society. Instead, the Academy functioned more like a self-regulating cabinet, albeit with royal prerogative and funding. In 1699, the Academie Royale des Sciences was transformed through formalised rules and procedures, including public events, with the Louvre used as a forum for proceedings open to a privileged public. This differentiation of the savants and curieux may in part explain the more limited nature of cultural exchange between the respective intelligentsia. The English champions of coffee may have had less contact with the Orientalist curieux, and the savants were more private in communicating their findings than fellows of the Royal Society, who brought science into the London coffeehouses.

Soliman Aga and the Fashionability of Coffee in France While the nature of the cultural exchange between the intellectual communities may not have facilitated the transmission of the English coffee habit, French diplomats, merchants and Orientalists had direct contact with the practice through the diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. As a result of the diplomatic accord established by François I in 1536, the 55 Hanson, p. 227. 56 Orientalist Melchisédech Thévenot is credited for inspiring the formation of the Académie des Sciences, which was influenced by his own informal organisation, the Compagnie des sciences et des arts. Thévenot’s plan for an academy, however, considered the arts (not included in the royal academy) as an important methodological balance to the sciences. He also advocated experimentation in private social spaces, not open to the public. See Dobre and Nyden, Cartesian Empiricisms, pp. 65 and 70. Thévenot was admitted to the Académie, but not until 1685. ‘Liste des members depuis la creation de l’Académie des sciences’. Académie des sciences. Institut de France, 2022. http://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Liste-des-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-lAcademie-des-sciences/les-membres-du-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-t.html 57 Dew, Orientalism in Louis XIV’s France, p. 42.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

131

capitulations,58 France was the first European state to establish an embassy in the Ottoman Empire, and the Levantine trade was the most significant commercial relationship for France outside of Europe.59 Despite all these opportunities for cultural exchange, the fashion for coffee did not take hold in Paris until late in the seventeenth century. Coffee was not unknown in Paris before this time, but it took much longer to be established as a domestic habit, and even then it had not gained the approval of the social elite. Instead, the event credited by Le Grand d’Aussy for raising the profile of coffee with nobles in Paris was the arrival of the Turkish ambassador of Sultan Mehmed IV, Soliman Aga, in 1669. According to d’Aussy’s account, the ambassador stayed in Paris for eight months and frequently received distinguished visitors, including a number of women, who were curious about the customs and culture of the East. Seduced by the exoticism of being served by a Turk, and the refinement of service in delicate porcelain cups presented with napkins embroidered with gold, French women succumbed to coffee. If French men had served it, the author claimed, coffee would not have been received with the same level of enthusiasm. The habit of Parisian nobles, as portrayed in this account, developed from visitors who had experienced the exoticism of the Oriental coffee ritual, and attempted to re-create the experience in their own homes.60 While this theory of cultural transmission has undeniable appeal, and has been often repeated, there is little support for the claim.61 The embassy of Soliman Aga was certainly extraordinary, but not because it introduced coffee to Paris. Coffee was a known commodity when he arrived, served by Jean de Thévenot in 1657 and praised in Subligny’s verse, although a widespread habit had not been established.62 Underlying the myth of cultural exchange, the history of diplomatic visits from the Ottoman Empire before 1669 provides a context for Soliman Aga’s visit. It was unusual for a diplomatic representative of any kind from the Ottoman Empire to visit France. Only five such visits had occurred in the 58 Gocek, East Encounters West, p. 9. 59 McCluskey, ‘Commerce before Crusade?’ pp. 3–4. 60 Le Grand D’Aussy, La Vie privée des Français, p. 3. 61 Landweber, ‘‘This Marvelous Bean’’, p. 201. As Landweber notes, the myth has been repeated by historians from de la Roque and Le Grand d’Aussy to E.C. Spary. 62 This is supported by household manuals as late as 1692 that provided basic instruction to staff unfamiliar with coffee: ‘le servirez avec des pourcelines & du Sucre en poudre pour y en metre suivant qu’on l’aime. Le Caffé est une graine qui vient de Perse & autres pays du Levant, dont il est la boisson naturelle & le plus ordinaire.’ Audiger, La Maison reglée, 265.

132 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

previous 130 years. While this first-hand contact with the exotic and novel visitor was given much attention in the Gazette de France, much of the attention centred on how impressed they expected him to be or suggested the irresistible allure of French women and the intriguing attraction of this inscrutable Infidel from the seraglio: Soliman Aga had the title muteferrika, which indicated he was part of the Sultan’s personal staff. His diplomatic status, however, was unknown—his letter de créance—stipulating the powers conferred on him by the Sultan—were contained in a sealed letter, which Aga had been instructed to deliver only to Louis XIV himself. He had a letter addressed to the French Grand Vizir—but there was no equivalent governmental official to receive this letter. As the visit had been precipitated by Louis XIV sending three armed warships to recall his ambassador, and France had just sent troops and ships to fight Ottoman forces on the verge of seizing Crete, this sudden and unusual embassy smacked of diplomatic brinksmanship. Was Soliman Aga an ambassador—and entitled to the ceremonies and protocols of a plenipotentiary? Or was he merely a messenger—and therefore not entitled to an audience with the king? D’Arvieux’s memoirs provide a valuable account of the events. In consultation with Louis XIV and the king’s maître de la garde-robe, the secretary for foreign affairs, de Lionne, decided to engage in a diplomatic pantomime by receiving Soliman Aga in exactly the same way a French ambassador would be received in the Porte Sublime: in the uniform dress of a Turkish Grand Vizir, seated on a lit de repos, covered with Persian carpets, and strewn with cushions. The meeting was held in a maison particulier in Suresnes, where Soliman Aga was kept waiting for hours, as French diplomats often were in the Porte Sublime, and, as was customary in the Ottoman Empire, he was offered coffee while he waited. Once received by de Lionne, the visit did not go well. Laurent d’Arvieux was at court attempting to secure himself a position when he was asked to attend the reception as an observer (to check the accuracy of the translations of the French experts as well as the translator travelling with Soliman Aga). According to d’Arvieux, the meeting only lasted fifteen minutes. The royal interpreters could not translate spoken Turkish. They also could not translate Aga’s letter without their dictionaries, which were in their libraries in Paris. D’Arvieux intervened to provide some assistance, but it was clear that the meeting would have to be re-convened, with d’Arvieux as interpreter. To signal the end of the meeting, as Turkish protocol dictated, coffee, sherbet and parfums were served. Aside from the failed attempt to teach the Turks an ironic diplomatic lesson, and the shocking inability of the king’s Oriental specialists to

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

133

communicate, this meeting was an inversion of cultural practice. Despite the repeated historic myths, Soliman Aga did not bring coffee to Paris—coffee was served to him. At the second meeting de Lionne gave a prepared speech (which was printed and distributed in advance) that dispelled, at length, the notion that he was a Grand Vizier, and asserted the absolute authority and grandeur of Louis XIV. Soliman Aga repeated the formal exchanges of pleasantries which had been included in his letter for the French Grand Vizier, and then remarked curtly that he did not care how the French government was run, his only interest was to deliver the Sultan’s letter to the king, and no one else. A month later, Aga was received by Louis XIV, resplendent in diamonds, seated on a golden throne. The diary of Olivier Ormesson Lefèvre estimated the value of the king’s outf it at 14 million livres.63 Soliman Aga was unimpressed—and allegedly remarked that his master decorated his horse with more diamonds.64 At last, Soliman Aga produced his letter, but requested that the king rise to receive it. The king refused. He allowed Soliman Aga to approach and place it on his knees. The king handed it to de Lionne, who handed it to Laurent d’Arvieux who scanned the letter for the word which would indicate Soliman’s status—but the word ‘eltchi’, Turkish for ambassador, was not there. Louis XIV had been duped into receiving a messenger, resplendent in diamonds. Aga was summarily dismissed and forced to wait five months for a reply, and leave to return home, from Louis XIV. It is in the wake of this embarrassing encounter that the cultural transfer of the coffee habit purportedly occurred. Coffee was already known in Paris but not widely accepted—and no public institution had been established for its consumption—unlike in England where the practice and the institution date from the 1650s. The eighteenth-century attribution of cultural transmission to an impostor from the Ottoman Empire seems unlikely when there was a well-established coffee habit just across the Channel, yet Le Grand d’Aussy’s contention was that it was the exoticism and style of service that influenced adoption of the habit. Was Le Grand d’Aussy’s attribution based on the increased diplomatic and commercial contact in the seventeenth century, or the renewed interest in Turkish dress and decorative arts in the eighteenth century? Rather than acknowledging the cultural borrowing from England, Le Grand d’Aussy looks east rather than west. This refusal, 63 Ormesson, Ormesson, and Chéreul, Journal d’Olivier Lefèvre d’Ormesson, p. 578. 64 Despite the dubious nature of this remark, even its fabrication reflects the animosity of French commentators to the Turkish visitor at the time.

134 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

in the eighteenth century, to recognise the English contribution echoes the introduction of effervescence in French wine. In considering the influence of developments in the seventeenth century, the French Levant company was founded the next year in 1670,65 and two plays featuring Turkish themes (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Bajazet) appeared in the next two years—but at the same time, the grandeur of the French king had suffered from the Sultan’s diplomatic trickery.66 When he received a messenger in the manner of an ambassador, dressed in diamonds, the king revealed that the relationship was more important to French trade and Louis XIV’s grandeur, than it was to the political interests of the Ottoman Empire. The king commissioned a new play from Molière and Lully immediately after Soliman Aga departed, with the request that the new play have some Turkish elements. At the king’s request, D’Arvieux was enlisted to ensure the ‘authenticity’ of the play’s Turkish visual elements, but this verisimilitude did not extend beyond the costumes.67 The nominally Turkish ballet scene is a pastiche of ceremonies pulled from the Greek Orthodox church and Knights of Jerusalem—and none of the characters in the play are actually Turkish. In addressing the themes of mistaken identity, and appropriation of cultural identity, the play is less of an exposé of Ottoman duplicity than a critique of French behaviour—including the diplomatic masquerade of Hugues de Lionne and the king’s reception of Soliman Aga. Underlying the myth is the fascination with the imagined geography of the seraglio, with the harem at the centre, rather than the scientific progress of a competing Western European society. Aga’s visit was unusual in a diplomatic context, but his role in the Sultan’s personal staff summoned the literary trope of the salacious Turk, and at the inner sanctum of the seraglio, the harem. In the preface to his 1672 play Bajazet, Jean Racine described just how different the inhabitants of the seraglio were from seventeenth-century Frenchmen: The remoteness of the country compensates in some way for the too great proximity in time. For most people make hardly any distinction between what is, if I may put it so, a thousand years away from them, and what is a thousand leagues away…their manners and customs are entirely 65 Arrêt du Conseil d’État concernant les avantages, droits, prérogatives, privilèges et exemptions accordés par le roi à la Compagnie du Levant (18 juillet 1670). FR ANOM COL B 2 F° 181, Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence. 66 Longino, Orientalism in French Classical Drama, p. 79. 67 Longino, p. 109.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

135

different. We have so little commerce with the princes and other people who live in the Seraglio that we consider them, so to speak, as living in another age than our own.68

From the distance of the eighteenth century, first-hand contact with these different manners and customs would appear to have made an impression on French nobles. This discounts, however, the ambivalent attitude towards the Ottoman Empire during this period of strained diplomatic relations. While this period of the seventeenth century marked an increase in the French interest in Ottoman culture, the spectre of Ottoman galleys still loomed large in the imagination of the French public. The possibility of capture by Barbary Coast pirates, followed by enslavement and forced conversion to Islam was overshadowed only by the prospect of eternal damnation.69 In turn, the interest of Orientalists in the ancient and contemporary literature and science of the Ottoman Empire brought approbation into conf lict with antipathy. In the eighteenth century, turquerie, the European emulation of Ottoman culture in such diverse areas as dress, decorative arts, and plays gained popularity across Europe.70 This change in the perception of Turkish culture notably appeared only after the Ottoman defeat in the second siege Vienna in 1689, and the embassies of Yirmesekiz Celebi Mehmed Efendi (1721) and his son Mehmed Said Efendi (1742).71 Consumption of Turkish dress and habits in France increased markedly once the Ottoman Empire was a military and diplomatic ally. Following this shift, a different mode of the Parisian café, as a translation of the Turkish coffeehouse, emerged with the rising popularity of turquerie.72 Unlike the early cafés that developed during 68 Racine and Argent, Complete Plays of Jean Racine, p. 31. 69 McCluskey, ‘Commerce before Crusade’, p. 6. 70 Landweber, ‘‘This Marvelous Bean’’, p. 204. Landweber argues that interest in Turquerie and domestic interest in coffee occurred at an earlier date. She cites a print by Henri Bonnart, Homme de qualité buvant du café, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et Photographie, Oa 62 pet. fol.,15960, with the date 1674, as evidence of this trend. Examination of the original print shows that the date is not printed, but handwritten, and two other identical prints in the folio appear with different dates (1676, 1688). In other prints in the same folio, the handwritten dates contradict the printed dates, in some cases the handwritten dates are earlier and some are later, negating the possibility that the added notation indicated that a print was a reproduction of an earlier original. I contend that the dress in the print cited by Landweber is consistent with more reliably dated prints from 1688, suggesting that a domestic habit occurred at a later date: cf. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et Photographie Oa 48 pet. fol. 81 and 82. 71 McCabe, Orientalism in Early Modern France, p. 11. 72 McCabe, p. 200.

136 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

the final decades of Louis XIV’s reign, which emphasised the products of Colbert’s dirigiste economic policies, these cafés in the eighteenth century had more unified decorative schemes. Nonetheless, the appropriation of Turkish cultural elements references the rising military superiority of the French state, and the function of the café as a symbolic space reflecting the grandeur of France.

An Atmosphere of Grandeur in the Parisian Café There were several tentative attempts to cultivate a following for public consumption of coffee in the wake of interest sparked by Soliman Aga’s visit. Yet, it was not contact with Turkish exoticism, but the development of a suitable space of sociability in which coffee would be consumed that led to the rise of coffee’s popularity in France. The earliest space dedicated to the consumption of coffee to open in France was in Marseille. Its atmosphere is described by de La Roque in his 1716 account of his father’s voyage to Yemen in 1644, Felix Arabia (A voyage to Arabia the happy…perform’d by the French for the first time…). The scene set by the author is similar to descriptions of London’s coffeehouses: In 1671 some private individuals thought of opening a shop or coffee-house in Marseille for the first time, near the Loge; here they smoked tobacco and played games. This house was always crowded, especially by those who had spent time in the Levant, the merchants and all the sea-faring men, who found this a very convenient place to discuss business, trade and navigation, which soon increased the number of these public spaces.73

In Paris, the first spaces to sell coffee were opened at the Foire St. Germain in 1672 and run by Armenians. The Armenian model involved a combination of the Turkish and English coffeehouses with a veneer of Oriental decoration in the Armenian dress of the servers—but they were unsuccessful.74 The proprietor of one of these spaces opened a small shop to sell coffee, but his only customers were a few Knights of Malta and expatriates, and he soon closed shop to head to the well-developed coffeehouse market of London. De la Roque attributed the failure of these enterprises not only to a lack of respectability, but to the lack of ambience: 73 La Roque, Voyage de l’Arabie, p. 367. 74 La Roque, p. 289.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

137

…people of fashion were ashamed to go into those sorts of public (coffee) houses, where they smoked and drank strong beer; besides their coffee was none of the best, nor the customers served in the handsomest manner. But when the French began to set up the same trade…and thought of setting up their shops with tapestry, large pier glasses (trumeau mirrors), pictures, marble tables…and other ornaments…I say, being thus changed into well furnished rooms, they were crowded.75

This new space was not crowded with sea-faring men discussing navigation and trade but was instead populated with ‘men of letters and the most serious persons…where they might so conveniently converse on matters of learning and what subjects they pleased, without any constraint or ceremony, and only by way of amusement.’76 The relative lack of ceremony in the description parallels the London coffeehouse goal of providing an alternative space to the Royal Society, but the embryonic Parisian café does not promote the utility of applied learning, instead discourse is pursued as an amusement, an end in itself. It is true too, that the proponents of coffee in France also differed from the virtuosi in London. An early description of coffee, tea and chocolate is provided by Sylvestre du Four, in 1684 in his Traitez nouveaux et curieux du café, du thé, et du chocolat.77 His description of the plants, their uses, the preparation of the various beverages, and their physiological effects was important in correcting misinformation provided in earlier texts, such as Faustus Nairo’s De Saluberrima Potione Cahue written in 1671.78 His background was not as distinguished as aristocratic authors like Thévenot, who related their travels in print, and de La Roque defended du Four’s practical experience, ‘nothing can be better digested, nor this matter more thoroughly discussed, than in a treatise on coffee by Sylvestre du Four, a merchant of Lyon, but learned, especially in the knowledge of nature.’79 Dufour was nonetheless confident enough to publish his work, as de la Roque related the author’s reasoning: He thought his character of a merchant not inconsistent with that of an author, especially in a matter with which the merchants had first brought 75 La Roque, A Voyage to Arabia, p. 292. 76 La Roque, p. 293. 77 Dufour, Traités nouveaux & curieux. 78 Naironus, De Saluberrima Potione Cahue. 79 La Roque, A Voyage to Arabia, p. 238.

138 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

us acquainted, and wherein there were some things a merchant could be better informed of than a philosopher. These are the author’s own words, who moreover tells us, that not satisfied with having consulted many learned men…both within and without the kingdom…he had carried his enquiries as far as his trade.80

De la Roque also quotes from Pierre Bayle’s Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in support of du Four’s qualif ications, ‘Who has known, he said, how to reconcile learning and traffick, being skilled in the languages, and in polite learning, writing well, and having always kept an ingenious correspondence with persons of quality and merit.’81 In France, du Four’s observations are held to be valid, in spite of his mercantile associations, while in England the same empirical substantiation would have accrued to the legitimacy of his findings. Later advocates of coffee who might have been considered as French versions of the virtuosi included Antoine de Jussieu, professor and botanist at the Jardin du Roi, who published the ‘Descriptio et icon coffeae’ in 1713.82 Unlike the English virtuosi, however, he had no significant connections to trade or business. The same was true of other members of the French Royal Academies, who were mostly from Paris, sponsored through the patronage of noblemen.83 Coffee had become a well-known product in Paris by 1685, even if the Parisian model of the café had not yet appeared. In his review of Du Four’s revised Traités Nouveaux de l’usage du café, du thé et du chocolat in the same year, Pierre Bayle commented on the author’s use of Cairo as empirical, as opposed to theoretical, proof that coffee did not negatively affect fertility. While Cairo was an example of a populous city with an established coffee culture, Bayle thought Du Four could have cited the growing French habit of coffee consumption in the home as ‘a more noticeable influence’ than the Ottoman Empire, ‘day to day usage of coffee became more frequent, to the point where there was not a family home in Paris or Lyon above the status of artisan where you did not find a coffee pot on the fire after dinner.’84 He contrasted this consumption en famille with his estimate of over 3,000 coffeehouses (‘Cabarets à Café’) in London. Bayle’s aspiring French coffee drinkers were enthusiastic enough to brew their own coffee, in the absence 80 La Roque, p. 238. 81 La Roque, p. 239. 82 Jussieu, Descriptio et icon coffeae. 83 Sturdy, Science and Social Status, p. 266. 84 Barrin, Nouvelles de la Republique, p. 505.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

139

of a dedicated venue outside the home. No longer restricted to merchants in Marseille, or the French Orientalist elite, coffee had become a routine domestic comestible for households in Paris and Lyon above the rank of tradesmen. In London, consumers had thousands of coffee establishments to choose from, but the successful model of the Parisian café had not yet been developed. The importance of ambience in promoting the acceptance of the Parisian café reflected its function as a space which is not utilitarian, but celebratory, furnished with the ornaments found in noble homes, not only for their expense, but for their effect. The mirror, tapestries, and furniture not only speak to the environment of refinement and display, but also represent luxury manufactories nurtured by the state to replace the import of Venetian mirrors, Flemish tapestries, and Chinese lacquered furniture. While the first public coffeehouse in Marseille shared the easy combination of business and pleasure and connections to sea-faring trade of their London counterparts, the early café is divorced from these associations and linked to the French manufacture of luxury goods, and a social milieu somewhere between the court and a salon. The decorative scheme corresponded to economic conquests achieved by the state: the Manufacture Royale des Glaces de Miroir; the Gobelins tapestry factory; and the manufacture of furniture by ébenistes and varnisseurs.85 Evidence of this early decorative scheme can be found in Les Entretiens des cafés de Paris (1702).86 The collection of moralising vignettes described café habitués, allegedly drawn from life, ‘On y trouve des caracteres & des portraits qui étant tirez d’aprés nature’.87 The frontispiece provides a visual source, with a depiction of a café interior. The high-ceilinged room is illuminated by a large chandelier, reflected in an enormous mirror covering the back wall. Windows provide natural light, augmented by candles on the three tables in the foreground. The tables are all set with cups, plates, and spoons, attended by a male waiter dressed in a long, Armenian-style robe and headdress. At two of the tables, men play cards and backgammon. At the central table, three men and two women are seated. All are dressed in clothing attributed in period prints to hommes et femmes de qualité, except for one man who appears to be dressed in clerical garb. Notably, the two side walls are decorated with large tapestries depicting fleets of merchant ships at sea. This depiction of the sophisticated clientele and elegant furnishing of 85 Usher, ‘Colbert and Government Control of Industry’, p. 238. 86 Mr. le C. de M***, Les Entretiens des cafés, frontispiece. 87 Mr. le C. de M***, p. 1.

140 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

the space with mirrors and tapestries depicting merchant ships correspond with the descriptions of early cafés as representative of French luxury and economic achievement. The success of these initiatives was proclaimed in a popular Parisian guidebook available to both French and English travellers, Germaine Brice’s A New Description of Paris, first published in 1684. Brice, a native Parisian, listed the atéliers as destinations of interest alongside historic monuments and notable architecture: As you go into the street beyond this Abby, is the Manufactory of Lookingglasses, which were formerly brought from Venice. But Monsieur Colbert, observing how great a Treasure this Trade had yearly drawn out of the Kingdom, established this manufacture, which has had a very happy Success, as indeed all other matters have had which that great Minister has turned hath undertaken.88

After commending Colbert’s enterprise, Brice continued with an appraisal of the quality of the products, ‘And these as they make here are as beautiful as those which formerly came from Venice, with infinite greater Charges.’89 The manufacture of tapestries was also described as a tourist destination, appealing to the interest of the fashion-conscious visitor, while simultaneously claiming victory over the Dutch: Here it is that the Curious ought to apply themselves with the utmost diligence to see all the rarities which are to be seen in this place, in regard there is no part of Europe that produces so many…First of all it is not unuseful to observe that this place has always been inhabited by excellent Artists…the first of which was one Charles Goblin, who, as report says, found out the secret of dying the best Scarlet, or at least he first brought it to Paris, from whence it became known as the Scarlet des Gobelines… the Dutch have made it their utmost endeavour to discover this secret, but they never could do it with all their industry and expence…but they cannot arrive at that level of perfection which our Dyers have in making this Beautiful colour, which makes so great a merchandize through all Europe, nay in a manner the whole World, for much goes into the Indies and America.90 88 Brice, New Description of Paris, pp. 127–128. 89 Brice, pp. 127–128. 90 Brice, p. 156.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

141

In the economic thought of the seventeenth century, global wealth was fixed, and every penny won in a trade war was a penny denied to a foreign state. Beyond emulation of an aesthetic associated with the nobility, the café functioned as a showcase for French victories in the State’s war on imported luxury goods.

Botanical Imperialism vs. the Commerce of Empire The influence of the monarchy in the space of the café is not only evident in its decoration with the fruits of autarky proposed by Montchrétien, but also the order necessary for the greatness of the state, as he described. The development of the café as a new space was encouraged by the monarch’s regulatory reach into the realm of ‘private power’ described by Bodin—the guilds and corporations. In 1676 the guild of limonadiers was joined together with the guild of distilleurs, and the right to sell coffee in whole beans or ground and served as a beverage limited to the guild.91 Coffee consumption had increased enough by 1692 that it presented a viable source of revenue through the levy of taxes. The sale of coffee became a monopoly of the public treasury, further evidence of appropriation of the ‘private’ space, and the commodity, by the absolutist monarch. The import substitution achieved by domestic manufacturing eventually gave way to planting New World commodities in French colonies in the last years of Louis XIV’s reign. French planters were a late entry in the race to grow coffee in its colonial territories in the early eighteenth century, compared to the initiatives of Dutch colonists who began planting coffee in Java in 1696.92 The Dutch East India Company had discovered decades earlier in the spice trade that the cultivation of self-perpetuating agricultural resources in new colonial territories was even more effective than manufacturing in achieving economic self-sufficiency. In contrast to French colonists’ efforts, English planters in the Atlantic never made any serious attempts to grow coffee on a large scale. Instead, early colonists preferred to use colonial acreage for a crop complementary to English consumption of tea—sugar. While the coffeehouse profited from its indirect connection to foreign trade, the economic force attached to falling tea prices, and the promotion of tea as a product by the East India Company left the coffeehouse behind in the wake of economic change. Coffee was not a major import

91 Spary, Eating the Enlightenment, p. 100. 92 Ukers, All About Coffee, p. 6.

142 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

of the East India Company until 1720, and most of that trade was re-exported.93 The majority of the coffee consumed in London coffeehouses between the middle of the seventeenth century and the early part of the eighteenth century was imported by Levant merchants from Italy and Turkey.94 Some of the coffee imported by the EIC during this period was also not of very good quality—it was often used as ballast. Ballast stones were subject to 50% freight tax, so lesser-valued commodities like pepper, low-grade china cups and coffee were used as ballast and could still be sold in an effort to cover the cost of transport.95 By contrast, tea was handled with great care, as it was considered a more delicate, and more precious commodity. This can be seen in the instructions given for the supracargoes of the Loyal Blisse in 1704: Tea is a commodity of that Generall use here and so nicely to be managed in its package to preserve its flavour and virtue that you cannot be too careful therein. It being a very considerable article in the profit and loss of the Investment wherefore be sure to buy of the freshest and best sorts although it be at a greater price than would the charges of good or bad differing but a little as to freight.96

The comment about the regular consumption of tea gives an indication that the company has seen rising demand for the product and is attempting to supply that market, almost a decade before securing direct trade with Canton.97 The East India Company’s interest in tea originated in the early seventeenth century. An entry in the ‘Despatch Book’ in 1667 is often cited as the f irst mention of tea in EIC correspondence, ‘We desire of you to procure and send by these ships…100 weight of Tey.’98 This is, in fact, the first mention of a commercial quantity of tea purchased by the Company. The company’s interest in tea can actually be seen as far back as 1615, almost a century before the Canton trade was secured in the correspondence between factors in Hirado and Kyoto.99 93 Smith, ‘Accounting for Taste: British Coffee Consumption in Historical Perspective’, p. 185. Customs Records from the Public Record Office. 94 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, p. 73. 95 East India Company General Correspondence, ‘Instructions to Supra Cargos of the Ship Liampo for Mocha’, October 24, 1705: BL IOR/E/3/95, p. 474 96 East India Company General Correspondence, ‘Instructions for the Supra Cargos of the Loyal Blisse’, October 16, 1704: BL IOR/E/3/95, p. 326. 97 Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, p. 388. 98 East India Company General Correspondence, BL IOR/E/3/87 ff.65v-69, p. 137. 99 Letter from Richard Wickham at Hirado to William Eaton at Kyoto, June 27, 1615, BL IOR:G/12/15, p. 16

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

143

The value ascribed by the East India Company to tea can also be seen in the Court Minutes for 1664. The Directors wanted to make a gift to Charles II and requested an appropriate present to be selected from recently arrived ships, laden with tropical foods, precious goods and foreign animals, ‘Captain Prowd is directed to inquire aboard the several ships for rare birds, beasts, or other curiosities fit to present to the King’.100 The royal gift selected from the multitude of exotic goods: tea. While the Directors originally thought the gift was poorly chosen, the response from Charles II was so positive that a greater quantity was procured and offered the next year. The choice of tea as a gift from the East India Company to the King of England reflects not only that it was appropriate as a gift for the recipient, but also that it is symbolic of the endeavours of the Company. This royal gift is significant in itself, but is also important as a point in a one-hundred-year chronology of sustained interest in the commodity by the EIC. Through its long-standing association with the East India Company, tea can be seen as being naturalised as a British good. While the London coffeehouse was an unmistakably English institution from its inception, coffee as a comestible never took on the same level of association as the establishment where it was consumed. At the end of the eighteenth century the once-ubiquitous London coffeehouse was absorbed and transformed into clubs, pubs and taverns, and chophouses—before the word restaurant was imported from France. The vestiges of the London coffeehouse and its early mercantile origins only remain in the form of Lloyd’s of London, and the virtuosi have returned to the Royal Society. The Parisian café, however, endured to become an icon of Frenchness, and maintained its connections to leisure, literature, and fashionable society. As the influence of the coffeehouse waned, regular shipments from Canton brought cheaper tea to all levels of British society. Once a gift fit for the king, by the end of the eighteenth century, tea was available throughout Britain to its poorest inhabitants. Commonly consumed with sugar, ‘the morning draught’ brought together trading goods from the opposite ends of the British commercial empire, the East and West Indies. Tea imported by the EIC from China was sweetened with sugar from the English colonies in the Atlantic and was viewed by commentators as a combination symbolic of Britain’s maritime prowess. The foreign attributes of tea were mediated by the role of the EIC in importing goods connected with the collective economic benefit of trade, but sugar was identified by observers as a product which could be considered 100 Sainsbury, A Calendar of the Court Minutes, p. 52.

144 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

English when it was sourced from colonial plantations. Disentangling this relationship between tea and sugar clarifies the influences that contributed to an increase in sugar consumption in both England and France. Removing the influence of tea allows for a more straightforward comparison of the trade policies that influenced the development of domestic patterns of sugar consumption and the relative profitability of re-exporting the colonial commodity to the Continent. Moreover, by questioning the uniqueness of the cultural stereotype of the British sweet tooth, which developed in the eighteenth century but was never ascribed to French consumers, it is possible to offer a better understanding of the relationship between commercial empire, cultural practice, and national identity in both countries.

Bibliography Manuscript sources Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence FR ANOM COL B 2 F° 181. Bibliothèque national de France, Paris Département des Estampes et Photographie: Oa 62 pet. fol.,15960; Oa 48 pet. fol. 81 and 82. British Library, London Charles II, warrant to Attorney General, March 24, 1661/2, Sloane MSS 856 fo. 10. East India Company General Correspondence, India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/E/3/95; IOR/E/3/87 ff.65v–69; IOR:G/12/15.

Printed primary sources Addison, Joseph. ‘No. 69 Saturday, May 19, 1711’. In The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator, No. 1-314. Harper & Brothers, 1837. Audiger, François. La Maison reglée, et l’art de diriger la maison d’un grand seigneur & autres… Paris: Nicolas le Gras, 1692. Barrin, J., P. Bayle, J. Bernard, La-Roque, and J. Le-Clerc. Nouvelles de la république des lettres. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: Desbordes, 1685. Bodin, Jean. Six livres de la République. 2 vols. Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1579. Brice, Germain. A new description of Paris: Containing a particular account of all the churches, palaces, monasteries, colledges, hospitals, libraries, cabinets of rarities, academies of the virtuosi, paintings, medals, statues and other sculptures, monuments and publick inscriptions. London: Henry Bonwicke, 1687.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

145

The Character of a Coffee-house with the ssymptomes [sic] of a town-wit. London: Jonathan Edwin, 1673. Coffee-houses vindicated in answer to the late published Character of a coffee house asserting from reason, experience, and good authours, the excellent use and physical vertues of that liquor: with the grand conveniency of such civil places of resort and ingenious conversation. London: J. Lock for J. Clarke, 1673. Dufour, Philippe Sylvestre. Traités nouveaux & curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate. Lyon: Grin et Riviere, 1685. Foster, William. The English Factories in India 1630-1633: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office, Bombay Record Office, etc. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. Galland, Antoine. De l’Origine et du progrès du café: extrait d’un manuscrit Arabe de la Bibliothèque du Roi (1699). Paris: Editions La Bibliothèque, 1992. Le Grand D’Aussy, Pierre Jean Baptiste. La Vie privée des françois depuis l’origine de la nation jusqu’à nos jours. 3 vols. Paris: Ph.-D. Pierres, 1782. Houghton, John. Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade. 2 vols. London: 1681–1683. Houghton, John. ‘A Discourse of Coffee, Read at a Meeting of the Royal Society by Mr. John Houghton, F.R.S.’ Philosophical Transactions 21: 248–259 (1699), 311–317. Jussieu, Antoine de. Descriptio et icon Coffeae, Paris: 1713. La Roque, Jean de. Voyage de l’Arabie heureuse… (Paris: André Cailleau, 1716). M***, Mr. le C. de. Les Entretiens des cafés de Paris et les differens qui y surviennent. Trevoux: E. Ganeua, 1702. Mandeville, Bernard de. The Fable of the Bees. London: J. Roberts, 1714. Mandeville, Bernard de. The Grumbling Hive; or Knaves Turn’d Honest. London: Richard Wellington, 1705. Misselden, Edward. The Circle of Commerce. Or the Ballance of Trade in Defence of Free Trade… London: John Dawson for Nicholas Bourne, 1623. Montchrétien, Antoine de. Traicté de L’œconomie politique. Rouen: Jean Osmont, 1615. Naironus, Antonius Faustus. De Saluberrima Potione Cahue. Rome: Michaelis Herculis, 1671. Ormesson, O. L., A. L. Ormesson, and P. A. Chéreul. Journal d’Olivier Lefèvre d’Ormesson: et Extraits des mémoires d’André Lefèvre d’Ormesson. Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1861. Racine, Jean. Œuvres poétiques de J. Racine, ed. Aimé-Martin, 3 vols. Paris, Firmin Didot Frères, 1854. Rumsey, Walter. Organon Salutis an Instrument to Cleanse the Stomach: As Also Divers New Experiments of the Virtue of Tobacco and Coffee, How Much They Conduce to Preserve Humane Health. London: R. Hodgkinsonne, 1657. Sandys, George. A Relation of a Journey Begun in An. Dom. 1610. London: W. Barrett, 1652.

146 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Subligny, Adrien-Thomas Perdou de. La Muse de la Cour dédiée à Monseigneur le Dauphin 196, 2 Decembre 1666. In Les Continuateurs de Loret, lettres en vers de La Gravette de Mayolas, Robinet, Boursault, Perdou de Subligny, Laurent et autres, 1665-1689, ed. Baron James de Rothschild, 2 vols. Paris: D. Morgand and C. Fatout, 1881–1882. Thévenot, Jean de. Relation d’un voyage fait au Levant. Paris: Louis Billaine, 1665. Ward, Edward. The London Spy Compleat, in Eighteen Parts, Fourth edition. London: R. Baldwin, 1753 [1703]. The Women’s Petition against Coffee. London: 1674.

Secondary literature Aubrey, John. Brief Lives, ed. Richard Barber. Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1982. Chaudhuri, K. N. The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 [1978]. Cowan, Brian William. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005 Dale, Richard. The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Dew, Nicholas. Orientalism in Louis XIV’s France. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Dobre, M., and T. Nyden. Cartesian Empiricisms. Dordrecht, NL: Springer, 2013. Elias, Norbert. Court Society. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. New York: Pantheon, 1983. Ellis, Aytoun. The Penny Universities: A History of the Coffee-Houses. London: Secker & Warburg, 1956. Ellis, Markman. The Coffee-House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004. Freedman, Paul, ed. Food: The History of Taste. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Gocek, Fatma. East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Hanson, Craig Ashley. The English Virtuoso: Art, Medicine, and Antiquarianism in the Age of Empiricism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Keynes, Geoffrey. The Life of William Harvey. Oxford: Clarendon, 1966. Landweber, Julia. ‘“This Marvelous Bean”: Adopting Coffee into Old Regime French Culture and Diet’. French Historical Studies 38: 2 (April 2015). Longino, M. Orientalism in French Classical Drama. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

London Coffeehouse or Parisian Café?

147

Maloni, Ruby. The Route to European Hegemony: India’s Intra-Asian Trade in the Early Modern Period (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries). New York: Routledge, 2021. McCabe, I. B. Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008. McCluskey, Philip. ‘Commerce before Crusade? France, the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary Pirates (1661–1669)’. French History 23 (2009): 1–21. Sainsbury, Ethel Bruce and William Foster. A Calendar of the Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company 1664-1667. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants. Trans. David Jacobson. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Smith, S. D. ‘Accounting for Taste: British Coffee Consumption in Historical Perspective’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 27: 2 (Autumn, 1996), 183–214. Smith, Woodruff D. Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800. New York: Routledge, 2002. Spary, E. C. Eating the Enlightenment: Food and Sciences in Paris, 1670-1760. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Sturdy, David J. Science and Social Status: The Members of the Academie des Sciences 1666-1750. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1995. Tryon, Thomas. The Good Housewife Made a Doctor. London: Andrew Sowle, 1685. Ukers, William. All About Coffee. New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922. Usher, Abbott Payson. ‘Colbert and Government Control of Industry in Seventeenth Century France’. The Review of Economics and Statistics 16: 11 (1934).

Websites Académie des sciences. ‘Liste des members depuis la creation de l’Académie des sciences’. Institut de France, 2022. http://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Listedes-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membresdu-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-t.html

4. Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Inseparable Companion’ Abstract Sugar in the seventeenth century is often referred to as the common denominator which enabled European consumption of coffee, tea, and chocolate. I propose that ‘un-bundling’ these combinations provides greater understanding of the political economy and cultural context in which sugar was consumed. Unbundled from its beverage companions, I assess the value of sugar to the economy of England and France. An exploration of sugar’s manifold modes of consumption, trading patterns and production also yields an insight into the connection between English concepts of cultural identity and political economy and the ways in which they intersected in this crucial period of imperialism. Key words: sugar, tea, Atlantic colonies, early modern, imperialism

Unlike tea and coffee, sugar was not a novelty in the middle of the seventeenth century. Sugar had been used in medicines, and as a luxury good for social display since Crusaders returned from the Holy Land.1 From the middle of the seventeenth century, however, it was consumed as a small luxury that had become more affordable when production began in the Atlantic colonies. Colonial production also meant that sugar was not considered exotic or foreign, like coffee or tea, but was viewed as a ‘native’ good by contemporary observers. Increased availability meant that sugar was no longer a status good, but was used more regularly, in a variety of new foods and drinks, by a widening sector of society. Although we still think of the English as synonymous with ‘tea’ (grown of course everywhere but in England), early modern English consumers were more regularly noted for their ‘sweet tooth’, as even the contradictory 1

See Chapter 2.

Van Dyk, G. Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463720175_ch04

150 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

statement from French traveller Henri Misson made clear in 1689: ‘I know not what can have occasioned the Report or Opinion so common in France, that the English put Sugar in every Thing that they eat.’2 The presumption that the English consumer preferred sweetness when compared to their French counterparts was a common trope in this period, and tea was often cited as an example of this habit. Tea consumption was recognised by British commentators in the middle of the eighteenth century as a universal practice, permeating all levels of society: ‘Sugar, the inseparable Companion of Tea, came to be the Possession of the very poorest Housewife.’3 Tea, drunk by both the French and the English, was always taken with sugar in England, and this pairing has since become an iconic emblem of Britishness associated with a global reach achieved through the empire of maritime trade. It is now an historical truism that through the combination of the produce of Barbados planters and Chinese tea imported by the East India Company, English consumption of this simple beverage had a considerable cultural impact on everyday life in England, as well as political and economic consequences for the relationship between the metropolis and the colonies. But as importantly, it is the sweetened version of that drink that is at the heart of its ‘English’ association. ‘Unbundling’ the pair provides greater understanding of the political economy and cultural context in which they were consumed. Although the English custom of adding sugar to tea did increase sugar consumption, the demand for sugar in the manufacture of medicines, and its use in ceremonial display as a status good in England pre-dates the introduction of tea by two hundred years. In the seventeenth century, sugar was not a recent discovery, like porcelain or pineapples, and did not appeal to burgeoning consumer demand for novelty and exoticism. Instead, new patterns of sugar consumption emerged for different classes of consumers, and the location of sugar production shifted from foreign producers to English plantations in the Caribbean. The British sugar habit was already deeply embedded in the fabric of daily life when William Cowper wrote his poem ‘Pity for Poor Africans’ in 1788, telling consumers that their individual food and drink habits fuelled the slave trade: I own I am shock’d at the purchase of slaves, And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves; What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and 2 Misson de Valbourg, Memoires et Observations, p. 10. 3 Forbes, Some Considertions on the Present State of Scotland, p. 7.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

151

groans, Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, For how could we do without sugar and rum? Especially sugar so needful we see; What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea!4

The social practices related to sugar consumption in the metropole were grounded in respectability or aspirational civility, but the production of sugar in the colonies was uncivil, unjust, and cruel. In Britain, a call to abstain from sugar consumption responded to the dissonance when consumers were confronted by their complicity in the production of goods by enslaved Africans. While British abolitionists contemplated the power of a consumerled boycott, Parisian women demanded cheaper sugar, which had doubled in price. In 1792, residents of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau seized sugar from a warehouse, set fire to the building, and demanded that the owners sell the goods to them at half the asking price. The merchants claimed that sugar was a luxury, so under the regulations the price did not have to be fixed, but was governed only by consumer demand. Charles-Alexis Alexandre, who witnessed the event, questioned the hoarders’ claim that sugar was a luxury: ‘Surely in principle, and before our colonies were elevated to the level of prosperity we saw at the time of the Revolution, sugar was a luxury good, but it became a necessity of the first order a long time ago.’5 Although the reasoning of the owners appeared to be merely a rationalisation of greed, they may have actually viewed sugar as a non-essential foodstuff because they did not consume it themselves for its caloric value, but as a luxury good. Alexandre noted that the rioters, however, were laundresses whose employees used sugar in coffee for their mid-morning sustenance, as fuel to keep working until the next meal.6 In the days leading up to the riot, the Jacobin Society had called on women to boycott sugar until the price came down to a level that every citizen could afford: to prove, by their example, to their husbands and children that in Sybaris sugar might have been considered a necessity, but that, in Sparta…one must start by getting accustomed to the most ordinary food.7

Ironically, the increase in Parisian sugar prices was not driven primarily by profiteering, but by a global shortage caused by the slave revolt in the 4 Cowper, ‘Pity for Poor Africans’. 5 Godechot, ‘Fragments Des Mémoires’, p. 151. 6 Godechot, p. 151. 7 Aulard, La Société des Jacobins, p. 351.

152 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

French colony of St. Domingue.8 The Parisian rioters exercised the taxation populaire, seized goods at prices deemed fair by the mob; too impatient for a boycott and unwilling to bear the increased cost of slave rebellion in St. Domingue. The sweetness of sugar had always been shadowed by the human cost associated with its production. Cutting, crushing and boiling sugar cane was labour intensive and, historically, had been accomplished through slavery or forced labour in the medieval Mediterranean.9 The Atlantic trade in slaves begun in the fifteenth century by the Spanish and the Portuguese increased as European colonies multiplied and the demand for sugar increased.10 In the years following the period of this analysis (1651–1717), growth in the slave trade accelerated, with more than 75% of all global slave exports occurring in the period from 1725–1875.11 Following the establishment of European colonies in the Atlantic, a sugar habit took hold in the middle of the seventeenth century that would sustain two centuries of slavery. The increase in the slave trade followed a rise in demand for slave labour, and sugar was the single largest industry supplied with slaves. Given the significant impact that sugar consumption had on the culture and economy of Britain: what drove the demand for sugar that was established in the seventeenth century, and why were the British seen as the biggest consumers? Because tea was always taken with sugar in England, historical arguments about how sugar consumption became embedded in daily life tend to focus on its use in combination with caffeinated beverages. The most common theories about this relationship focus on sobriety, productivity, respectability, aspirational consumerism, and the innate appeal of sweetness. As a clearheaded alternative to alcohol, tea has been viewed as sober fuel for the British Industrial Revolution, turning the upper-class luxury into a working-class drug to boost productivity.12 By the eighteenth century sugar was no longer so expensive that it was a luxury, but it was still considered an indulgence.13 Tea reclaimed the respectability of the combination through an element of exoticism that was further enhanced, for aspirational upper-class consumers,

8 St. Domingue produced more sugar than all of the British colonies combined, amounting to 40% of all sugar imported into the North Atlantic: Drescher and Davis, Econocide, p. 116. 9 Galloway, ‘The Mediterranean Sugar Industry,’ pp. 190–191. 10 Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 15. 11 ‘Estimates’. The Slave Voyage Consortium, Slavevoyages.Org, 2022. http://www.slavevoyages. org/assessment/estimates 12 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, p. 186. 13 Smith, Consumption and the Making of Respectability, p. 128.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

153

by the use of porcelain and silver tea service.14 Consumption in the home under the auspices of female supervision added to the respectability of the tea habit. Nonetheless, there is also an argument that the tea and sugar combination was popular because of an innate, biological preference for sweetness that was as influential as any socio-economic aspirations or functionalist properties.15 Sugar consumption pre-dated tea by centuries and the evolution of this food habit was influenced by social, political, and economic factors that are difficult to analyse in combination with another commodity. Tea certainly contributed to sugar consumption, as did coffee and chocolate, but these beverages alone do not account for all early modern sugar consumption. Investing sugar with synergistic meaning obscures the characteristics of the individual components, while an exploration of sugar’s multiple modes of consumption, trading patterns and production offers insight into the ways in which English cultural identity and political economy were connected in this crucial period of imperialism. Relocating the influence of sugar consumption to an earlier period denies the seemingly pivotal introduction of tea permitting a more thorough exploration of how cultural patterns developed. Consumers were encouraged by commentators to embrace sugar as a ‘native’ product which was branded as ‘English’ by producers, merchants, and refiners, and rationalised in terms of utility to avoid being labelled a luxury. The period before 1717, the beginning of the East India Company’s regular shipments of Chinese tea, was the moment when sugar became entangled in the synergistic value of sweetened tea.16 Separating the goods highlights the contrast between the carrying trade in the East, the colonisation of the Atlantic plantation economy, and the way in which this transition informed the nascent cultural identity of English consumers in the metropolis. England is often situated in the context of a homogenised north-western Europe, and a ‘universal’ English habit for sweetened beverages and sugar is compared to a generalised pattern of consumption in the geographical group. A consideration of the cultural and political effects of English consumption of sugar on the way in which consumers saw themselves raises questions about the contention that this foodway was a uniquely English phenomenon. France was a contemporary rival in the production of sugar in its Atlantic colonies, yet the French consumer is not described 14 de Vries, Industrious Revolution, p. 155. 15 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, p. 179 16 Cowan, Social Life of Coffee, p. 70.

154 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

by contemporary commentators as possessing the ‘sweet tooth’ attributed to English consumers. Introducing French sugar habits in the same period to this history provides a useful foil to evaluate the uniqueness of the English consumer’s response, drawing distinctions between the actions of individuals and the influence of political and economic constraints on patterns of consumption. This approach also affords the opportunity to examine moments of exchange between France and England as commercial rivals in the production of sugar, and the extent to which the historical and political specif icity of their economic arrangements may have contributed to reinforce or re-invent patterns of national and nationalised consumption.

English Production: Naturalising Sweetness Before sugar was grown in British colonies, it was transformed from raw, or ‘muscovado’ sugar, into refined white sugars by sugar refiners in England. Sugar refineries were established in Bristol and London in 1544, transferring a component of the sugar production process into England, away from Antwerp, which had dominated European sugar refining. This allowed for control over the final step of production, increased employment, and required capital expenditure on sugar works. The English sugar industry was now an employer, and no longer subject to the additional costs of refining in other European centres. This changed the nature of the relationship between producer and importer, increasing the relative bargaining power of domestic refiners in their dealings with foreign sugar colonies.17 This shift parallels early English import of silk for textile production, which rationalised the final manufactured good as ‘English’, even if the raw materials were produced elsewhere. Sugar was further translated into an English food in the middle of the seventeenth century when sugar production began in the plantation economies of the British tropical colonies, beginning with Barbados in 1642 followed by the Leeward Islands (Nevis, St. Kitts and Antigua) and most notably by Jamaica in 1673. Early sugar production in Barbados exerted a significant influence in lowering sugar prices, while the larger land mass of Jamaica would have an even greater impact in providing cheaper sugar to an even wider market in the eighteenth century.18 Barbados was originally 17 Galloway, ‘Mediterranean Sugar Industry’, p. 187. 18 Higman, ‘Sugar Revolution’, p. 231.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

155

planted with tobacco, then cotton, ginger and indigo. Falling tobacco prices in the 1640’s prompted a move towards sugar production, which was higher in price, but more capital and labour-intensive. Wholesale sugar prices in Barbados fell from 50s in the mid-1640s to 12s 6d in 1673,19 while in the same period, exports nearly tripled.20 This inverse relationship supported the claims of planters who protested both import taxes and the limitation of export exclusively to England under the Navigation Acts. They claimed to be producing more sugar out of necessity to pay current debts in the face of falling prices. Improvements in organisation of the plantation system on the island, lower freight and insurance costs, lower interest rates and changes in primary refining methods all improved during the same period. These same facts, however, make it difficult to succinctly assess the various roles of decreased price and increased productivity here.21 Import duties (1661, 1671, 1685, 1698, 1705) and Navigation Acts (1651, 1660) operated to raise revenue, and restricted colonial trade to England, respectively. While the colonies complained of their initial 1s 6d per hundred weight (cwt) duty on unref ined sugar, foreign imports paid 3s 10d. Partially ref ined, or ‘clayed’, sugar attracted a tax of 4s 6d per cwt from the English colonies, and 7s 0d cwt on sugar imported from foreign destinations. This made foreign-sourced imports uneconomic and gave the sugar colonies the domestic demand of England, Scotland, and Ireland as captive markets. Differential duty for clayed sugar protected English sugar ref iners based in metropolitan centres, as well as the shipping industry, as clayed sugars weighed 50% less and took up less space in a ship’s cargo hold. Ref iners in England received additional protection from a 16s 1d per cwt duty on ref ined foreign sugar. 22 Increased duties followed in 1671, and 1685, despite the protests of the planters. Edward Littleton, a planter in Barbados, decried the rise of the duty in 1685, ‘You will f ind that as the old duties did fleece us, so the Addition of the New doth fley us.’23 Competing concerns vied for influence in Parliament: metropolitan refiners, merchants, ship-owners, planters’ agents. Despite their different interests, contemporary commentators shared a common language which 19 Starkey, Economic Geography of Barbados, p. 67. 20 Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, p. 203. 21 Menard, Sweet Negotiations, p. 70. 22 Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, p. 43. 23 Littleton, Groans of the Plantations, p. 1.

156 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

emphasised sugar as a ‘national’ product. English merchants with a stake in the sugar trade attempted to re-define sugar as an English commodity, which should not be taxed, but still controlled through the Navigation Acts. Josiah Child, director of the East India Company, campaigned for a repeal of the import tax on sugar, ‘…it is in His Majesty’s power, and Parliament’s, if they please, by taking off all Charges on Sugar, to make it more entirely an English Commodity than White Herrings are a Dutch Commodity, and to draw more profit to this Kingdom thereby.’24 Free trade for the colonies, however, was not in the ‘national’ interest: …Where the market is free, they shall be sure to have the trade that can sell the best Penny-worths, that buy dearest and sell cheapest, (which Nationally speaking), none can do but those that have Money at the lowest rate of interest, and pay the least Customs, and this is the true cause why, before the Act of Navigation, there went Ten Dutch ships to Barbadoes for one English.25

Child argued that restriction of colonial trade to the ‘Mother Country’, and effective enforcement thereof, was paramount. Without this control, England’s loss of resources through individuals leaving for the colonies would not pay dividends to benefit the State. Advocates of the planters, such as MP and economic minister Charles Davenant, were quick to embrace the sugar-producing colonies as part of ‘Great Britain’ in asserting: ‘It is an allowed Maxim, that Industry has its first foundation in Liberty [with] British rights for all in British Dominions.’26 This came at a price, however, in terms of overall benefit to the collective Empire, as regulation of colonial trade and revenue raised through some taxes were still necessary: …if they will not allow it to be for their Interest in particular, I am sure they cannot dispute its being for the Interest of Great Britain in general. For by this means we render Foreign Colonies and Plantations, to be in effect the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain…it is our Interest, and should be our care, that no Laws, laying such high Duties, remain in force, or be passed for the future, in any of our Plantations.27 24 25 26 27

Child, D’Avenant, and Wood, Select Dissertations on Colonies and Plantations, p. 16. Child, D’Avenant, and Wood, p. 10. Child, D’Avenant, and Wood, Select Dissertations on Colonies and Plantations, p. 108. Child, D’Avenant, and Wood, p. 92.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

157

The higher duties imposed on sugar from 1685 were meant to be borne by consumers, but were instead passed on to planters, slashing their profits. They were keen to establish that the tax was not passed on to retail buyers and issued a number of pamphlets and treatises designed to encourage a repeal of the higher duty. Typical of this discourse is an anonymous pamphlet of 1695: …we were told of this duty would not affect the Planter but that the Consumptioner would pay it, but we found that the Planter paid it…for they did not rise in price one Penny in England; and in the Plantations, as soon as ever the Duty was laid on them, they fell in price the same amount as the Duty amounted to…28

Producers were aware that at this stage, consumer demand in England was not insensitive to price, and that the market was not fully developed: The more Sugar is consumed and used, the more it will be in demand, and the better it will sell: Now the Cheaper Sugar is, the more will be used… This holds true even in respect of Commodities, that are of Universal Use, and absolute Necessity, such as Salt: And much more is it so in respect of Commodities that are only of particular Use with some persons, and are not of absolute Necessity, and such is Sugar…29

The pamphlet also compared the sugar duty to the French tax on salt (gabelle), an essential commodity, noting that even though salt was regarded as an absolute essential, the gabelle still relied on the power of the State to enforce wholesale purchases of salt at State prices. While the author did not suggest compulsory purchases, it is possible to infer that the same State intervention that increased duties could also increase demand. French colonial sugar production was cited to contrast the difference in protectionist policies, the threat it posed to English trade—or most frequently, both. An anonymous one-page pamphlet from 1695 employed these tactics in presenting its argument. First, sugar is proclaimed in terms of its value to England, as an English product, ‘a Native Commodity, of above Eight hundred thousand pounds value per annum to this Nation, beside a considerable Revenue to the Crown.’ The author continued by distinguishing 28 Present Case of a Barbados Planter, p. 2. 29 Present Case of a Barbados Planter, p. 3.

158 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

the planter’s profit from customs duties and the revenue from the purchase of English good by the colonies, ‘there was not above forty thousand pounds per annum clear Gain to the Planter, the rest, beside his Majesty’s duties was distributed amongst the English people in exchange for their Provisions, and Manufactures.’30 This benefit is juxtaposed with the spectre of France, newly entered into the production of sugar, taking over the trade: ‘The French King bending his Design to be great at Sea, and knowing the Trade to the Plantations to be the best Nursery for Sea-men, did furnish his West India Company with a great stock of money.’ This loss is not only economic for England and the colonies, but also a threat to England’s maritime superiority, ‘beating the English out of that Trade…by which means being weakened in their Defence, the French King may accomplish his end.’31 The pamphleteer tried to paint the planter’s complaint as an issue affecting all Englishmen, as opposed to individual profitability. By connecting colonial sugar production with both the safety and economic welfare of England, the author reinforced the Englishness of sugar and its consumption as vital to the country’s interests.

French Production: Toward an Empire of Autarky The French King sought to accomplish his end, economic self-sufficiency, through colonial production of goods traditionally imported from economic rivals. In correspondence with the Governor of Martinique in 1670, Louis XIV articulated the complementary attributes of the French sugar islands: ‘The more the colonies differ from the mother country in products, so much more nearly are they perfect, as in the case of the Antilles.’32 The damage to the State of exporting gold and silver to purchase goods from abroad had been a concern of French monarchs since Henri IV, who followed the advice of Olivier de Serres in attempting to produce silk in France to prevent the outflow of gold and silver.33 In the f irst quarter of the seventeenth century, weakness of French sea-power, and reliance on goods imported by countries engaged in direct trade was addressed by Montchrétien in his Traicté de l’œconomie politique: 30 State of the Case of the Sugar Plantations, p. 1. 31 State of the Case of the Sugar Plantations, p. 1. 32 Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, p. 98. 33 Serres, Le Théâtre d’agriculture, p. 413.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

159

‘Nothing causes so much daring and insolence in foreigners, not only in their lands, but also in ours, not only on sea but also on land, as the realisation that we are inferior to them in naval equipment and power.’34 A strong navy combined with merchant ships would allow France to emulate the ‘glorious successes’ of the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.35 Montchrétien also advocated colonisation to increase the economic power of the State, ‘…beside the blessing of God which would come to this great and powerful state for undertakings so pious, so just, so charitable, there would be opened up by this means great and inexhaustible sources of wealth.’36 In spite of all his exhortations to form new companies and people new lands, Montchrétien declared that ‘France alone can do without everything she gets from neighbouring lands, while they cannot dispense with her.’37 Montchrétien’s characterisation of France as nearly self-sufficient, was reiterated by the anonymous author of a pamphlet addressed to the Assembly of Notables over a decade later, in 1626: France has the good fortune that she can easily do without her neighbours; her neighbours cannot get along without her…No money comes to us from England for anything…They bring us cloth, serges, some lead and tin, and with these they take away our goods. The Dutch furnish us in part with sugar, drugs and spices…All these things are so little needed that it would be proper absolutely to forbid their importation.38

Prohibition was not the true aim of the author, who hoped to encourage direct French trade through prohibitive prices on imported goods: So little sugar, drugs, and spices are really needed that high prices for them would be no inconvenience. In addition, it would force our merchants to undertake the voyage to the Indies like our neighbours. Gentlemen, seize the opportunity on this point of representing to the king that he is obliged by the greatness and reputation of his state to re-establish commerce… on the model of that of Amsterdam.39 34 Montchrétien, Traicté de l’œconomie politique, p. 303. 35 Montchrétien, Traicté de l’œconomie politique, p. 250. 36 Montchrétien, Traicté de l’œconomie politique, pp. 325–327. This text is also discussed above in relation to the rise of the Parisian café. See Chapter 3. 37 Montchrétien, p. 23. 38 Advis à l’assemblée de messieurs les notables, pp. 15–16. 39 Advis à l’assemblée de messieurs les notables, p. 17.

160 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

While sugar was considered unnecessary by the author, it was nonetheless a significant enough foreign import to be chosen as a target for those contemporary observers who were keen to reinstate trade as a means of achieving grandeur, without warfare. Twenty years later, sugar still remained noteworthy enough to be detailed in a survey of French trade with the Dutch. In a treatise written in support of the Breton Compagnie du Morbihan in 1646, Le Commerce honourable, Carmelite monk Jean Eon examined the goods brought into France by the Dutch. The third-largest line item is for sugar ‘[i]n both refined and other sugars, white, candy grey and other candied fruits’ at 1.9 million livres out of a total of 21.4 million livres. 40 While Eon’s statistics were undoubtedly selected to illustrate his argument, they are still indicative of sugar as an import of significant worth to be included in the analysis. Sugar was first planted in a French colony in 1638 on St. Christophe. Settled by Pierre Balain in 1625, St. Christophe was controlled by a company funded in part by the personal investment of Cardinal Richelieu, who also granted it privileges. Initially, tobacco was grown on the island, but the company was not successful enough to survive without an infusion of capital and re-organisation in 1635 as the Compagnie des isles de l’Amerique. The new company established colonies in Guadeloupe, Martinique and a minor presence on St. Domingue. By 1638, so much tobacco was produced on St. Christophe that the company feared it would affect the market price, and crop diversification was introduced. Cultivation of sugar in Guadeloupe followed in 1642 and Martinique in 1643. 41 Self-interested directors and a power struggle over the remainder of the decade resulted in liquidation of the company’s assets, the islands, in 1651. Under the control of private individuals, total population of the islands grew from 7,000 in 1642 to 15,000 in 1655, and sugar production increased. 42 France did not benefit greatly from the colonies’ improvements, as Dutch merchants were responsible for almost all of the trade with the islands. Merchants did not send ships to the islands, and France lacked the capacity to refine any real volume of sugar. Colbert pursued a coordinated strategy to eliminate the Dutch from the island trade. Firstly, the establishment of sugar refineries in France was encouraged through financial support. Secondly, a company was formed to trade with the French West Indies. Lastly, a series of protectionist duties were levied to ensure the success of the company and 40 Eon, Le Commerce honorable, p. 30. 41 Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, vol. 2, p. 189. 42 Cole, p. 243.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

161

the refiners, and the resulting revenue for the State. Both the company and the refiners would have de facto monopolies, but Colbert was ambivalent in his protection of the monopolies when they proved uneconomic. Until 1664, there were no sugar refineries of any significance in France. Sugar produced in the French West Indies, which Colbert estimated at two million livres, was refined in Amsterdam and shipped to France. 43 Colbert subsidised the establishment of two refineries in Rouen in 1664. Dutch and German industry professionals were sponsored as owners of ref ineries, bringing considerable foreign expertise to the industry, a strategy which had proven successful in the manufacture of tapestries and mirrors. Colbert’s initiative resulted in the establishment of thirty refineries in France by 1683, notably in Marseille, Saumur, Orléans, Angers, and Nantes. 44 In 1664, the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales was formed, and the individual title claims to the islands were extinguished by royal edict. The king and court off icials provided the bulk of the funding for the company. 45 Only six of the stockholders were merchants, which reflected, in part, the comparative lack of interest in the company relative to the contemporaneous offering for the French East India Company. The preponderance of officials was also explained by the exemption offered to them, as subscribers, from the requirement to reside where their duties were executed. Additionally, stockholders who held judicial positions were allowed to hear cases in which the company was a party, which made them desirable as stockholders in the event of a legal dispute. 46 Similar to the new French East India Company, a series of exclusive rights, assurances and powers were conferred upon the company. The establishing edict: gave the company a forty-year monopoly on all trade to the West Indies, America, and Africa; exempted goods imported and then re-exported by the company from any duty; and sugar refined in France by the company was to pay no export duties. The company also had the right to collect 3% on goods taken to the islands, and 4% duties on goods brought from the islands to France. 47 To protect the newly formed company, and the ref iners in France, the tariff of 1664 initially set import duties of 4 livres on raw sugar from the 43 Mims, Colbert’s West India Policy, pp. 50–51. 44 Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, vol. 1, p. 50. 45 Mims, Colbert’s West India Policy, p. 73. 46 Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, vol. 1, pp. 2 and 6. 47 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions, vol. 1, pp. 100–114.

162 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

French West Indies, and 15 livres per cwt on ref ined sugar. The duty on foreign ref ined sugar was revised upward in 1665 to 22 livres per cwt, with a graduated series of duties on various grades of ref ined sugar from Brazil, but all sugar—raw or ref ined—from the French islands was set at 4 livres. 48 Export of raw sugar from France was not prohibited but the expense of import and export duties, combined with the cost of handling the cargo from one ship to another, made the practice uneconomical. This gave the refiners in France a virtual monopoly and allowed them to set the price for raw sugar. Ref iners pushed prices lower as production increased, and the import duty on raw sugar was reduced by half in 1670 to provide relief to the planters. A shortage of funds incurred protecting the islands during the war with England, however, required the duty to be restored to its original level in 1675, which remained unchanged until 1683. The war not only drained funds from the State, it also led to the dissolution of the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. Financially, it impacted the company in terms of lost revenues, which it was in no condition to bear. Ultimately, however, it was the admittance of private traders during wartime which eliminated the need for a dedicated institution to foster trade with the islands. From the outset, the company was not an entity which fused the risk capital of private merchants with royal prerogative. Rather, it was almost entirely funded by the king and officials, who were either pressured to participate, or joined to extract personal privilege. This lack of genuine expertise in the ownership and direction of the company hampered its initial years, which necessitated constant capital infusions to prevent insolvency. The company’s servants were incompetent in supplying the islands and charged exorbitant prices for supplies. Even in its best years, before the war, the company’s trade activity only amounted to 40% of the Dutch trade. 49 Few ships sailed to and from the islands, which were now cut off from external sources of supplies by virtue of the company monopoly. War between France and England began in 1666, and the same year the planters of Martinique petitioned for free trade with private French merchants and the Dutch. This was allowed by the company directors, but with import and export duties of 5%. By the end of the war, the company had lost an estimated 2.22 million livres. The end of trade restrictions was formalised by royal decree in 1668, subject to duties, and signalled the end of the company 48 Mims, Colbert’s West India Policy, p. 260. 49 Mims, p. 107.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

163

monopoly. In a letter to the Governor General of the islands in 1670, Colbert expressed the need for ‘free trade’: You will surely know by the following that trade, being an effect of the pure will of men, must necessarily be left free…the inhabitants of the islands would always be exposed to the discretion of clerks, who usually abuse the power given to them by their masters.50

The rhetoric of free trade, ‘laissez-faire’, and the endemic abuse of power did not, however, apply to other monopolies such as the French East India Company. As part of a coordinated strategy to take back trade in the islands from the Dutch, the West Indian company had accomplished its goal through its exclusive powers and was no longer indispensable to the success of the colonies. Colbert was contrary in his policies: he employed them opportunistically and tactically to achieve success. When a monopoly was necessary, he not only allowed it, but also encouraged it as a means of realising his objective; when the company ceased to be useful, he discarded it. Without monopoly control, company activity declined, formally ending in liquidation in 1674. Sugar prices were low enough in the 1670s that refining in the islands was contemplated as a way to circumvent the existing monopoly. The import duty for refined and raw sugar from the islands was left the same when the duty was changed in 1675, so the decision was based on the ability to recover the initial cost of establishing refineries through higher market prices.51 Colbert encouraged the effort to establish sugar refineries in the islands, even though this meant competition with refiners in France, and reduced shipping freight: You know well enough how important it is to the commerce of the French isles to induce the inhabitants to refine their sugars themselves and to make production, by this means, easier and more reliable.52

This allowed sugar prices to rise by up to 30% in the islands in 1682, which provoked protest from refiners in France. Colbert advised that the duty on refined sugar from the islands should be doubled, which was enacted

50 Colbert, Lettres, instructions et mémoires, pp. 477–478. 51 Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, vol. 1, p. 53. 52 Colbert, Lettres, instructions et mémoires, p. 551.

164 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

by royal decree in the same year. In 1684, another decree prohibited the establishment of any new refineries in the French West Indies. Despite the absence of a significant presence in sugar refining in metropolitan France, cultivation of sugar in the French West Indies began in the same period that English planters made the switch to sugar from tobacco. A lack of ships and successful trading companies in France in the seventeenth century did not hamper the French islands’ long-term productivity: by the last quarter of the eighteenth century, French colonies produced 37.7% of the sugar exported from the American tropics, a close second to England’s 38.8%. In the same period, St. Domingue produced more sugar than any other colony in the Caribbean, with an output almost double that of Jamaica.53 There was a unique feature to sugar production in the French West Indies, however, which was not shared by their English counterparts—the French could not sell the by-product of sugar production, molasses, in France. Molasses (or treacle) is the viscous liquid by-product of boiling and drying sugar cane juice into raw brown (muscovado) sugar crystals. Further refinement of muscovado sugar into white sugar crystals yields another liquid, referred to as ‘syrup’. While planters could ferment crushed cane directly, if they saw an economic advantage to do so, molasses was a natural by-product of sugar production. Syrup, on the other hand, was only achieved as a derivative of further refining. Molasses was therefore a colonial product, while syrup was a metropolitan product. In an attempt to protect the brandy industry in France, French sugar producers and refiners were not allowed to distil any sugar product into alcohol, from 1713.54 Molasses and syrup were less expensive substitutes as a base for distilling alcohol, compared to using grapes, or grain. The import of molasses into France from the colonies was also banned, which raised production costs for French planters. Unable to sell to a domestic market, they sold molasses to North American colonies in exchange for provisions, usually fish.55 French refiners also exported their syrup, to Germany and the Netherlands. Distillers in the American colonies and on the Continent welcomed the lower prices of distilling materials created by increased supply, while French refiners sought to recoup the implicit tax on sugar that resulted from protection of the brandy producers.56 53 Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, p. 101. 54 McCusker, Rum and the American Revolution, vol. 1, p. 320. 55 Williams, Rum, p. 123. 56 McCusker, ‘The Business of Distilling’, p. 213.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

165

British Consumption: Grandeur through Taxes on ‘Backs and Bellies’ The factors considered above which affected production in England and France provide a context in which both the quantity of sugar consumed, and the modes in which it was consumed, can be evaluated. Self-interested commentators on both sides of the channel spoke of the importance of sugar—but in very different terms. French economic writers emphasised the need to enter into commerce and colonisation for the grandeur of the State, the security of fiscal solvency, and the necessity of self-sufficiency. English observers, especially those with a material personal interest in overseas trade, promoted the benefit of the sugar trade to the national economy, and espoused similar desires to wage economic war to be financially prepared for actual war. In doing so, however, they stressed that sugar was not only a colonial product, but an English product. This effort to embrace not only the enterprise, but also the underlying product, is unusual because sugar was already a known product in England. Unlike many new comestibles which were introduced in the same period, there was no need to fit sugar into a Galenic or Paracelsian models of bodily humours and fermentation. This had already been accomplished during the Renaissance, and sugar was well-known to physicians, and used extensively by apothecaries to make compounds more palatable. The English court before the Civil War was familiar with sugar as it was commonly used in preparation of what are now considered to be savoury dishes. Sweetened meats and sauces for meat were not unusual in English cookery, which employed sugar as a spice. Sugary side dishes were also presented to supplement main dishes, and a progression from exclusively savoury flavours to exclusively sweet flavours in English cuisine was not established until the end of the eighteenth century. Sugar was also used in vast quantities for ‘banqueting’, the early English equivalent of dessert. Instead of clearing the table for a new course, Elizabethan diners repaired to a separate location, the banqueting house, to consume ‘banqueting stuffe’. A banquet included various forms of confection: marzipan, biscuits, candied spices, poached fruit in sugar syrup, candied flowers, marmalade, fruit pastes and wafer cakes.57 The tradition continued into the Jacobean period, when the banquet was followed by a court masque.58 Sir Francis Bacon, who had his own banqueting house, and conducted experiments with sugar, commented on its prevalence in 57 Markham, English Housewife, p. 190. 58 Strong, Feast, pp. 200–201.

166 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

1624: ‘Sugar hath put down the use of Honey in so much as we have lost those observations and preparations of honey as the Ancients had when it was more in price.’59 The fashion for banqueting spread to a wider audience and trickled down to the gentlewoman through cookbooks and household manuals, such as Woolley’s Queen-like Closet.60 The inclusive tone of the title extended to the menus provided: ‘A Bill of Fare in Winter at Great Houses….A Bill of Fare for Lesser Feasts…A Bill of Fare without Feasting…’.61 Confectionary arts which formerly graced the tables of courtly banquets, such as moulded sugar sculptures and trenchers made entirely out of sugar, are detailed for the supervision or instruction of the lady of the house as well as: for the general good of my Country, as well as my own, and have done it with the more willingness, since I find so many Gentlewomen forced to serve, whose Parents and Friends have been impoverished by the late Calamities, viz. the Late Wars, Plague, and Fire, and to see what mean Places they are forced to be in, because they want Accomplishments for better.62

Given the familiarity that nobility and gentry had with sugar, the effort to ‘sell’ the product appears as an attempt to broaden and deepen the market for sugar as supply outstripped demand in the middle of the seventeenth century. Descriptions of sugar as a product of the English maritime empire tied the product and producers together with the inhabitants of the metropolis in a sense of shared identity and citizenship during a period when the concept of Englishness was in flux. Sugar consumption was identified with the revenue it raised, and the value it contributed to England through consumption of other produce, which might not otherwise have been made useful. Thomas Tryon, a merchant and prolific author of ‘self-help’ books commented on a wide range of seemingly conflicted topics stretching from vegetarianism to animal husbandry, and distilling to temperance. In a collection of ‘letters’ more public than private in tone, he remarked: how many Thousand Acres of Land are by the use of this noble Plant, made of five times the value or more, than otherwise they would have been having brought a great number of Fruits, Grains and Seeds into 59 Cox and Dannehl, ‘Suave Water ‒ Sugar Chest’ in Dictionary of Traded Goods. 60 Woolley’s simplified imitations of French recipes are discussed in Chapter 2. 61 Woolley, Queen-like Closet, p. 1. 62 Woolley, p. 379.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

167

use, that were…but little valued formerly, such as Apples, Pears, Plumbs, Apricocks, Gooseberries, and many more…63

Tryon’s reference to fruit and sugar was not in terms of feasting and banqueting, but as a means of extending the utility of a native resource. This allowed consumers to diversify their diet without resorting to imported goods, or relying on meat and cereals alone. Historians have been less interested in the use of sugar in the seventeenth century as a means of preserving fruit, through conserves, syrups, and jams. This lack of interest is in part because they also link these products to the eighteenth-century emergence of breakfast with caffeinated beverages and wheat bread. While salt and vinegar were previously used for preservation through pickling, sugar became affordable enough to be employed as more than a small luxury—as a means of economy. Cheaper sugar was also used by home brewers to increase alcohol content. In a treatise on brewing which emphasised thrift, Tryon explained an inexpensive method of making fruit wines using treacle which was accessible to all levels of consumer: ‘This sort of drink every poor man may have, and indeed it is a more wholesome Drink or Wine than the common sort’.64 In a pamphlet on trade, Tryon recognised contemporary sugar consumers, how taxes affected their consumption, and the knock-on effect that occurred when sugar use declined: It is the working people and Tradesman that pays the King his taxes for Ale and Beer, and not so much the countrymen…it is the former that consumes the Sugar…and do thereby advance the consumption of our own fruits…which would be of little value…none of which would be made Food, and be advantageous to us, if they were not mixed with such sweets, which do likewise occasion the consumption of Flower; and it is most clear that the consumption of their commodities, have of late years encouraged Importation…65

Tryon’s text identifies sugar’s manifold uses and modes of consumption at the level of the metropolitan tradesman as the source of the nation’s revenues, thereby linking ‘trade’ to the attainment of grandeur in the form of ‘Noble houses’ as a ‘Monument’ to ‘riches and Great trade’. Indeed, he 63 Tryon, Tryon’s Letters, Domestick and Foreign, p. 219. 64 Tryon, A New Art of Brewing Beer, p. 2. 65 Tryon, England’s Grandeur, p. 10.

168 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

campaigned for support of the planters: ‘The West-India Settlements… have been the brightest Gem in our Crown of Trade, by employing great numbers of Ships, and making the best of Seamen…no Trade hath advanced Navigation like those Settlements.’66 In Tryon’s analysis of the sugar trade, colonial production was hampered by rising costs and duties, ‘but now the charge of making Sugar is so great, and the price so low, that this, together with the high Duties lately laid on their Commodities, will force them to make but a third or half the Quantity of Sugar’. In turn, this had a negative impact on the quantity of goods required by the colonies, ‘which have hitherto been furnished from England…for within these twenty Years we did lade from England more than one hundred and fifty Sail of Ships… and now we do not load three: therefore it will needs be for the interest of England to lighten their Burden’.67 Keeping sugar in England by switching to a tax on ‘bellies and backs’, however, maximised revenues. Tryon proposed the substitution of an excise tax on sugar, which he saw as a more even-handed method of raising revenue, because it taxed the commodity at the point of consumption. He viewed domestic consumption as more valuable than the export trade, which reduced customs revenues when the import tax was repaid to the importer, ‘great part of the people being forced by pure necessity to retrench their expenses in all Luxurious Commodities, of which no more is consumed in England, are of value to the King, for those that are exported, pays next to nothing, most of the Customs being drawn back’.68 In his view, promotion of domestic consumption was essential, especially for the sugar plantations in competition with French planters. At the same time, the Englishness of that local consumption was visibly embedded in the culture of London. ‘England’s grandeur’ would not have been possible without tradesmen and manufacturers in the metropolis consuming goods like sugar, ‘this City would never have been built, nor so many Noble Houses and Structures Erected, as there has been in and about London, which are as so many Monuments of our former Riches and great Trade.’69 The conceptual link between consumption of sugar as a product of a maritime empire, and the benefit to England extended in practice to sugar byproducts and derivative products: molasses, syrup, rum, and alcohol distillate. This was further reinforced by a prohibition on trade with France with the 66 67 68 69

Tryon, p. 10. Tryon, p. 10. Tryon, pp. 19–20. Tryon, p. 25.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

169

advent of war in 1689, which spurred English production of distilled spirits as an import substitute for French brandy. Molasses or syrup, from sugar refiners in England, offered an inexpensive alternative to malted grains and corn, as the English colonial sugar industry matured, and producers sought to maximise their profitability through exploitation of these by-products. In the middle of the seventeenth century, sugar cane juice or molasses from primary sugar production were distilled and consumed locally, in the West Indies. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, larger plantations and increased production prompted planters to distil locally, or ship rum and molasses as costs and market demand dictated. Following the war, the Methuen treaty in 1703 favoured Portuguese wine, and made import of French wine and brandy prohibitively expensive.70 Further encouragement of the spirits industry in England came from the abolition of the Distilling Company’s monopoly in London in 1713.71 Production of distilled spirits in England rose tenfold from 1684 to 1750, and English consumption of plantation rum increased tenfold from 1700 to 1715.72 Thomas Tryon described the virtues of rum, and spirits distilled from molasses and syrup, as products which were a healthier alternative to imported French brandy: ‘the Sugar or Treacle Brandy is more substantial and cordial…the drinking thereof does not so wound and decay the drinkers of it…as the Drinkers of French brandy.’73 We can add rising taxes to the list of circumstances that aided the popularisation of culturally defined consumption. Higher taxes on beer favoured large-scale producers, which led to consolidation of commercial brewers into an oligopoly, and rising prices.74 Rising prices prompted some consumers to consider caffeinated beverages as a replacement for beer, but others switched to rum or gin. While gin was originally Dutch in origin, many English producers used the neutral spirits from distilling syrup to make ‘gin’, and whiskey producers in Ireland used it with malted grain to produce Irish whiskey.75 In its many guises, sugar insinuated itself into the daily fabric of English life, as an English commodity. The most familiar transformation of sugar into spirits in England was in the form of rum. Consumed at a punch-house, punch was a male-oriented drink, but in the home it had the same trappings of domesticity and gentility which 70 Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes, p. 50. 71 Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, p. 345. 72 On distilled spirits, see Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes, p. 42; on the consumption of rum, see Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, p. 348. 73 Tryon, Tryon’s Letters, p. 216. 74 Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes, p. 82. 75 McCusker, ‘The Business of Distilling’, pp. 207–208.

170 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

accompanied tea. Punch bowls, ladles, glasses, and silver nutmeg graters formed part of the équipage necessary for polite consumption of punch. Even as rum crossed the gender divide, it was promoted as a national drink. When consumption of gin reached epidemic proportions in the middle of the eighteenth century, rum producers attempted to differentiate consumption of rum and punch not only as healthy alternatives, but also as products which were of national benefit through the increased consumption of colonial sugar. This campaign prompted the Country Journal’s remark, which also reflected the gender divide in the products, that a ‘great intercession was made in particular for Mr. Rum and Mme. Punch; it being alleged in their Behalf, that our Sugar Colonies and several other Branches of that Trade depended very much on them.’76 Rum was also embedded in the culture of the Royal Navy, through the rum ration formally instituted in 1730. Initially, rum was served to sailors to celebrate the capture of Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655. It was introduced on board ships in the West Indies during this period on an ad hoc basis as a substitute when Madeira or brandy was unavailable.77 Rum was a better choice for a number of reasons: it was an English product which was less expensive than French brandy; it was readily available; and it was not subject to prohibitions when England was at war with France. Initial rations of a pint of straight rum were reduced to a half pint in 1730, then in an effort to control drunkenness, were changed in 1740 to a mixture of rum, water, sugar and lime juice—grog. Before the link between scurvy and ascorbic acid in citrus juice was made in 1752 by Dr. James Lind, British sailors receiving grog with lime juice fared better than their counterparts in the merchant marine who still got straight rum.78 Richard Ligon, an early planter in Barbados referred to rum as ‘kill-devil’, a liquor so strong that a slave who looked into a pot of rum with a candle was engulfed by flames when the rum exploded. He also described its virtue as a cure for colds, dispensed by the island’s Apothecary.79 He finished his discussion of sugar production with a discussion of sugar’s preservative qualities, which paralleled his observation on the medicinal use of rum: as this plant has the ability to preserve all fruits that grow in the world, from corruption and putrefaction; so it has a virtue, being rightly applied, to preserve us men in our healths and our fortunes too.80 76 Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, p. 346. 77 Wright, ‘Records of the Navy Board’. 78 Foss, Rum, pp. 60–62. 79 Ligon, A True and Exact History, p. 92. 80 Ligon, p. 96.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

171

Beyond its metaphoric value, Ligon quotes the English physician, Doctor Butler, who recommended daily doses of sugar in wine as an anti-phlegmatic: If Sugar can preserve both Peares and Plumbes / Why can it not preserve as well our lunges?…he always drank it in his claret wine, great store of the best refin’d sugar, and also prescribed it…to his patients for Coughs, Colds, and Catarrhs, that reign much in cold climates, especially in Islands, where the Ayre is moyster than Continents…81

Ligon linked sugar’s intrinsic properties as specifically appropriate for the English climate, which he distinctly separated as an island, in opposition to the climate of the Continent. We know that sugaring wine was in fact a practice unique to England’s geography. It may have been added originally to balance the humours associated with wine, or as an ‘anti-phlegmatic’ as described above, but (and here geography played a specific role) it was most frequently used to soften the acidity of low-quality wines, or wines which had spoiled in transit.82 Sugar was also consumed with wine in the spiced sweet drink Hippocras, which was a common feature of the medieval banquet. Until the eighteenth century, it was popular in England as a sort of aperitif-cum-medicine. Samuel Pepys’ diary mentions Hippocras and other herbal tonics, such as plague-water, taken as remedies when unwell. In his entry of October 29, 1663, he declined wine in favour of ‘Hypocras’ at the Guild Hall, ‘which did not break my vowe, it being to the best of my present judgment only a compound drink, and not any wine.’ Despite the convenience of this rationalisation, French consumers did not embrace the English habit, and used water to balance, or ‘baptise’, overly acidic wines.

French Consumption: The Sun King’s Sweet Tooth and the Balance of Trade While French consumers eschewed sugar in their wine, French vintners were threatened by colonial sugar production. English sugar producers increased their profitability through the production of rum made from molasses, but distillation of spirits made from anything but wine was banned in France, and in the French colonies, beginning in 1710. The protection of brandy and 81 Ligon, p. 96. 82 See Chapter 1.

172 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

eaux-de-vie producers was reinforced by another law introduced in 1713 that expressly restricted the distillation of molasses and sugar syrup.83 This ban acted as a de facto tax on colonial sugar producers, while the domestic distillers enjoyed higher prices afforded by the protectionist policy. This particular element of the sugar industry is illustrative of the divergent consumption and re-export patterns of France and England. Rum, produced from sugar refining by-products, was identified and adopted as an English product, and its consumption was explicitly connected by commentators to the profitability of the English colonies. Domestic consumption of sugar reinforced the Englishness of the commodity in its many forms, while the more limited modes of the French sugar habit did not permeate the practices of French consumers to develop into an enduring cultural stereotype. French consumption of sugar in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is often evaluated quantitatively relative to per capita consumption in England, utilising eighteenth-century data, as seventeenth-century data is not available.84 English re-exports ranged between 40% (1717) and 6% (1752).85 General distribution shows that most frequently, about 20% of sugar imported into Britain was re-exported. Data for the same period in France shows that 60–70% of sugar imported was re-exported.86 Contemporary observers on both sides of the Channel attributed this to different factors aligned to their national interests. John Campbell’s comparison of the sugar trade in England and France in 1763 looked back over the previous century: ‘at the close of the last century we consumed about twenty thousand hogsheads, and exported about as much. We now consume about fourscore thousand hogsheads of sugar, and except in times of war, do export but a little.’ He noted, in contrast, that despite the increased production of sugar by French growers, ‘their consumption is small, and of course they export a great deal in times of peace.’ Campbell implied that France lacked the affluence necessary to consume sugar at the same level as England, because they were inferior in the realm of commerce, ‘If the wealth of France was as great…that is, if the mass of her people were as thoroughly employed, and thereby as easy in their circumstances, as the bulk of the British nation actually are, they would then, of course, consume far more, and export far less.’87 The ability of British consumers to afford large quantities of sugar 83 McCusker, ‘The Business of Distilling’, p. 212. 84 Stein, French Sugar Business, p. 164. 85 Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery. 86 Stein, ‘The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century’, p. 10. 87 Campbell, Candid and Impartial Observations, p. 31.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

173

is declared as a barometer of economic well-being. Moreover, he argued against the benefit of a positive balance of trade, asserting that consumption was a positive force within the closed English trading network, allowing for the sale of more manufactures back to the sugar colonies. Tryon made a similar claim in 1699 about English consumption as evidence of national prowess in commerce, ‘Tradesmen and common people of England have spent and consumed greater quantities of such things than half of Europe; the Tradesmen and poor of other Nations hardly knowing their names, and much less their natures.’88 During the same period, however, a French commentator attributed the difference in exports to high English sugar prices, which were a result of the exorbitant cost of supplies sold to the colonies. Unable to export the overpriced product, England was forced to consume it: sugar from the English colonies was up to 70% more expensive in London than sugar from the French colonies in French ports, quality for quality. This excessive price can have no other explanation than the excessive cost of foodstuffs England sends to its colonies; and at these prices, what can England do with her surpluses?89

While sugar was also noted by eighteenth-century English observers, such as John Campbell, to be about 30% more expensive at point of export than in France, the price of French sugar doubled in transit. A detailed analysis of a shipment from St. Domingue to Paris in 1772 revealed that in addition to import duties, freight and commission to get the commodity to a French port, there were also taxes for entry into the Cinq Fermes (tax farm system), internal transport charges, and duty to enter Paris.90 Whereas French sugar was not as expensive as British sugar in the eighteenth century, there is no evidence that there was widespread consumption of sugar in France. Qualitatively, there are few mentions of sugar consumption in rural areas, and there is an absence of data to analyse, which suggests that there was little familiarity with it.91 The use of per capita statistics is not helpful in this regard, as it does not take geographical distribution into account. As a result, this data tends to homogenise the divide between rural and metropolitan consumption. A focus on larger metropolitan centres, 88 Tryon, England’s Grandeur, p. 23. 89 Journal du commerce, p. 97. 90 Stein, French Sugar Business, pp. 60–61. 91 Stein, p. 163.

174 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

however, provides a different picture of urban per capita sugar consumption. Annual per capita consumption in Paris in the 1780s, based on the amounts of sugar sold by Orléans refiners in Paris may have been as high as 50 lbs. of raw sugar per person.92 This compares to approximately 80 lbs. per person in London in the same period, assuming London’s population at 10% of total English population. Regional differences existed in England as well, but some insight as to how widely sugar was used in London can be found in the analysis of poorhouse accounts compiled by Carol Shammas. From 1700 there is evidence of sugar purchases for all workhouses and hospitals, though no purchases of tea. Although sugar was most likely used in an economical manner to sweeten gruels and porridges to make them more palatable, its institutional use suggests the pervasive nature of sugar even before it became an article of mass consumption throughout England.93 While the use of some sugar in London penetrated to the level of the poorhouse, anecdotal evidence suggests that Parisian consumption among the lower classes would probably have been limited to a spoonful in coffee. A protest over sugar prices in 1792 can be seen either as one more disturbance amongst many in a period of immense unrest, or as an indication that sugar had become a necessity embedded into the daily life of workingclass Parisians. The weekly periodical Révolutions de Paris dismissed the ‘gratuitous noise’ as a pretext for disorder, since ‘the real people’ were not normally sugar consumers: ‘The people are too poor to engage in such acquisitions’.94 Sugar was certainly used in coffee, tea, and chocolate, as indicated in guides such as De Blégny’s Le Bon usage du thé, du café, et du chocolat (1697), but his recommendations emphasised taste as the method for regulating correct usage of sugar. He saw sugar as an essential ‘salt’—only in high concentrations could it be detrimental, but your taste will guide you to the correct amount.95 This governing principle of good taste not only regulated how much sugar one used, but also how it should be consumed. French cuisine formally abandoned the pan-European use of sugar and foreign spices in courtly cookery in 1651, with the publication of Le Cuisinier François. Previous culinary traditions throughout Europe had used sugar extensively in all cooking, with no distinction between ‘sweet’ and ‘savoury’ dishes, or when they were served during a meal. As a result, meat dishes often included sugar 92 Stein, p. 164. 93 Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, p. 81. 94 Bruegel, ‘Sugar: A Bourgeois Good?’. 95 Blegny, Le Bon usage du thé, pp. 156–157.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

175

in the sauces, and might be served with an ‘entremêt’—a sweetened side dish. Beginning in the seventeenth century, sweetness in French cuisine was excluded from savoury preparations, such as meat, poultry, fish, and game. Sweet dishes, such as tarts and crèmes were still served alongside savoury dishes in all but the last course—dessert—which was exclusively sweet. While dessert has endured as the term for the last sweet course, the aristocratic preference in the eighteenth century was to refer to the sweet course as ‘fruit’. Not surprisingly, the bourgeois designation ‘dessert’ survived the revolution, while ‘fruit’ did not.96 Unlike the English banquet which relocated diners to a separate location, dessert in France was served in place, but was the only time during the meal when all the dishes would be cleared from the table. Previously, some dishes would be removed while others remained, only to be replaced themselves during another course, so that the table was never bare during the meal. With dessert, everything was cleared away, and the tablecloth was replaced, separating the last course from the previous procession of courses. After six courses, it is doubtful any of the guests required more food, but this last course was different from all the others, as described by the anonymous author of L’Art de bien traiter, L.S.R: ‘The delicacy and cleanliness of a dessert … wants to be eaten less greedily than the previous services.’97 Dessert was not meant to satisfy base appetites, but was an opportunity to appreciate delicate flavours, presented in magnificent displays. In the seventeenth century, geometric shapes and towering pyramids were the preferred styles of presentation, which gave way to sugar paste sculptures—pièces montées en pastillage. These were not the responsibility of the chef de cuisine, but of the officier d’office, or confectioner. Separate volumes instructed practitioners on the different cooking stages of sugar for spinning, blowing, and casting sugar moulds.98 This specialised skill allowed for increasing levels of artifice in replicating food and tableware in sugar paste. Elaborate reproductions of woven baskets made out of moulded sugar, filled with confections were often presented to guests as a parting gift after a grand meal. Temples, statues, and whole gardens arranged in baroque arabesques turned the dessert table into a sugary landscape.99 Edible dishes, artfully presented, included: fresh fruit, fruit in syrup, candied fruit and citrus peel, compotes, jams, cheeses, biscuits, whipped cream, pâtes de 96 Flandrin, Arranging the Meal, p. 103. 97 L.S.R., L’Art de bien trâiter. 98 La Varenne, Traité de confiture, pp. 10–13. 99 Willan, ‘Behind the Scenes’, p. 156.

176 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

fruits, candied spices, liqueurs—referred to as eaux d’Italie, and candies were all presented in the dessert course.100 The appetite of aristocratic French sugar consumers, even in restraint, was considerable in terms of how much sugar was used in the preparation of dessert. While not every dessert at every meal featured a sugar sculpture, sugar was consumed in regular quantities on a daily basis. Louis XIV’s prodigious appetite, as often quoted by the Princess Palatine, also extended to dessert and sugary treats, especially lemonade and sweetmeats.101 While desserts were not recounted in detail unless they resulted in ill health, the king’s passion for fresh fruits, such as figs, strawberries, and oranges was significant enough to be noticed. In addition, the king had a weakness for jams and compotes, ‘Louis XIV had another indulgence: candied fruits, which were then called “confitures seches”…especially marmalade.’102 While his doctors never questioned his excessive sugar consumption, the king counted severe tooth decay amongst his many ailments. His tooth pain was so severe that he was unable to take many of the medicinal preparations which his doctors recommended to him, as the sugar in the remedies hurt his teeth: he used apricot syrup diluted in water, he could not use barley water; [or] marshmallow tablets, cashews, pink sugar, which he likewise stopped using, because the sweets made his toothache worse.103

Chevalier Lagrange-Chancel, a playwright, musketeer, and honorary maître d’hôtel of the Princess Palatine, commented that the king’s tooth loss was due to the quantity of jams and fruit confections that he consumed. In his Portrait et gestes du roi Louis XIV, Lagrange-Chancel noted the cause that left the king nearly toothless by his fortieth birthday: ‘His mouth was emptied of teeth, which fell out around his fortieth birthday, because of the quantity of sweets he ate at the end of meals or collations.’104 For the king, and nobles entertaining in emulation of courtly fashion, sugar was affordable. For an unskilled labourer, not only was it expensive, but there were far more attractive alternatives. By drawing on data from Henri Hauser, Recherches et documents sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800 (1936) we can see that in 1727, a kilogram of sugar cost two day’s wages, for an unskilled 100 Flandrin, Arranging the Meal, p. 86. 101 Vallot, d’Aquin and Fagon, Journal de la santé du roi, p. 15. 102 Perez, La Santé de Louis XIV, p. 187. 103 Vallot, d’Aquin and Fagon, Journal de la santé du roi, p. 145. 104 Perez, La Santé de Louis XIV, p. 187.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

177

labourer in Paris.105 A day’s work could also buy a kilogram of beef, 1.3 litres of wheat flour—or ten litres of wine. A comparison with British prices, using Gregory Clark’s 2007 study of English wages and expenses, reveals that the same class of worker in London only worked a day and a half for his sugar, and beef was the same price as in Paris.106 None of the beverages in Clark’s survey, however, approached the level of affordability of French wine. Even tea, assuming a low-quality brew, was ten times as expensive, making the cost of a spoonful of sugar negligible by comparison to the cost of tea. The same data also reveals that French sugar prices continued to rise in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, even though other prices flagged due to the faltering domestic economy. With a strong system of Continental exports already in place, French sugar was priced according to the external market, not for domestic consumption. French cuisine broke with medieval traditions of sugaring meats and sweetening wine in the middle of the seventeenth century, preferring natural flavours as a sign of refinement. Wine remained the preferred alcoholic beverage, and the wine industry gained protection against the availability of cheap molasses which threatened the production of brandy. New caffeinated beverages made a modest impact in aristocratic circles, and coffee reached the urban masses, but sugar never dominated the drink, and remained a complementary element of its consumption. Even as sugar gained an exclusive role in the service of courtly cuisine, its re-emergence as a status good owed to the artistry of the confectioner, not the good itself. As the rising prices only affected consumers who were already capable of absorbing the additional cost, the economic goal of self-sufficiency was not at risk, and the favourable balance of trade produced by colonial sugar was a welcome source of revenues during a period when domestic production waned.107 Sugar from the British West Indies did not produce the same positive balance in trade, as it became too expensive to export. Commentators with a vested interest in the British sugar production lobbied for the ‘free trade’ they perceived in France, but at the same time claimed French consumers lacked prosperity to buy sugar. British metropolitan consumers, uninterested by the inequality inherent in the closed system of trade, embraced increasingly affordable sugar as an English product, linked to the edge of a commercial empire which now boasted colonies. As sugar prices dropped, treacle turned into navy rum, plantation punch, or even gin, and competed with porter 105 Hauser, Recherches et documents, pp. 89, 94 and 141–143. 106 Clark, ‘English Prices and Wages’. 107 Stein, ‘The French Sugar Business’, p. 14.

178 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

for its place as an Englishman’s drink. Sugar sweetened coffee and wine alike, extended the yield of orchard fruits, and brightened the gruel of the workhouse poor. While it did not reach every consumer, English sugar was embedded into metropolitan daily life. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, this identification was reversed with the rise of the anti-saccharite movement. Even before sugar was denounced as a product of slavery, it raised concerns with clerics and social reformers concerned about the perceived lack of thrift occasioned by consumption of sugar—and tea. Scottish minister Duncan Forbes denounced both: when the opening of a trade with the East Indies…brought the Price of Tea…so low, that the meanest labouring Man could compass the Purchase of it…when Sugar, the inseparable Companion of Tea, came to be in possession of the very poorest Housewife, where formerly it had been a great Rarity…and when Tea and Punch became then the Diet and Debauch of all the Beer and Ale Drinkers, the effects were suddenly and severely felt.108

Rather than including sugar in the British empire, commentators now cultivated the distance between Britain and the imported commodities through language permeated by moral geography. Theologian David Davies was not hostile to the tea habit of the poor, but commented on the incongruity of the practice, ‘it appears a very strange thing, that the common people of any European nation should be obliged to use, as part of their daily diet, two articles imported from opposite sides of the earth.’109 He viewed the consumption of sweet tea as a bare necessity, but nonetheless felt that the practice was unnatural and driven by political economy, ‘high taxes, in consequence of expensive wars…have debarred the poorer inhabitants of this kingdom of the natural products of the soil, and forced them to recur to those of foreign growth; surely this is not their fault.’110 These observers were aware of the breadth of the empire but were not convinced that the resultant impact on social habits was a positive change. Not everyone was unhappy with the fruits of empire, however, as Horace Walpole extolled the virtues of exotic goods that had become British staples: ‘I am heartily glad that we shall keep Jamaica and the East Indies another year, that one may have time to lay in a stock of tea and sugar for the rest of one’s days’. Walpole did not yearn nostalgically for the insularity of islandhood, or a 108 Forbes, Some Considertions on the Present State of Scotland, p. 7. 109 Davies, Case of Labourers in Husbandry, p. 39. 110 Davies, p. 39.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

179

return to the simplicity and frugality of a time ‘before tea and sugar were known…I cannot recall precisely whether diluted acorns, and barley bread spread with honey, made a very luxurious breakfast.’111 The perception that the majority of early modern sugar consumption in Britain was driven by tea is contradicted by a preponderance of earlier evidence documenting increased sugar consumption, and the proliferation of new modes of sugar consumption, which preceded tea’s arrival. While the iconic value of sweetened British tea is seductive in its combination of the opposite ends of global trading network, sugar deserves a distinct role in the history of consumption which marks the transition from a network of carrying-trade entrepôts to a colonial empire.

Bibliography Printed Primary Sources Advis à l’assemblée de messieurs les notables. Sur l’ouverture des estats. Paris: np, 1627. Aulard, François-Alphonse, ed. La Société des Jacobins: Recueil de documents pour l’histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris. Vol. 3, Paris: Jouaust, Noblet and Quantin, 1889. Blegny, Nicolas de. Le Bon usage du thé: du café et du chocolat pour la preservation à pour la guerison des maladies. Paris: E. Michallet, 1697. Campbell, John. Candid and Impartial Observations on the Nature of the Sugar Trade. London: R. Baldwin, 1763. Child, Sir Josiah, Charles D’Avenant, William Wood. Select dissertations on colonies and plantations. By those celebrated authors, Sir Josiah Child, Charles D’avenant, Ll. D. And Mr. William Wood. Wherein the nature of plantations, and their consequences to Great Britain, are seriously considered. And a plan proposed, which may settle the unhappy differences between Great Britain and America. London: W. Hay, 1775. Colbert, Jean Baptiste. Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert. Paris: Impr. impériale, 1861–1873. Cowper, William. ‘Pity for Poor Africans’. Northampton Mercury 9 (August 1788). Reproduced in William Cowper, The Poetical Works of William Cowper. Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1863. 418–419. Davies, David. The Case of Labourers in Husbandry. London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1795. 111 Botsford, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, p. 27.

180 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Eon, Jean. Le Commerce honorable, ou Considérations politiques. Nantes: G. Le Monnier, 1646. Forbes, Duncan. Some Considerations on the Present State of Scotland. Edinburgh: W. Sands, A. Murray, and J. Cochran, 1744. Godechot, Jacques. ‘Fragments des Mémoires de Charles-Alexis Alexandre sur les Journées Révolutionnaires de 1791 et 1792’. Annales historiques de la Révolution française 24: 126 (1952), 113–251. L.S.R. L’Art de bien trâiter. Paris, F. Léonard, 1674. Ligon, Richard. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados. London: Humphrey Moseley, 1657. Littleton, Edward. The Groans of the Plantations, or, a True Account of Their Grievous and Extreme Sufferings by the Heavy Impositions Upon Sugar and Other Hardships Relating More Particularly to the Island of Barbados. London: M. Clark, 1689. Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife (1615), ed. Mark Best Kingston. Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986. Misson de Valbourg, Henri. Mémoires et observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre, sur ce qu’il y a trouvé de plus remarquable, tant à l’égard de la religion, que de la politique, des mœurs, des curiositez naturelles, & quantité de faits historiques… The Hague: Henri van Bulderen, 1698, 389. Montchrétien, Antoine de. Traicté de L’œconomie politique. Rouen: Jean Osmont. 1615. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Louis-Élie. Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’amérique sous le vent. 6 vols. Paris: chez l’auteur, Quillau, Mequignon jeune, 1784–1790. The Present Case of a Barbados Planter, and Reasons against Laying a Further Duty on Sugar. London: 1695. Serres, Olivier de. Le Théâtre d’agriculture et mesnage des champs. Geneva: Chouet, 1651. The State of the Case of the Sugar Plantations in America. London: 1698. Tryon, Thomas. England’s Grandeur and Way to Get Wealth, or, Promotion of Trade Made Easy and Lands Advanced. London: J. Harris, 1699. Tryon, Thomas. A New Art of Brewing Beer, Ale, and Other Sorts of Liquors. London: Tho. Salusbury, 1690. Tryon, Thomas. Tryon’s Letters Upon Several Occasions. London: Geo. Conyers and Eliz. Harris, 1700. Vallot, Antoine, Antoine d’Aquin, and Guy Crescent Fagon, eds. Journal de la santé du roi Louis XIV de l’année 1647 à l’année 1711. Paris: Durand, 1862. La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. Traité de confiture ou le nouveau et parfait confiturier; qui enseigne la manière de bien faire toutes sortes de confitures tant sèches que liquides…avec l’instruction & devoirs des chefs d’office de fruiterie et de sommelerie. Paris: T. Guillain 1689.

Sugar and Empire: Tea’s ‘Insepar able Companion’

181

Woolley, Hannah. The Queen-like Closet; or, Rich Cabinet Stored with All Manner of Rare Receipts for Preserving, Candying & Cookery. Very Pleasant and Beneficial to All Ingenious Persons of the Female Sex. London: R. Lowndes at the White Lion in Duck-Lane, near West- Smithfield, 1670. Wright, Captain Lawrence, RN, HMS Phoenix. ‘Records of the Navy Board and the Board of Admiralty.’ June 7, 1676.

Secondary Literature Botsford, J. B. English Society in the Eighteenth Century as Influenced from Overseas. New York: Macmillan, 1924. Bruegel, Martin. ‘Sugar: A Bourgeois Good?’ In Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages, edited by Peter Scholliers. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Clark, Gregory. ‘English Prices and Wages, 1209–1914’. Global Price and Income History Group. 2006. Cole, Charles Woolsey. Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism. 2 Vols. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964. Cowan, Brian William. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005 Cox, Nancy and Karin Dannehl. Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities, 15501820. Wolverhampton: 2007. British History Online http://www.british-history. ac.uk/no- series/traded-goods-dictionary/1550-1820 Curtin, P. D. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972. de Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Drescher, S., and D. B. Davis. Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Dunn, Richard S. Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713. London: Cape, 1973. Flandrin, Jean-Louis. Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Foss, Richard. Rum: A Global History. Chicago: Reaktion Books, 2012. Galloway, J. H. ‘The Mediterranean Sugar Industry’. Geographical Review 67: 2 (1977): 177–194. Hauser, Henri. Recherches et documents sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800. Paris: Les Presses Modernes, 1936. Higman, B. W. ‘The Sugar Revolution’. The Economic History Review 53: 2 (May 2000), 213–236.

182 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

McCusker, John. ‘The Business of Distilling’. In The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, eds. John McCusker and Kenneth Morgan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001. McCusker, John. Rum and the American Revolution. New York: Garland Publishing, 1989. Menard, Russell R. Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 2006. Mims, Stewart Lea. Colbert’s West India Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin, 1986. Nye, John. War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Perez, Stanis. La Santé De Louis XIV: Une Biohistoire Du Roi-Soleil. Seyssel: ChampVallon, 2007. Shammas, Carole. The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Sheridan, Richard B. Sugar and Slavery; an Economic History of the British West. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Smith, Woodruff D. Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800. New York Routledge, 2002. Starkey, Otis P. The Economic Geography of Barbados: A Study of the Relationships between Environmental Variations and Economic Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Stein, Robert. ‘The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century: A Quantitative Study’. Business History 22:1 (1980), 15. Stein, Robert Louis. The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Strong, Roy. Feast: A History of Grand Eating. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Willan, Ann. ‘Behind the Scenes’. In The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals, ed. Marcia Reed. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 2015, 149–180. Williams, Ian. Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. New York: Nation Books, 2006.

Websites The Slave Voyages Consortium. ‘Estimates’. Slavevoyages.Org, 2021. http://www. slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates

Conclusion In 1711, Joseph Addison published an essay in The Spectator, describing a stroll through London’s Royal Exchange. His observations on the jostling crowds are most frequently cited by historians as evidence of cosmopolitanism, but they also reveal the intersection of cultural identity, food and commerce in the period.1 The links between taste, trade, and patterns of consumption that had developed in the seventeenth century were woven into the fabric of everyday life in the early eighteenth century. Earlier justifications for international trade and rationalisations of luxury became enmeshed in a relationship of mutual influence with the development of social norms and the demand for consumer goods, each factor pushing and pulling the other. Addison’s commentary shows how the connection between food and commerce had coalesced to influence the author’s idea of what it meant to be British at that time. Using language reminiscent of early seventeenthcentury economic authors who claimed the collective benefit of trade, he acknowledged the early origins, and influences of the international circulation of goods. In his essay, Addison joyfully proclaimed himself a ‘Citizen of the World’ as he rubbed elbows with foreign businessmen, awash in a sea of different languages. Even as he imagined himself a Dane, a Swede, or a Frenchman, Addison was nonetheless filled with patriotic pleasure by the pre-eminent global status of the London Exchange: ‘It gives me a secret Satisfaction, and in some measure, gratif ies my Vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an Assembly of Countrymen and Foreigners consulting together upon the private Business of Mankind, and making this Metropolis a kind of Emporium for the whole Earth.’2 Addison saw Nature’s design in the distribution of goods across the earth as an encouragement for mutual interdependence through trade, however, he claimed this universal commerce as part of a British empire: ‘Trade, without enlarging the British Territories, has given us a kind of additional Empire: It has 1 Jacobs, Strangers Nowhere in the World, p. 76. 2 Addison, The Spectator, No. 69.

Van Dyk, G. Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France: Across the Channel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/9789463720175_concl

184 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

multiplied the Number of the Rich, made our Landed Estates infinitely more Valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an Accession of other Estates as Valuable as the Lands themselves.’3 This declaration of non-occupational imperialism was tied to the increased the value of ‘British Estates’, emphasising that the wealth generated through trade was retained in Britain. Similarly, in arguing for the benefit of trade and the consumption of foreign goods, Addison drew the parallel with the naturalisation of nonnative agricultural products through the mediation of the English soil: If we consider our own Country in its natural Prospect, without any of the Benefits and Advantages of Commerce, what a barren uncomfortable Spot of Earth falls to our Share…our Melons, our Peaches, our Figs, our Apricots, and Cherries, are Strangers among us, imported in different Ages, and naturalized in our English Gardens. 4

While Addison had earlier claimed that Nature encouraged the exchange of goods, here trade has improved Nature, and introduced fruit that is transformed into a native product of Britain. In his celebration of the bounty of trade, Addison also naturalised and appropriated foreign goods as the metaphoric fruits of the British empire: ‘My Friend…calls the Vineyards of France our Gardens; the Spice-Islands our Hot-beds; the Persians our Silk-Weavers, and the Chinese our Potters.’5 For Addison, merchants not only delivered ‘useful’, ‘convenient’ and ‘ornamental’ goods, but also improved the welfare of all: There are no more useful Members in a Commonwealth than Merchants. They knit Mankind together in a mutual Intercourse of good Offices, distribute the Gifts of Nature, find Work for the Poor, add Wealth to the Rich, and Magnificence to the Great.6

This allusion to the communal benef it of the Commonwealth recalls the early seventeenth-century economic tract of Edward Misselden who asked: ‘What else makes a common-wealth, but the private wealth…of the members thereof in the exercise of Commerce amoungst themselves with 3 4 5 6

Addison, No. 69. Addison, No. 69. Addison, No. 69. Addison, No. 69.

Conclusion

185

forrine Nations?’7 Like the fruits ‘imported in different Ages’, Addison’s reference acknowledged the seventeenth-century roots of overseas commerce. Through its collective benefit to the Commonwealth, British trade has naturalised foreign goods, as the English soil naturalised the imported fruit. Consumption and notions of Britishness are ‘knit’ together with trade, and the common benefit derived from bringing together the corners of the globe and distributing Nature’s bounty. On the other side of the Channel, the benefits of global trade were also praised by Voltaire in his poem Le Mondain (The Worldly Man, 1736), for bringing together ‘the two hemispheres’. In his glorification of luxury, he named outstanding French artists who exemplified his ideals of taste, pleasure, and luxury. His list of notables included: Louis XV’s silversmith, Thomas Germain; the composer Jean Philippe Rameau; the painter Nicolas Poussin, and the chef and cookbook author Martialo (known as Massialot). Voltaire also highlighted the Gobelins royal tapestry factory in Paris, champagne, and nouvelle cuisine as examples of French excellence: ‘Let us dine. These brilliant courses / the delicacy of these ragouts! / A chef is a divine mortal!’ The effervescence of champagne is proclaimed not only as a metaphor for the brilliance of France—‘The sparkling foam of this wine / Is the brilliant image of France’—but also as an economic good capable of overpowering the Ottoman Empire—‘While far away, conquerors of Muslims / Our French wines intoxicate sultans.’ The poem was not originally written for widespread publication but was distributed privately to a close circle of Voltaire’s correspondents. When one of these confidants, the comte de Bussy, died unexpectedly, the poem was discovered and seized by public authorities. Voltaire’s impious characterisation of Adam and Eve’s unwashed embraces as ‘a shameful need’, and his reference to an earthly Eden as ‘Paradise on earth is where I am’ were condemned. In response to critics of Le Mondain, Voltaire wrote L’Apologie du luxe in the same year. In contrast to the celebration of luxury and French excellence in his previous poem, Voltaire advanced an economic argument for the benefit of these industries to the State in his rejoinder.8 The narrative is constructed as a discussion at a dinner party, between the author and a hypocritical moralist. Voltaire unmasked the false austerity of his dining companion, who was drinking imported wine and followed his five-course meal with coffee served in a porcelain cup. After exposing the moralist’s hypocrisy, the author assured him of the collective benefit conferred on 7 Misselden, Circle of Commerce, p. 17. 8 Aldridge, Voltaire and the Century of Light, p. 101.

186 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

the State by his consumption: ‘Above all, know that luxury enriches / A large State, even if it loses a little / This splendour, this worldly pomp, / Is the sure mark of a happy reign.’ The choice of coffee from Yemen, Canary wine and Chinese porcelain shifted the emphasis away from the French products listed in Le Mondain, to imported goods. While the goods were not French, the act of consumption mediated their foreignness, through the direct economic benefit of trade to the State that, in turn, accrued to the grandeur of the monarch. This argument echoed the economic writing of Jean-François Melon, who had published his tract, Essai politique sur le commerce, the previous year. Melon, former secretary to the infamous Scottish financier John Law, had defined commerce in his essay as ‘the exchange of the superfluous for the necessary.’9 In Le Mondain, Voltaire inverted this definition in his praise of luxury, ‘The superfluous is truly necessary’, but in L’Apologie, his focus was on rationalising this consumption in the name of the State. Melon later acknowledged Voltaire’s contention in a letter to the Comtesse de Verrue: I read, madam, the ingenious Apology for Luxury; I view this little work as an excellent lesson in politics, disguised as agreeable banter. I flatter myself that I have demonstrated, in my Political Essay on Commerce, how much this taste for the fine arts and this use of wealth, this soul of a great State which we call luxury, are necessary for the circulation of money and for the maintenance of industry.10

Melon saw the pursuit of luxury crossing class boundaries and stimulating productivity, ‘often the one and the other put themselves in a state of voluptuous enjoyment of life: & luxury becomes a new reason for their work.’11 Moreover, he viewed luxury as a precursor to progress, with subsequent generations as the beneficiaries of contemporary consumption, ‘What was luxury for our fathers is now common; & what is for us, will not be for our nephews. Silk stockings were a luxury in the time of Henri II; & faience is worth as much, compared to dirt, as porcelain compared to faience.’12 Voltaire shared these convictions that luxury spurred progress and promoted productivity through emulation. He advanced Melon’s contention 9 Melon, Essai politique, p. 9. 10 Voltaire, Mélanges de poësies, p. 69. 11 Melon, Essai politique, p. 121. 12 Melon, p. 123.

Conclusion

187

one step further in the L’Apologie in his comparison of French and British trade and consumption: In France and England’s abundant States, / one hundred canals circulate. / The taste of luxury enters all the ranks; / The poor see there the vanities of the rich; / And work, pledged by opulence, / Through slow steps opens the road to riches.13

Where Melon cited the progression from terracotta to faience to porcelain as an example of technological advancement, Voltaire chose the development of infrastructure linked to domestic and international trade to support his position. Like Melon, he claimed that consumption of luxury goods exerted a positive influence on all classes, leading to greater riches for all. Despite the promise of progress offered in his argument, Voltaire expressed nostalgia for the age of Louis XIV. He contrasted the simplicity of Ancient Rome with the flourishing economy under the dirigiste policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert: Oh Colbert was a wise wit!…That minister, useful and bright, / With luxury enriched the State / And increased the source of all the arts; From the South, the East, the North, / Our proud neighbours, jealous of our progress, / Paid for the genius they admired in us.14

Looking back to the seventeenth century, Voltaire saw Colbert’s development of economic self-sufficiency achieved through the domestic production of luxury goods as a source of power and grandeur for the State that made France the envy of its neighbours. Unlike Addison’s attempts to naturalise foreign goods by connecting them to the British maritime prowess or the mediation of native soil, Voltaire claimed luxury and its consumption as beneficial to the State. In moving from his proclamations of French excellence in luxury in Le Mondain to the consumption of foreign goods in L’Apologie, he refined his argument to clarify that the origin of the product was not a limiting factor in claiming the value of consumption. Voltaire combined the autarky of Colbertism with a culture that valued the act of consumption as an expression of grandeur, made French through the specific mode of consumption.

13 Voltaire, Mélanges de poësies, p. 74. 14 Voltaire, p. 75.

188 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

The Parisian café typifies this emphasis on the mode of consumption, where the cultural practice of coffee drinking was not initially embraced by French nobles as a domestic practice, or in spaces that emulated the Turkish or English coffeehouse. From the English side of the equation, coffee was not naturalised as a significant EIC product. Coffeehouses provided a purposeful egalitarian environment for discourse, but as the institution lost its momentum and reverted to the mores of public house, the beverage was displaced by tea as a sociable alternative that lent itself to domestic consumption, and the imprint of the East India Company as evidence of its Britishness. Spices were also imbued with the provenance of seventeenth-century English trade despite the fact that the EIC lost the spice race to the VOC and moved towards textiles, and later tea, as their chief imports. In the midst of Colbert’s move towards self-sufficiency and codification of production, the promulgation of a distinct cuisine that prioritised French flavours and displaced foreign ingredients underscores the argument that the mode of consumption was of primary importance. The dissemination of a new culinary style served not only an economic purpose as an import substitute for foreign spices, but also functioned as a cultural export of cultural identity, symbolic of refined French taste. The French emphasis on new modes of consumption can also be seen in how sugar was transformed to be a new dinner course—dessert. The nouvelle cuisine differentiated savoury flavours from sweet, and dessert emerged as a separate course dedicated to delicacy of flavour and skilful presentation with sculptures made from sugar. This consumption was not emulated by lower social classes as the techniques of a master officier d’office were too complex to replicate. Sugar remained relatively expensive for domestic consumers in France but was priced for European export. In the early eighteenth century, however, British sugar was not competitively priced for export, but was consumed across all classes domestically as it became increasingly affordable. Beyond sweetening coffee and tea, cheaper British sugar was employed frugally to transform orchard crops into preserves. More notoriously, molasses was turned into rum and sugar into gin, displacing British beer as the drink of choice. The early adoption of a sugar habit in England, together with influence of trade and taxes, contributed to the development of effervescence in wine. While English consumers embraced the bubbles because they remedied wines tainted in transit, French consumers were slower to accept effervescence for the same reason, as it was perceived as a trick used only for low quality wines. Ultimately, the English contribution to sparkling champagne

Conclusion

189

has not gained any traction historically because English consumers may have had the bubbles, but French winemakers had the wine. Without the carefully crafted French vintages, the English consumer innovation of effervescence was a mere novelty driven by the necessity of spoiled wine. The still wines of Champagne, however, triumphed in their competition with the wines of Burgundy when bubbles were added. Champagne developed as a unique product in the eighteenth century, distinguished from all other French wines by its effervescence, to be chosen as Voltaire’s symbol for French luxury. The focus taken in this book on the consumption of comestibles as a cultural practice, outside of their national histories, challenges presumptions about the relationship between early modern nationalism, food practices, and economics. Using a comparative methodology disentangles presumptions about the circulation and exchange of ideas in some areas, while in other areas employing a transnational approach shows that a relationship is more problematic than previously thought. In combination with these modes of analysis, the roles of economic policy and political economy have been highlighted as influential factors in the study of early modern cultural history. By engaging with the complexities of comparative and transnational histories that consider both the cultural and economic imperatives that influenced food choices across the Channel in the seventeenth century, I have relocated the development of national sentiment in England and France to the early modern period, which combined with a culture of consumption that emerged earlier in both countries than is commonly expected.15 As a consequence, these shifts in food history contribute to our understanding of the transnational origins of national cultures and, more widely, to the interconnected, and mutually influential, roles of government policies, emergent consumerism, and cultural history.

Bibliography Printed Primary Sources Addison, Joseph. ‘No. 69 Saturday, May 19, 1711’. In The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator, No. 1-314. Harper & Brothers, 1837. Melon, Jean-François. Essai politique sur le Commerce par Monsieur M***. Amsterdam: F. Changuion, 1735.

15 Berg, Luxury and Pleasure; and de Vries, Industrious Revolution.

190 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Misselden, Edward. The Circle of Commerce. Or the Ballance of Trade in Defence of Free Trade… London: John Dawson for Nicholas Bourne, 1623. Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, ed. Mélanges de poësies, & c. Geneva: Cramer et Bardin, 1775.

Secondary Literature Aldridge, Alfred Owen. Voltaire and the Century of Light. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Berg, Maxine. Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. de Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Jacobs, Margaret. Strangers Nowhere in the World: The Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Bibliography Manuscript Sources Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence FR ANOM COL B 2 F° 181. Bibliothèque municipale d’Epernay Ms 209, liasse 329: 15 Février 1712; 18 Octobre 1713, 20 Décembre 1713; and 28 Mai, 1732. Bibliothèque national de France, Paris Département Estampes et Photographie: Oa 62 pet. fol.,15960; Oa 48 pet. fol. 81 and 82. Départment des manuscrits: MS 1667, fol. 29, 36; Le Viandier de Taillevent (1314?–1395), FRBNF31429234. British Library, London Charles II, warrant to Attorney General, March 24, 1661/2, Sloane MSS 856 fo. 10. East India Company General Correspondence, India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/E/3/95; IOR/E/3/87 ff.65v–69; IOR:G/12/15. The National Archives, Kew, Richmond Parliamentary Archives, House of Lords Journal Office, HL/PO/JO/10/1/314.

Printed Primary Sources Addison, Joseph. ‘No. 69 Saturday, May 19, 1711’. In The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator, No. 1-314. Harper & Brothers, 1837. Addison, Joseph. The Tatler, No. 131, February 1709–1710; No. 148, March 21, 1709–1710. Advis à l’assemblée de messieurs les notables. Sur l’ouverture des estats. Paris: np, 1627. Audiger, François. La Maison reglée, et l’art de diriger la maison d’un grand seigneur & autres… Paris: Nicolas le Gras, 1692. Aulard, François-Alphonse, ed. La Société des Jacobins: Recueil de documents pour l’histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris. Vol. 3, Paris: Jouaust, Noblet and Quantin, 1889. Barrin, J., P. Bayle, J. Bernard, La-Roque, and J. Le-Clerc. Nouvelles de la république des lettres. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: Desbordes, 1685. Bartolomeus Anglicus. Batman upon Bartholome, his booke, De proprietatibus rerum, trans. John Trevisa, ed. Stephen Batman. London: Thomas and Lucretia East, 1582. Beal, J. ‘Advertisements on the Vinetum Britannicum Mentioned in the Last Foregoing Tract, Sent to the Publisher by the Reverend Dr. J. Beal Rector of

192 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Yeovil in Somersetshire and One of His Majesties Chaplains’. In Philosophical Transactions (1665-1678). Vol. 11 London: T. N., 1676. Blegny, Nicolas de. Le Bon usage du thé: du café et du chocolat pour la preservation à pour la guerison des maladies. Paris: E. Michallet, 1697. Bodin, Jean. Six livres de la République. 2 vols. Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1579. Boorde, Andrew. Here followeth a compendius regiment, or dietarye of health. London: H. Iackson, 1576. Bonnefons, Nicolas de. Les Délices de la campagne. Paris: La Compagnie Marchands Libraires du Palais, 1665. Bonnefons, Nicolas de. Le Jardinier françois. Paris: Pierre des-Hayes, 1651. Brice, Germain. A new description of Paris: Containing a particular account of all the churches, palaces, monasteries, colledges, hospitals, libraries, cabinets of rarities, academies of the virtuosi, paintings, medals, statues and other sculptures, monuments and publick inscriptions. London: Henry Bonwicke, 1687. Brunet de Grandmaison, Pierre. Dictionnaire des aydes. Paris: Prault, 1730. Campbell, John. Candid and Impartial Observations on the Nature of the Sugar Trade. London: R. Baldwin, 1763. Chaptal. Jean-Antoine, L’Art de faire le vin. Paris: Deterville, 1807. Child, Sir Josiah. A New Discourse of Trade… London: John Everingham, 1692. Child, Sir Josiah, Charles D’Avenant, William Wood. Select dissertations on colonies and plantations. By those celebrated authors, Sir Josiah Child, Charles D’avenant, Ll. D. And Mr. William Wood. Wherein the nature of plantations, and their consequences to Great Britain, are seriously considered. And a plan proposed, which may settle the unhappy differences between Great Britain and America. London: W. Hay, 1775. The Character of a Coffee-house with the ssymptomes [sic] of a town-wit. London: Jonathan Edwin, 1673. Coffee-houses vindicated in answer to the late published Character of a coffee house asserting from reason, experience, and good authours, the excellent use and physical vertues of that liquor: with the grand conveniency of such civil places of resort and ingenious conversation. London: J. Lock for J. Clarke, 1673. Colbert, Jean Baptiste. Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert. Paris: Impr. impériale, 1861–1873. Commentaires de la Faculté de medécine de Paris, 1777 à 1786, eds. A. Pinard, H. Hartmann, F. Widal, and G. Steinheil, Paris: Université de Paris, 1903. Cowper, William. ‘Pity for Poor Africans’. Northampton Mercury 9 (August 1788). Reproduced in William Cowper, The Poetical Works of William Cowper. Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1863. 418–419. d’Alquié, Savinien. Les Délices de la France. Paris: G. de Luyne, 1670.

Bibliogr aphy

193

Davies, David. The Case of Labourers in Husbandry. London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1795. Dean, John. The Wine-Cooper’s Delight, to the tune of The Delights of the Bottle. London: H. L., 1681. Defoe, Daniel. The Complete English Tradesman. London: Charles Rivington, 1726. Defoe, Daniel. A Plan of the English Commerce. Being a Compleat Prospect of the Trade of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign. London: Charles Rivington, 1728. Déslandes, André François. Essai sur la marine et sur la commerce. Amsterdam: François Changuion, 1743. Digby, Kenelm. The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Opened. London: H. Brome, 1669. Dufour, Philippe Sylvestre. Traités nouveaux & curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate. Lyon: Grin et Riviere, 1685. Edwards, (forename unknown). A Treatise Concerning the Plague and the Pox. London: Gartrude Lawson, 1652. England’s happiness improved: or an infallible way to get riches, encrease plenty, and promote pleasure. London: 1699. Eon, Jean. Le Commerce honorable, ou Considérations politiques. Nantes: G. Le Monnier, 1646. Estienne, Charles, and Jean Liébault, L’Agriculture et maison rustique. Lyon: André Laurens, 1702. Evelyn, John. Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets. London: B. Tooke, 1699. Forbes, Duncan. Some Considerations on the Present State of Scotland. Edinburgh: W. Sands, A. Murray, and J. Cochran, 1744. French, John. The Art of Distillation, or, A Treatise of the Choicest Spagiricall Preparations Performed by Way of Distillation. London: E. Cotes, 1651. Furetière, Antoine. Dictionnaire universel, contenant generalement tous les mots françois, tant vieux que modernes, & les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts. The Hague and Rotterdam: Arnout & Reinier Leers, 1690. Gallobelgicus, Wine, Beere, Ale and Tobacco, Contending for Superiority. A Dialogue. London, Thomas Coates for Iohn Grove, 1630. Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. London: The Author, 1747. Le Grand cuisinier de toute cuisine, Paris: J Bonfons, 1540. Harding, Vanessa. The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500-1670. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe. Histoire du roy Henry le Grand. Paris: Thomas Lolly, 1662. Harris, Richard. Aphorisms upon the New Way of Improving Cyder. London: George Larkin, 1684.

194 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Hippocrates, On Airs, Waters, and Places. Translated by Francis Adams. London: Sydenham Society, 1849. Internet Classics Archive, nd. http://classics.mit.edu/ Hippocrates/airwatpl.mb.txt Houghton, John. ‘A Discourse of Coffee, Read at a Meeting of the Royal Society by Mr. John Houghton, F.R.S.’ Philosophical Transactions 21: 248–259 (1699), 311–317. Houghton, John. Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade. 2 vols. London: 1681–1683. Instructions for ordering of wines: shewing how to make wine, that it may continue good and faint not … Written first in Italian, and now newly translated into English, by W.P., trans. William Philip. London: Adam Islip for Edward White, 1596. James I, England, HRH. ‘A proclamation touching glasses’ (May 23, 1615). London: Robert Barker. STC, 2nd ed. / 8520; Steele, R. Tudor and Stuart proclamations, 1164. Reproduction of the original in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. ‘Cuisine.’ Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, etc., eds. Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. University of Chicago: ARTFL Encyclopédie Project (Spring 2016 Edition), Robert Morrissey and Glenn Roe (eds), http://encyclopedie.uchicago.edu/ Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language: In which the Words are Deduced from Their Originals, and Illustrated in Their Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers, to which are Prefixed, a History of the Language, and an English Grammar, Volume I. London: W. Strahan, 1755. Joinville, Jean de. The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Seventh Crusade, Thirteenth Century. Trans. Ethel Wedgwood. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1906. Journal des sçavans, June 7, 1706, pp. 561–566. Journal du commerce, Paris: 1759. Journal of the House of Commons 14 (January 1704). Journal of the House of Lords 23, 1727–1731 (1767–1830): 273–290; and 43, July 1800, 645a. Jussieu, Antoine de. Descriptio et icon Coffeae, Paris: 1713. King, William. The Art of Cookery: In Imitation of Horace’s Art of Poetry. London: Bernard Lintott, 1708. King, William. The Art of Cooking. In The Original Works in Verse and Prose of Dr William King, 3 vols. London: N. Conant, 1776. L.S.R. L’Art de bien trâiter. Paris, F. Léonard, 1674. La Roque, Jean de. Voyage de l’Arabie heureuse… (Paris: André Cailleau, 1716). La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. Traité de confiture ou le nouveau et parfait confiturier; qui enseigne la manière de bien faire toutes sortes de confitures tant sèches que liquides…avec l’instruction & devoirs des chefs d’office de fruiterie et de sommelerie. Paris: T. Guillain 1689.

Bibliogr aphy

195

La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. Le Cuisinier françois, eds. J.L. Flandrin, P. Hyman, and M. Hyman. Paris: Montalba, 1983. La Varenne, Francois Pierre de. The French Cook, eds. P. Hyman, and M. Hyman. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing Limited, 2000. Labat, Jean-Baptiste. Voyages du P. Labat de l’Ordre des FF. Prescheurs, en Espagne et en Italie. 8 vols. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Delespine, 1730. Le Grand D’Aussy, Pierre Jean Baptiste. La Vie privée des françois depuis l’origine de la nation jusqu’à nos jours. 3 vols. Paris: Ph.-D. Pierres, 1782. Ligon, Richard. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados. London: Humphrey Moseley, 1657. Linnaeus, The Economy of Nature. Transl. of Oeconomia naturae. London: Benjamin Stillingfleet, 1775. Littleton, Edward. The Groans of the Plantations, or, a True Account of Their Grievous and Extreme Sufferings by the Heavy Impositions Upon Sugar and Other Hardships Relating More Particularly to the Island of Barbados. London: M. Clark, 1689. Loret, Jean. Les Continuateurs de Loret, lettres en vers de La Gravette de Mayolas, Robinet, Boursault, Perdou de Subligny, Laurent et autres, 1665-1689, ed. Baron James de Rothschild, 2 vols. Paris: D. Morgand and C. Fatout, 1881–1882. Louis-Perrier, Jean Pierre Armand. Mémoire sur le vin de Champagne. Épernay: Bonnedame, 1886. M***, Mr. le C. de. Les Entretiens des cafés de Paris et les differens qui y surviennent. Trevoux: E. Ganeua, 1702. Malone, E. et al. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. London: Printed by H. Baldwin for J. Rivington and Sons [etc.], 1790. Mandeville, Bernard de. The Fable of the Bees. London: J. Roberts, 1714. Mandeville, Bernard de. The Grumbling Hive; or Knaves Turn’d Honest. London: Richard Wellington, 1705. Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife (1615), ed. Mark Best Kingston. Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986. Melon, Jean-François. Essai politique sur le Commerce par Monsieur M***. Amsterdam: F. Changuion, 1735. Mercure Galant, dédié à Monseigneur le Dauphin, October 1677. Merret, Christopher. Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines, presented to the Royal Society. By Dr Merret. Published in Walter Charleton, Two Discourses. London: R. W. for William Whitwood, 1669. Misselden, Edward. The Circle of Commerce. Or the Ballance of Trade in Defence of Free Trade… London: John Dawson for Nicholas Bourne, 1623. Misson de Valbourg, Henri. Mémoires et observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre, sur ce qu’il y a trouvé de plus remarquable, tant à l’égard de la religion,

196 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

que de la politique, des mœurs, des curiositez naturelles, & quantité de faits historiques… (The Hague: Henri van Bulderen, 1698), 389. Montaigne, Michel de. Les Essais, Édition Villey-Saulnier. Paris: PUF, 2004. Montchrétien, Antoine de. Traicté de L’œconomie politique. Rouen: Jean Osmont. 1615. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat. Lettres persanes. Paris: P. Pourrat Frères, 1831. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Louis-Élie. Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’amérique sous le vent. 6 vols. Paris: chez l’auteur, Quillau, Mequignon jeune, 1784–1790. Mun, Thomas. England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade Or The Ballance of Our Forraign Trade is the Rule of Our Treasure. London: J.G. for Thomas Clark, 1664. Murrell, John. New Booke of Cookerie. London: M. F. for Iohn Marriot, 1641. Naironus, Antonius Faustus. De Saluberrima Potione Cahue. Rome: Michaelis Herculis, 1671. Navier, Jean-Claude. Question agitée dans les Écoles de la Faculté de médecine de Reims le 14 mai 1777 par M. Navier fils, Docteur-Régent de la Faculté de Médecine en l’Université de Reims…sur l’usage du Vin de Champagne Mousseux contre les Fièvres putrides et autres Maladies de même nature. Paris: Méquignon aînée, Didot le jenue; Reims, Cazin; Châlons- sur-Marne, Paindavoine, 1778. Nott, John. The Cook and Confectioner’s Dictionary. London: C. Rivington, 1723. Ormesson, O. L., A. L. Ormesson, and P. A. Chéreul. Journal d’Olivier Lefèvre d’Ormesson: et Extraits des mémoires d’André Lefèvre d’Ormesson. Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1861. Pegge, Samuel. The Forme of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg, 2005. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8cury10. txt Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (unabridged). Raleigh, NC: Hayes Barton Press, 2007. Petty, Sir William. An Essay Concerning the Multiplication of Mankind: Together with Another Essay in Political Arithmetick Concerning the Growth of the City of London, with the Measures, Periods, Causes, and Consequences Thereof. 1682. 2nd, rev. and enl. ed. London: Mark Pardoe, 1686. Pisan, Christine de. Le Tresor de la cité des dames de degré en degré et de tous estatz. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg, 2008. http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/26608/26608-h/26608-h.htm Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock, The Poems of Alexander Pope, vol. 2, ed. Geoffrey Tillotson. London: Methuen, 1940. Pope, Alexander. Windsor Forest, Alexander Pope: The Major Works, ed. Pat Rogers. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. The Present Case of a Barbados Planter, and Reasons against Laying a Further Duty on Sugar. London: 1695.

Bibliogr aphy

197

Rabisha, William. The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and Fully Manifested, Methodically, Artificially, and According to the Best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch, &c., or, A Sympathy of All Varieties in Natural Compounds in that Mystery. London: E.C., 1675. Racine, Jean. Œuvres poétiques de J. Racine, ed. Aimé-Martin, 3 vols. Paris, Firmin Didot Frères, 1854. Renneville, Constantin de. L’Inquisition françoise: ou, L’histoire de la Bastille, volume 3. Amsterdam: Étienne Roger, 1719. Roberti, Giovambattista. ‘Ad un professore di Belle Lettere nel Friuli’. In Opere: Coll’aggiunta degli opuscoli postumi dello stesso autore, colle notizieintorno alla sua vita, e con un saggio delle sue lettere familiari. Bassano: a spese Remondini di Venezia, 1797. Rumsey, Walter. Organon Salutis an Instrument to Cleanse the Stomach: As Also Divers New Experiments of the Virtue of Tobacco and Coffee, How Much They Conduce to Preserve Humane Health. London: R. Hodgkinsonne, 1657. Sainsbury, Ethel Bruce and William Foster. A Calendar of the Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company 1664-1667. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925. Saint-Évremond, Charles de. Oeuvres de M. de Saint-Évremond, avec la vie de l’auteur. Par M. des Maizeaux, vol. 3. Barbin: np, 1753. Saint-Évremond, Charles de. The Works of Monsieur de Saint Evremond, Made English from the French Original: with the life of the author by Mr. Des Maizeaux. London: J. and J. Knapton, 1728. Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, François de. Les Aventures de Télémaque, 1699. Sandys, George. A Relation of a Journey Begun in An. Dom. 1610. London: W. Barrett, 1652. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, eds. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981. Serres, Olivier de. Le Théâtre d’agriculture et mesnage des champs. Geneva: Chouet, 1651. The State of the Case of the Sugar Plantations in America. London: 1698. Subligny, Adrien-Thomas Perdou de. La Muse de la Cour dédiée à Monseigneur le Dauphin 196, 2 Decembre 1666. In Les Continuateurs de Loret, lettres en vers de La Gravette de Mayolas, Robinet, Boursault, Perdou de Subligny, Laurent et autres, 1665-1689, ed. Baron James de Rothschild, 2 vols. Paris: D. Morgand and C. Fatout, 1881–1882. Sully, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de. Les Oeconomies royales de Sully, vol. II, 1595-1599, Paris: Klincksieck, 1970. Taylor, John. Drinke and Welcome: or The famous historie of the most part of drinks in use now in the kingdoms of Great Brittaine and Ireland. London: Anne Griffin, 1637. ‘Le territoire de Beaune abonde en safran et les habitants des environs en font un grand trafic’. Chroniqueur, 1780. Thévenot, Jean de. Relation d’un voyage fait au Levant. Paris: Louis Billaine, 1665.

198 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Tryon, Thomas. England’s Grandeur and Way to Get Wealth, or, Promotion of Trade Made Easy and Lands Advanced. London: J. Harris, 1699. Tryon, Thomas. The Good Housewife Made a Doctor. London: Andrew Sowle, 1685. Tryon, Thomas. A New Art of Brewing Beer, Ale, and Other Sorts of Liquors. London: Tho. Salusbury, 1690. Tryon, Thomas. Tryon’s Letters Upon Several Occasions. London: Geo. Conyers and Eliz. Harris, 1700. Tryon, Thomas. Tryon’s Letters, Domestick and Foreign, to Several Persons of Quality, Occasionally Distributed in Subjects, Viz. Philosophical, Theological, and Moral London: Geo. Conyers and Eliz. Harris, 1700. Vallot, Antoine, Antoine d’Aquin, and Guy Crescent Fagon, eds. Journal de la santé du roi Louis XIV de l’année 1647 à l’année 1711. Paris: Durand, 1862. Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, ed. Mélanges de poësies, & c. Geneva: Cramer et Bardin, 1775. Walpole, Horace. Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, Vol. 6, Edited by W. S. Lewis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937. Ward, Edward. The London Spy Compleat, in Eighteen Parts, Fourth edition. London: R. Baldwin, 1753 [1703]. Wharton, Thomas. Directions for the Prevention and Cure of the Plague – Fitted for the Poorer Sort. London: J. Grismond, 1665. Wolridge, John. Vinetum Britannicum or a Treatise of Cider. London: J.C. for Thomas Dring, 1676. The Women’s Petition against Coffee. London: 1674. Woolley, Hannah. The Gentlewoman’s Companion, or a Guide to the Female Sex. London: Dorman and Newman, 1673. Woolley, Hannah. The Queen-like Closet; or, Rich Cabinet Stored with All Manner of Rare Receipts for Preserving, Candying & Cookery. Very Pleasant and Beneficial to All Ingenious Persons of the Female Sex. London: R. Lowndes at the White Lion in Duck-Lane, near West- Smithfield, 1670. Wright, Captain Lawrence, RN, HMS Phoenix. ‘Records of the Navy Board and the Board of Admiralty.’ June 7, 1676.

Secondary Literature Aldridge, Alfred Owen. Voltaire and the Century of Light. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Applebaum, Robert. Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: Literature, Culture, and Food Among the Early Moderns. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Bibliogr aphy

199

Ashraf, Nava, Colin F. Camerer, and George Loewenstein. ‘Adam Smith, Behavioural Economist.’ The Journal of Economic Perspectives 19:3 (2005), 131–145. Aubrey, John. Brief Lives, ed. Richard Barber. Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1982. Baldwin, Olive, and Thelma Wilson. ‘250 Years of Roast Beef.’ The Musical Times, 126: 1706 (1985), 203–207. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1957. Barthes, Roland. ‘Toward a Psychology of Contemporary Food Consumption’. In Food and Culture. A Reader, ed. Carole Counihan & Penny Van Esterik. New York & London: Routledge, 1997, 20–27. Bayly, C. A., Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmeyr, Wendy Kozol, and Patricia Seed, ‘AHR Conversation: On Transnational History’. The American Historical Review 111: 5 (2006), 1441–1464. Becker, Gary S. ‘A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social Influences on Price’. Journal of Political Economy 99: 5 (1991), 1109–1116. Bell, David. The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism 1680-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Bennett, Judith. Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World 1300-1600. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Berg, Maxine. Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Berry, Christopher J. The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Bloch, Marc. ‘A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies’. In Land and Work in Mediaeval Europe: Selected Papers by Marc Bloch. Trans. J. E. Anderson. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967. Boix, Charles, and Frances Rosenbluth ‘Bones of Contention: The Political Economy of Height Inequality’. American Political Science Review 108 (February 2014), 1–21. Bonal, François. Dom Pérignon: Vérité et Légende. Langres: D. Guéniot, 1995. Botsford, J. B. English Society in the Eighteenth Century as Influenced from Overseas. New York: Macmillan, 1924. Brennan, Thomas. Burgundy to Champagne: The Wine Trade in Early Modern France. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste: or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. Trans. M.F.K. Fisher. New York: Heritage, 1949. Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper. ‘Beyond ‘Identity’’. Theory and Society 29 (2000), 14–21. Bruegel, Martin. ‘Sugar: A Bourgeois Good?’ In Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages, edited by Peter Scholliers. Oxford: Berg, 2001.

200 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Buringh, Eltjo and Jan Luiten Van Zanden. ‘Charting the ‘Rise of the West’: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, a Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries’. The Journal of Economic History 69: 2 (2009), 409–445. Chaudhuri, K. N. The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 [1978]. Cherry, John. ‘Late Fourteenth-Century Jewellery: The Inventory of November 1399’. The Burlington Magazine 130: 1019 (1988): 137–140. Clark, Gregory. ‘English Prices and Wages, 1209–1914’. Global Price and Income History Group. 2006. Cole, Charles Woolsey. Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism. 2 Vols. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964. Coleman, D. C., ed., Revisions in Mercantilism. London: Methuen, 1969. Colquhoun, Kate. Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking. New York: Bloomsbury, 2007. Cowan, Brian. ‘New Worlds, New Tastes: Food Fashions After the Renaissance’. In Food: The History of Taste, ed. Paul Freedman. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. 197–231. Cowan, Brian William. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. Cox, Nancy and Karin Dannehl. Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities, 15501820. Wolverhampton: 2007. British History Online http://www.british-history. ac.uk/no- series/traded-goods-dictionary/1550-1820 Curtin, P.D. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972. Dale, Richard. The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Davis, Natalie Zemon, Barbara B. Diefendorf, and Carla Alison Hesse. Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800): Essays in Honor of Natalie Zemon Davis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. Davis, Ralph. ‘English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700’. The Economic History Review 7: 2 (1954), 150–166. DeJean, Joan. The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication and Glamour. New York: Free Press, 2005. Dew, Nicholas. Orientalism in Louis XIV’s France. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. de Vries, Jan. ‘Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe’. In Consumption and the World of Goods, eds. John Brewer and Roy Porter. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Bibliogr aphy

201

de Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Dobre, M., and T. Nyden. Cartesian Empiricisms. Dordrecht, NL: Springer, 2013. Drescher, S., and D. B. Davis. Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Dryden, John. The Poems of John Dryden, ed. Paul Hammond. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Dunn, Richard S. Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713. London: Cape, 1973. Dupâquier, Jacques. La Population française aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1979. Elias, Norbert. Court Society. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. New York: Pantheon, 1983. Ellis, Aytoun. The Penny Universities: A History of the Coffee-Houses. London: Secker & Warburg, 1956. Ellis, Markman. The Coffee-House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004. Epstein, Becky Sue. Champagne: A Global History. London: Reaktion, 2011. Erikson, E. Chartering Capitalism: Organizing Markets, States, and Publics. New York: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2015. Flandrin, Jean-Louis. Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Flandrin, Jean-Louis. ‘L’Invention des grands vins français et la mutation des valeurs oenologiques’. Eighteenth-Century Life 23: 2 (1999), 24–33. Flandrin, Jean-Louis, and Massimo Montanari, eds. Food: A Culinary History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Forester, Robert and Orest A. Ranum. Food and Drink in History: Selections from the Annales, économies, sociétes, civilisations, volume 5. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. Forman, Valerie. ‘Transformations of Value and the Production of ‘Investment’ in the Early History of the East India Company’. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34: 3 (2004), 622–623. Foss, Richard. Rum: A Global History. Chicago: Reaktion Books, 2012. Foster, William. The English Factories in India 1630-1633: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office, Bombay Record Office, etc. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. Freedman, Paul, ed. Food: The History of Taste. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Freedman, Paul. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Galland, Antoine. De l’Origine et du progrès du café: extrait d’un manuscrit Arabe de la Bibliothèque du Roi (1699). Paris: Editions La Bibliothèque, 1992.

202 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Galloway, J. H. ‘The Mediterranean Sugar Industry’. Geographical Review 67: 2 (1977): 177–194. Gandilhon, René. Naissance du Champagne: Dom Pierre Pérignon. Paris: Hachette, 1968. Garrioch, David. The Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, 1690-1830. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Gocek, Fatma. East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Godechot, Jacques. ‘Fragments des Mémoires de Charles-Alexis Alexandre sur les Journées Révolutionnaires de 1791 et 1792’. Annales historiques de la Révolution française 24: 126 (1952), 113–251. Goldstein, David B. ‘Eats Well with Others: Culinary Skepticism in As You Like It and Montaigne’s “Of Experience”.’ Criticism 59: 4 (2017): 639–660. Goodman, Jordan. Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Grant, Mark. Galen on Food and Diet. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: Chicago University Press, [1983] 2005. Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Hanford, James Holly. Wine, Beere, Ale and Tobacco: A Seventeenth Century Interlude. Studies in Philology 12: 1, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, January, 1915. Hanson, Craig Ashley. The English Virtuoso: Art, Medicine, and Antiquarianism in the Age of Empiricism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Hauser, Henri. Recherches et documents sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800. Paris: Les Presses Modernes, 1936. Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Higman, B. W. ‘The Sugar Revolution’. The Economic History Review 53: 2 (May 2000), 213–236. Hope, Quentin Manning. Saint-Evremond and his Friends. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1999. Hyman, Phillip and Mary Hyman. ‘Printing the Kitchen: French Cookbooks, 1480-1800’. In Food: A Culinary History, eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. Trans. Albert Sonnenfeld. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Irwin, Douglas A. ‘Strategic Trade Policy and Mercantilist Trade Rivalries’. The American Economic Review 82: 2 (May 1992).

Bibliogr aphy

203

Issartel, Thierry. ‘Hardouin de Péréfixe et les enseignements absolutistes d’Henri IV: l’Histoire du roy Henry le Grand (1661)’ in Gregory Champeaud et Céline Piot (s.d.), L’image d’Henri IV à travers les siècles. Actes de la journée d’études (Nérac, 15 mai 2010), Editions d’Albret, 2010, 95–143. Jacobs, Margaret. Strangers Nowhere in the World: The Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Johnson, Hugh. Vintage: The Story of Wine, vol. II. London: Mitchell Beazley; New York, Simon & Schuster, 1989. Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. Keynes, Geoffrey. The Life of William Harvey. Oxford: Clarendon, 1966. Kumar, Krishan. The Making of English National Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Landweber, Julia. ‘“This Marvelous Bean”: Adopting Coffee into Old Regime French Culture and Diet’. French Historical Studies 38: 2 (April 2015). Laudan, Rachel. ‘The Birth of the Modern Diet’. Scientific American (August 2000), 62–67. Laudan, Rachel. Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013. Laurioux, Bruno. Manger au Moyen Âge. Paris: A. Biro, 2002. Lehmann, Gilly. The British Housewife: Cookery Books, Cooking and Society in Eighteenth- Century Britain. Devon: Prospect Books, 2003. Lehmann, Gilly. ‘Politics in the Kitchen’. Eighteenth-Century Life 23: 2 (1999), 71–83. Lennon, Thomas. ‘Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond?’ Journal of the History of Ideas 63: 2 (2002), 225–237. Longino, M. Orientalism in French Classical Drama. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Ludington, Charles. The Politics of Wine in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Magnusson, Lars, ed., Mercantilist Economics. Boston: Kluwer, 1993. Maloni, Ruby. The Route to European Hegemony: India’s Intra-Asian Trade in the Early Modern Period (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries). New York: Routledge, 2021. McBride, Charlotte. ‘A Natural Drink for an English Man: National Stereotyping in Early Modern Culture’. In A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in SeventeenthCentury England, ed. Adam Symth. Cambridge, U.K. and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 2004. McCabe, I. B. Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008. McCants, Anne E.C. ‘Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard of Living: Thinking about Globalization in the Early Modern World’. Journal of World History 18: 4 (2007), 433–462.

204 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

McCluskey, Philip. ‘Commerce before Crusade? France, the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary Pirates (1661–1669)’. French History 23 (2009): 1–21. McCusker, John. ‘The Business of Distilling’. In The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, eds. John McCusker and Kenneth Morgan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001. McCusker, John. Rum and the American Revolution. New York: Garland Publishing, 1989. Menard, Russell R. Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 2006. Mennell, Stephen. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996. Milton, Giles. Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. New York: Penguin, 2000. Mims, Stewart Lea. Colbert’s West India Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912. Mingay, Gordon. English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin, 1986. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Morton, Timothy. The Poetics of Spice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Mukherji, Panchanandas, ed. Indian Constitutional Documents (1600-1918). Vol. I. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co. 1918. Musset, Benoît. Vignobles de Champagne et vins mousseux: Histoire d’un marriage de raison 1650-1830. Paris: Fayard, 2008. Newman, Gerald. The Rise of English Nationalism 1740–1830. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987. Nye, John. War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Ory, Pascal. ‘Gastronomy’, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, ed. Pierre Nora. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Parkhurst-Ferguson, Priscilla. Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006. Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds the History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Perez, Stanis. La Santé De Louis XIV: Une Biohistoire Du Roi-Soleil. Seyssel: ChampVallon, 2007. Pincus, Steven. ‘Rethinking Mercantilism: Political Economy, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 69:1 (January 2012), 3–34.

Bibliogr aphy

205

Pitte, Jean-Robert, and Jody Gladding. French Gastronomy: Geography of a Passion. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002. Prakash, Om. European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Randel, Don Michael. The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Rodgers, Daniel. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Rogers, Ben. Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation. London: Vintage, 2004. Sambrook, Pamela. Country House Brewing in England 1500-1900. London: Bloomsbury, 1996. Schabas, Margaret. The Natural Origins of Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants. Trans. David Jacobson. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Shammas, Carole. The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Sheridan, Richard B. Sugar and Slavery; an Economic History of the British West. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Shovlin, John. The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Siegel, Jerrold. The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Simon, André. The History of Champagne. Sydney: Universal, 1971. Smith, A. D. ‘Ethnie and Nation in the Modern World’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies. 14:2 (1985), 127–142. Smith, S. D. ‘Accounting for Taste: British Coffee Consumption in Historical Perspective’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 27: 2 (Autumn, 1996), 183–214. Smith, Woodruff D. Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800. New York Routledge, 2002. Spary, E.C. Eating the Enlightenment: Food and Sciences in Paris, 1670-1760. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Stallybrass, P., and A. White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986. Standage, Tom. An Edible History of Humanity. New York: Walker & Company, 2009. Starkey, Otis P. The Economic Geography of Barbados: A Study of the Relationships between Environmental Variations and Economic Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Steele, Valerie. Paris Fashion: A Cultural History. London: Berg, 1998.

206 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Stein, Robert. ‘The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century: A Quantitative Study’. Business History 22:1 (1980), 15. Stein, Robert Louis. The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Stern, Philip. The Company State: Corporate Sovereignty & the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Stern, Philip J. and Carl Wennerlind, eds. Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Stevenson, Tom. Les Vins mousseux du monde et le champagne. Cologne: Könemann, 1999. Stigler, George J., and Gary S. Becker. ‘De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum’. The American Economic Review 67:2 (March 1977), 76–90. Strong, Roy. Feast: A History of Grand Eating New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Sturdy, David J. Science and Social Status: The Members of the Academie des Sciences 1666-1750. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1995. Thompson, F. M. L. English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century, London: Routledge, 1963. Tombs, Robert and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy. Britain and France: The History of a Love-Hate Relationship. New York: Vintage, 2006. Toussaint-Samat, Marguelonne. A History of Food. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 1994. Trivellato, Francesca. ‘Murano glass continuity and transformation (1400-1800)’. In At the Center of the World: Trade and Manufacturing in Venice and on the Venetian Mainland (1400-1800), ed. Paola Lanaro. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2006. Tyrell, Ian. ‘Reflections on the Transnational Turn in United States History: Theory and Practice’. Journal of Global History 4: 3 (2009), 457–458. Turnbull, Jill. The Scottish Glass Industry 1610-1750: ‘To Serve the Whole Nation with Glass’. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2001. Turner, Jack. Spice: The History of a Temptation. New York: Vintage Books, 2005. Ukers, William. All About Coffee. New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922. Usher, Abbott Payson. ‘Colbert and Government Control of Industry in Seventeenth Century France’. The Review of Economics and Statistics 16: 11 (1934). Vardi, Liani. The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Bibliogr aphy

207

Visé, Jean Donneau de, and Peter William Shoemaker. Les Costeaux Ou Les Marquis Frians. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013. Vizetelly, Henry. A History of Champagne. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1882. Wahrman, Dror. The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in EighteenthCentury England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Wild, Antony. Coffee: A Dark History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005. Willan, Ann. ‘Behind the Scenes’. In the Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals, ed. Marcia Reed. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 2015, 149–180. Williams, Ian. Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. New York: Nation Books, 2006. Wrigley, E. A. ‘A Simple Model of London’s importance in Changing English Society and Economy, 1650-1750’. In Towns in Societies, eds. P. Abrams and E. A. Wrogley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, 215–243. Wrigley, E. A. ‘Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period’. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15: 4 (Spring, 1985), 683–728. Yoshino, Kosaku. Consuming Ethnicity and Nationalism: Asian Experiences. Richmond: Curzon, 1999.

Websites Académie des sciences. ‘Liste des members depuis la creation de l’Académie des sciences’. Institut de France, 2022. http://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Listedes-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membresdu-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-t.html Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘Les Clés des vins de Champagne: Effervescence’. Comité Champagne, 2000. http://www.champagne.fr/f iles/ pdf-fr/effervescence.pdf Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘L’histoire de l’effervescence’. Comité Champagne, 2022. http://www.champagne.fr/fr/vigne-vin/qu-est-ce/ effervescence/l-histoire-de-l-effervescence Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. ‘United States’. Comité Champagne, 2022. https://www.champagne.fr/en/comite-champagne/bureaus/ bureaus/united-states Manufactures nationales | Mobilier national. ‘Manufactures nationales présentation’. Ministère de la Culture, 2017. http://www.mobiliernational.culture.gouv. fr/fr/nous-connaitre/les-manufactures/manufactures-nationales

208 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

The Slave Voyages Consortium. ‘Estimates’. Slavevoyages.Org, 2021. http://www. slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates The Society of Apothecaries. ‘History’. The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, 2022. http://apothecaries.org/history

Index Académie Royale des sciences 87, 129–130, 138 Addison, Joseph 15, 97, 124, 183–185, 187 Aga, Soliman 115, 131–134, 136 alcohol alternatives 119–120, 152, 169–170 distilled 168–169 impacts of warfare 169 patterns of consumption 118, 119 preferences 177, 188–189 state controls 167, 169 statistics 53f, 54, 57 and sugar 167, 169, 177 see also beer; brandy; champagne; gin; rum; sparkling wine; wine ale 75–78, 118, 178 Apicius 86f, 100–101 Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée 34, 39 Asia 79, 85–86, 116–117 Atlantic region 141, 143, 149, 152–153 Barbados 48, 150, 154–155, 170 beer alternatives 125, 169, 188 breakfasts 118 patterns of consumption 50, 76–78, 100–101, 137, 169, 178 and sparkling wine 59 state controls 167, 169 brandy 164, 169, 170–171, 177 Britain colonial plantations and planters 98, 124, 143–144, 150, 152f, 154, 156, 158, 164, 168, 178, 183–184 cultural symbols 33f, 78, 179 imports 17f, 18, 172 maritime prowess 143, 187 war with France 162–163 see also East India Company British food 12–15, 18, 100–101, 143, 150–152, 154, 184, 185, 188 see also cookery, English Burgundy wines 37, 42, 45, 52, 60f, 189 see also wine cafés 112–113, 136, 137, 139–140, 141, 143 see also coffeehouses champagne Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée 34 barrel preparation 44 bottles and stoppers 37, 40, 44, 58 fermentation 38–39, 40–41, 43, 44, 58 history of 35 impact of taxes and embargoes 54 modern 58 nomenclature 33–34

patterns of consumption 60–61 Pérignon, Pierre ‘Dom’ 10, 36, 37–38 production costs 58 rebottling 43 symbolic 34 trade 34 see also sparkling wine Champagne, France 38, 41 Charles II, King of England 42, 91, 143 chocolate 69f, 122–123, 129, 153, 174 cider 47–48, 55 classes, lower 14, 72, 76–77, 143, 152, 167, 173–174, 178 classes, upper 72, 76, 115, 139, 152, 166, 176 clubs and societies Ordre des Côteaux 42–43 Sublime Society of Beefsteaks 16 coffee advocates of 138 alternative to beer 169 alternative to wine 125 benefits 118, 125 consumer demands 114, 117, 122–123, 129 critics and concerns 116–119, 122 health and wellbeing 136 in the home 138–139 impact of cafés and coffeehouses 125 impact on wine consumption 122 impacts on further trade 129 influence of the Ottoman Empire 138 in Marseilles 113, 120–121, 136 new to Europe 112 novelty 117, 119, 122–123 in Paris 121, 138 patterns of consumption 112–115, 117–119, 122–123, 125, 128, 136, 138 plantations and planters 141 stimulant 120, 151 taxes 141 trade 117, 120, 142 Turkish 120 upper classes 115 with sugar 151, 153, 174 women and 131 see also cafés; coffeehouses coffeehouses 112–113, 126–129, 137, 138, 141, 143 see also cafés Colbert, Jean-Baptist and cafés 140 and consumer demands 24 Controller General of Finance 53 and Dutch traders 160 mercantilism 103 policies 125, 136, 161, 163, 187–188 trade of precious metals 69

210 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne 35f, 38–39, 40, 41 see also Champagne, France consumer demands chocolate 122–123 coffee 114, 117, 122–123, 129 cookbooks 88 cultural identity 39–40 luxury goods 104, 151 new goods 18, 123 novelty goods 18, 22, 117, 150, 157 spices 71, 74, 98 sugar 151–152, 155 tea 122–123, 142 wines 24, 35, 46, 53–58 consumerism and choices 23–24 cultural impacts 39–40 developing 9 economic theories 18, 21–22, 24–25, 53, 113, 128–129 impact of state controls 52–54 impact on trade 16 impact on winemaking 61–62 impacts of prices 22, 25, 157 Jean-Baptist Colbert 24 and national identity 19, 23, 27 and slavery 152–153 consumption, patterns of alcohol 119 beer 137, 169, 178 champagne 60–61 coffee 112–115, 117–119, 122–123, 125, 128, 136, 138 French cuisine 69 gin 170 as impacted by economy 102, 154, 169 punch 170 rum 169, 170 spices 72, 81 sugar 144, 150–151, 152–153, 167–168, 170, 172, 174, 179 tea 142, 150, 153 wine 24, 36, 49, 55, 76, 122 cookbooks breaching confidences 88–89 consumer demands 88 disseminate recipes 19, 105 novelty goods 90 to promote French cuisine 21, 61f publication expands 81, 166 readership 92 translations 21, 104 see also recipes cookery, English cultural symbols 100–101 frugality 93, 97 impact of trade 100, 104, 183 ‘kickshawes’ 96–97 modified French recipes 92–97

olio 96 reluctance to change 91–92 roast beef 96–97 salad 95 simple fare 20 spices 70, 98 stability 104 techniques and flavours 91 see also British food cookery, French bisque 93 changes 68, 71–72, 82 cloves 81 foie gras 68 herbs 25–26, 68 a luxury 69 native ingredients 85, 91 nutmeg 81 olio 96 pepper 81 ‘quelque chose’ 96 spices 68–69 stock 82 sugar 174–175, 177 systematic 81, 97 truffles 68 see also French food courtly cuisine of Catherine de Medici 20f, 86 changes 68 English 21f, 165 French 20, 81, 87, 174 impact of Italian cuisine 87 spices 62, 71–73, 81, 91 sugar 176 Crusaders 73, 149 cultures see English culture, influences on; French culture, influences on Dutch East India Company 98, 141, 188 Dutch trade 78, 98, 103, 159–160, 161–162 East India Company coffee 117, 141–142 communications 97, 142 and Dutch East India Company 98 import of tea 112 imports benefitting English economy 129 luxury goods 69–70 re-export of goods 129, 142 spices 101–102, 105, 188 tea 141–143, 150, 153 eating and drinking habits banquets 165–166, 171 beer 118–119, 137 breakfasts 77, 118 cafés and coffeehouses 125 change of 46f, 67–68, 81–84 coffee 15, 115, 118 court feasts 81

211

Index

cultural practices 27 daintiness 90–91 desserts 175–176, 188 French nobility and monarchy 69 hippocras 171 impacts on 113 masquerades 87 social spaces 112–116, 136 sweet and savoury dishes 68, 165 sybaritic dining 86 travelling banquets 87 economics beer production 78 consumer demands 18, 21–22, 24–25, 53, 113, 114, 128–129 Edward Misselden 125, 184 evidence and data 23 free trade 156, 162–163, 177 French self-sufficiency 17 history 11, 23, 25 impacts on culture 13, 22–24, 53, 112 impacts on food choices 20, 21, 22, 68, 70 Jean-Baptist Colbert 103, 125, 136, 187 measures of well-being 15, 173 mercantilism 22–23, 39, 63, 69, 101, 103, 115, 124 Methuen Treaty 53–54, 169 micro and macro 53, 113 naturalisation 102, 105, 115 political 35–36, 40, 112, 114–115, 128–129, 189 private and public power 124–125, 141 rationalism 70, 101 reforms 14 Say’s Law 22 self-sufficiency 63, 69–70, 102, 103, 115, 124, 125, 141, 158, 159, 165 supply and demand 22, 114 taxes and other state controls 18, 24, 39, 47, 52, 53, 54, 57f, 62, 141, 155–156, 157, 158–159, 167, 169, 173, 178, 188 trade 60, 63, 104, 115, 129, 143, 162–163 England see Britain English culture, influences on 9, 12, 13, 19, 22–23, 24 English wine making 25, 34–35, 36, 40–41, 43–44 food preferences aromatic appeal 72, 74, 97 change 47f coffee 113–114, 121 court cuisine 21f cultural patterns 25 English on French food 16, 20–21 English roast beef 15, 16 evaluation of 24 French poulet au pot 15 impacts on 13, 22, 114 medicinal advantages promoted 90

reaction to foreign origin 119, 123 as stimulants 71–73 sugar 144, 150–151 and trade 11–12 trois côteaux 42 see also new comestibles France botanical imperialism 113, 115 cuisine representing economy 104–105 Dutch trade 160 French East India Company 161 internal power 124 Ottoman diplomatic incident 130–134 plantations and planters 68, 113, 115, 141, 152, 158, 160, 162, 164 self-sufficiency 69, 115, 124, 158, 159, 165, 177, 187–188 sugar production 158–159, 160–162, 164 trade policies 69 war with England 162–163 French culture, influences on 9–10, 12–13, 19, 21–24, 37, 39f French food 12–15, 67, 91 fruit 47, 72, 75, 96, 160, 165, 167, 175–176 gin 169–170, 188 guilds 55, 88, 125, 141 haute cuisine 82, 87, 90 health and wellbeing advice 88 ale 77 beer 77 cider 48 coffee 79, 136 Galenic theory 81 herbs 79–80 hippocras 49–50 lower classes 80 plague 79–80 rum 170–171 spices 75, 78–79 sugar 149–150, 165, 176 tea 79 treacle 80 wine 45–46, 51 herbs 25–26, 61f, 79–80, 83 hippocras 49–50, 75–76, 171 literature, beverage references Aphorisms upon the New Way of Improving Cyder (Harris) 48 The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Opened 47 De l’Origine et du progress du café (Galland) 120 Dietarie of Health (Boorde) 77 Drinke and welcome (Taylor) 78 England’s Happiness Improved 47 Essays (Montaigne) 51

212 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

Good Housewife Made a Doctor (Tryon) 119 Henry IV (Shakespeare) 50 Hudibras (Butler) 41 Instructions for Ordering of Wines 49 Itinerary (Moryson) 50 La Muse de la Cour dédiée à Monseigneur le Dauphin (Subligny) 120–121 L’Art de fair le vin (Chaptal) 40–41 Le Mondain (Voltaire) 60 Les Délices de la champagne (Bonnefons) 44 Le Vie privée des Français (Le Grand d’Aussy) 120–121 The Man of Mode (Etheridge) 41 Oragnon salutis (Rumsey) 118 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Beal) 48 A Relation of a Journey begun in An. Dom. (Sandys) 116 Tatler (Addison) 54 Théâtre d’agriculture (Serres) 44 Vignobles de Champ (Musset) 35f ‘Wine and Milk’ (Barthes) 33 literature, café and coffeehouse references 136–138, 140 literature, dietary advice 80 literature, economic references 124, 158–159 literature, food references Accounting for taste (Parkhurst-Ferguson) 21f ‘Ad un professore di Belle Lettere nel Friuli’ (Roberti) 84 All Manners of Food (Mennell) 21f Annus Mirabilis (Dryden) 99–101 The Art of Cookery (King) 15 Art of Cooking (King) 100 Beef and Liberty (Rogers) 16f Cuisine and Empire (Laudan) 21f De proprietatibus rerum (Anglicus) 73 ‘Eats Well with Others’ (Goldstein) 9f Encyclopédie (d’Alembert) 84–85 ‘Of Experiences’ (Montaignes) 9f Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie (Garrioch) 20 The Forme of Cury (Pegge) 75–76 health and wellbeing 75 Henry V (Shakespeare) 15 Histoire du roy Henry le Grand (Péréfixe de Beaumont) 13 Idea of Self (Seigel) 9f Le Cuisinier françois (La Varenne) 18, 25, 67, 71, 82, 88–92, 93, 174–175 Les Costeaux ou les marquis Frians (Donneau) 43 Les Délices de la France (d’Alquié) 20 Making of the Modern Self (Wahrman) 9f Memoirs (Joinville) 73 New Booke of Cookerie (Murrell) 83 O the Roast Beef of Old England (Hogarth) 16

‘Pity for Poor Africans’ (Cowper) 150–151 poetry 99–101 ‘Politics in the Kitchen’ (Lehmann) 16f religious 75 Renaissance Selfhood (Greenblatt) 9f Rise of English Nationalism (Newman) 17 ‘The Roast Beef of Old England’ (Fielding) 16 Satire III (Boileau-Despréaux) 43 Savoring the Past (Wheaton) 20f, 21f Tatler (Addison) 15, 54, 96–97 The Whole of Cookery Dissected (Rabisha) 93 literature, luxury goods references 123 London beer 77 chocolate 69f coffee 11, 69f, 146 coffeehouses 26, 111–112, 122–123, 125–127, 130, 143 cost of sugar 173–174, 177 distilling spirits 169 new comestibles 18, 122–123 population 11 sparkling wine 41 see also Royal Society of London Louis XIV, King of France 46, 53, 132, 141, 176 luxury goods in cafés 115 champagne 34, 36, 62 coffee 105, 112 consumer demands 104, 151 cuisine 69, 70, 104 French policies 102 impact of prices 22 mirrors 69 saffron 74 spices 72, 74, 98, 101 sugar 73, 151, 152 tapestries 69 wine 69 Marseille 113, 120–122, 136, 139, 161 meats beef 15–16, 96–97, 100, 177 chicken 13–15 hams 95–96 rabbit 73 sweetened 165, 174–175 medicines see health and wellbeing Merret, Christopher 33, 41, 49, 76 Methuen Treaty 53–54, 169 myths history of champagne 35–36 impacts on food choices 13 Italian influences 84–87 Ottoman introduction of coffee to France 125, 130, 133 sparkling wine 37–38 spice 72

Index

new comestibles champagne 62 coffee 105, 112 consumer demands 123 cultural and social impact 22 and dining traditions 69 health and wellbeing 123 impact of new colonies 27 impact on food choices 16 increased circulation 112 introducing 68 state control 18 tea 105 wines 44 novelty goods acceptance of 27, 45, 73, 123 chocolate 122–123 coffee 117, 119, 122–123 consumer demands 18, 22, 117, 150, 157 cookbooks 90 cultural impacts 44 new cuisines 92 resistance to 27, 119 sparkling wine 58, 150 tea 122–123 Ottoman Empire 105, 114, 125, 130–135, 138, 185 Paris cafés 26, 111–115, 125, 139–140, 143, 188 coffee 120–121, 131, 133, 138–139 new comestibles 18, 122–123 population 11 sugar 173–174 plantations and planters Atlantic region 141, 153 British colonies 144, 150, 156, 158, 164, 168 coffee 141 French colonies 162, 164 impacts of state controls 155–158, 162 punch 177 rum 169, 170 sugar 48, 150, 154–158, 162, 164, 168–169 tea 150 powers absolute 124 of consumerism 123, 151 of cuisine 61, 91 of the East India Company 70 economic 124 of guilds 55, 88, 125, 141 loss of 91 maritime 159 of myths 125 of new comestibles 122 private and public 124–125, 141 of trade 99, 158–159 of wealth 75

213 recipes cookbooks 19, 23, 61f, 69, 88, 89, 105 French translated into English 21, 91–92, 97, 104 guild restrictions 88 manuscript collections 88 shared orally 74, 87 see also cookbooks Romans 73, 84, 86, 95 Royal Society of London 41, 48, 76, 125–126, 130, 137, 143 see also London rum 168–170, 188 salt 71–72, 100, 157, 167 sauces 68, 73, 82, 83, 95–96, 165 slavery 150–154 sparkling wine early opinions of 35, 38, 45, 50 a natural phenomenon 39 a novelty good 58, 150 Pérignon, Pierre ‘Dom’ 37–38 role of English in development 35, 36, 39–40, 41, 44, 47–49, 61, 188–189 see also champagne; wine spices caraway 72 cardamom 82 consumer demands 71, 74, 98 coriander 72 courtly cuisine 71, 72, 81 Crusaders 73–74 French cuisine 19, 25–26, 61f, 62, 68–69, 81–83 galangal 82 ginger 154–155 grains of paradise 82 health and wellbeing 75, 78–81 in hippocras 49–50, 75–76 impact of prices 68, 90, 98, 159–160 in imported wines 76 luxury goods 71 nutmeg 81 patterns of consumption 72, 81 pepper 81, 98, 100–101 quantities used 74–75 and rotten meat 72 saffron 72, 74 spice plates 75 statistics 98 sugar as 72–73 symbol of prosperity 99, 101 trade 27, 62, 70, 72, 74, 85, 97, 98–102, 105, 141, 188 statistics alcohol 53f, 54, 57 freight taxes 142 literacy 88 populations 11

214 

Commerce, Food, and Identit y in Seventeenth- Century Engl and and Fr ance

slavery 152 spices 98 sugar 152f, 155, 160, 161, 163–164, 172–174 sugar added to cider 48 added to wine 50 consumer demands 151–152, 155 desserts 175–176, 188 an English product 150, 153–154, 165, 168, 172, 177–178 and French cuisine 174 opposition to 151, 178 patterns of consumption 144, 150–151, 152–153, 167–168, 170, 172, 174, 179 in place of honey 166 plantations and planters 48, 143–144, 150, 154–158, 162, 164, 168–169 pricing 26, 151, 154–155, 159–160, 162–163, 173–174, 176–177, 188 production 151–152, 154–155, 160, 165 by-products 164, 167, 168–169, 172, 188 re-export of 172 and slavery 150–154 as a spice 72–73 state economic controls 157–159, 160–161, 162–164, 167, 173 statistics 152f, 155, 160, 161, 163–164, 172–174 trade 48–49, 155, 165, 173, 177 and wine 178 with coffee 143, 151, 153, 178 with tea 150, 152 symbols of English culture 12–13, 15, 16, 150 symbols of French culture 10, 12–13, 14–15, 16, 34–35, 46, 60, 113, 136, 143 tea

as an alcohol alternative 152 in coffeehouses 129 consumer demands 122–123, 142 health and wellbeing 79 impact of 105 novelty goods 122–123 patterns of consumption 142, 150, 153 plantations and planters 150 pricing 177, 178 with sugar 150, 152–153, 174, 179 tobacco 68f, 129, 154–155, 160 trade Anglo-French 25 Asia 99 champagne 35 coffee 17f, 117, 120 early global 9 East India Company 17, 129

economics 60, 104, 115, 129, 143, 162–163 economic theories 22f English 61 impacts 16, 18, 24, 25–26, 68, 102, 104 luxury goods 60–61, 69, 124 risks 69–70 Say’s Law 22 spices 71, 72, 99–100, 101–102, 105 state controls 54–55, 57, 155–156 sugar 150, 154–155, 165, 173 tea 17f, 18, 49f vinegar 73, 100, 167 Voltaire 60, 185–187, 189 wine alternatives 47, 54–55 bottles and stoppers 55, 56, 61 cost 177 fermentation 49, 55, 61 imports from Portugal 53 imports from Spain 53 Methuen Treaty 53–54 patterns of consumption 24, 36, 49, 55, 122 Portuguese 54 state controls 53, 57, 171–172 storage 55–57 and sugar 171 transportation difficulties 49, 76 winemaking effervescence 38–39, 41 English 25, 34–35, 36, 40–41, 43–44 French values 36 Pérignon, Pierre ‘Dom’ 37–38 rebottling 43, 47 see also champagne wine preferences Burgundy wines 42, 52 champagne 54 English people 35, 44, 53, 54–55, 61 French wine 24–25 German people 51 hippocras 49–50 impacts on 9, 24–25, 36–37, 44, 122 Italian people 51–52 patterns of consumption 76 red wine 44 Saint-Evremond 42 sparkling wine 34–35, 57–61 state controls 53 sweet wines 44, 50, 177 trois côteaux 42 with treacle 167 with water 51