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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1615: From the Field to the Table: The Circulation of Foodstuff in Europe and the Mediterranean in the later Middle Ages, II

Thursday 7 July 2016, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Flávio Miranda, Instituto de Estudos Medievais, Universidade Nova de Lisboa / Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar: Cultura, Espaço e Memória, Universidade do Porto
Moderator/Chair:Inneke Baatsen, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis, Universiteit Antwerpen
Respondent:Flávio Miranda, Instituto de Estudos Medievais, Universidade Nova de Lisboa / Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar: Cultura, Espaço e Memória, Universidade do Porto
Paper 1615-a'Dried bread for the biscoto per la zurma': Food and Drinks on Board a Medieval Venetian Galley
(Language: English)
Stefania Montemezzo, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Bologna
Index terms: Economics - Trade, Maritime and Naval Studies
Paper 1615-bThe Exotic or the Familiar?: Food in the Eyes of Medieval Pilgrims on Their Way to the Holy Land, 15th and 16th Centuries
(Language: English)
Peter Stabel, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis, Universiteit Antwerpen
Index terms: Maritime and Naval Studies, Social History
Abstract

Although travel was much slower and more difficult in the Middle Ages than it is today, one would still be able to find Asian spices in Venice, Bordeaux wine in London, and Iberian figs in Hamburg. But why did merchants travel thousands of miles for buying and selling foodstuff? What type of products would they negotiate and how were they transported? How eager would late medieval Europeans be for exotic foodstuff? Was there any 'flavour revolution' in late medieval Europe or was that only a consequence of the late 15th-century oceanic expansion? This session will discuss these and other questions by looking at examples from the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Baltic worlds in order to put forward an overview of food trade, culture and consumption in the late Middle Ages.