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Lektürekurs
SoSe 23: Agriculture and Nutrition in the Byzantine World
Omid Sadeghi Seraji
Kommentar
Agriculture and Nutrition in the Byzantine World
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are” Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1825)
This course explores the history of how humans have produced, cooked, and consumed food, with focus on the Mediterranean region. It also examines how civilizations and their food-choices have been shaped by geography, native flora and fauna, and their political affairs. To quote Savarin on this matter again: “The fate of a nation depends on the way that they eat”.
The scope of this course is geographically almost coextensive with the byzantine Empire. But historically we will start from much earlier to cover the period named after this empire, with an eye on our times, and how that past helped shaping it.
Beyond the larger economic and social issues, the course will also cover the culture of food, the why humans made their food-choices, and what their food practices tell us about them and their world. In other words, food
practices will be used as a window for viewing culture as a whole—just as one might study painting or literature.
Syllabus
1 Prologue
Quest for food as catalyst: language, religion, diseases.
Typology of regional cuisine schools
2 Agricultural revolution, Nile, Mesopotamia
Technical achievements: Preservation, Cooking. Fermenting.
3 Classical Greece - Wine, Olive Oil
Symposium
Platonic attitude: Faidon, Gorgias
Archestratos:“Life of Luxury” (5th Century B.C.)
4 The Hellenistic era - Herbs and seasoning
Trade and Internationalization of food
The Humoral physiology from Galen to Avicenna
Galen: “On the Properties of Food.” (2nd A.D.)
5 Republican and Imperial Rome
Bread and Game
Apicius: De re Coquinaria (1st A.D.)
6 Cato: de agri cultura
Verro: de re rustica
7 Religion and food
Cosher, Halal
Pythagoreans
Eating the Gods – Eucharist
8 Athenaeus of Naucratis “Deipnosophistae” (3rd Century A.D.) Connoisseur text as a genre
Petronius “Cana trimalchionis” (1st Century A.D)
9 Persian cuisine: Middle Persian Text: Khosrow Ghobadan o Ridak (6th Century A.D.)
Qabus-Nama 11th Century A.D.
10 Geoponica (10th Century A.D.)
11 Geoponica (continuation)
12 Sweats
Drinking culture
Hallucinators
Food Metaphors
13 Eating and Calendar
Public feasts
14 Table etiquettes
15 Symposium (drinking together)
Schließen
13 Termine
Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung
Do, 20.04.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 27.04.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 04.05.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 11.05.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 25.05.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 01.06.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 08.06.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 15.06.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 22.06.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 29.06.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 06.07.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 13.07.2023 16:00 - 18:00
Do, 20.07.2023 16:00 - 18:00