Region, Nation and Gastronomy: Regionalism in Gastronomic Texts of the Early 20th Century (1900-1939)

<p>France is far from being a uniform culture and yet the food of French provinces is often subsumed into one universally known “French cuisine.” While 19^th-century <em>haute cuisine</em> ignored regional differences, gastronomes of the early 20^th-century, such as Curnonsky, Marcel Rouff, Austin de Croze, and Pampille, defined a new French culinary identity based on appropriating and incorporating the diversity of the regional cuisines. Regional cuisine at the time was, however, quite diverse. Some of the regions of France were newly added to the country, such as Savoie and Nice, while others had been in contention for some time, such as Alsace. In addition, peasant cuisine differed greatly from that of bourgeois and upper-class households. Nevertheless, gastronomic works emphasized that an inherent “Frenchness” made them uniform, a concept put to work in the service of French national identity, even as one witnessed a rising regionalism. I argue that regionalism intersected with French gastronomy at the time and played a defining role in the construction of what is currently referred to as French Cuisine, exemplifying the profoundly political nature of culinary discourse at the time.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

French

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Reches, Lauren

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Francesca Canadé Sautman

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Julia Przybos
• Antoinette Blum
• Sara McDougall

• Cultural History
• French and Francophone Literature
• Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures
• Political History
• gastronomy
• french
• cuisine
• Curnonsky
• regionalism
• France

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2056

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-3102