Food

The English aversion to eating horse flesh, recently highlighted in a number of food scandals, dates back to the coming of Christianity, as Jordan Claridge explains.

S.M. Toyne investigates how, from earliest times, the migration of the herring has exercised an important influence on the history of the peoples living around the North Sea and the Baltic.

A.L. Lloyd savours modern Argentina, “a civilization of horses, cattle and leather”.

Richard Almond describes how some rare wall paintings help shed light on medieval hunting.

The quest for spiritual virtue through personal austerity drove many Eastern Christians to lead solitary lives as hermits surviving in the wilderness. Andrew Jotischky describes how indifference to food became an integral part of the monastic ideal in the Byzantine era, one revived in the West in the 11th and 12th centuries.

The English diet has been mythologised as one of roasted meats and few vegetables but, as Anita Guerrini concludes from a survey of early modern writings on the subject, the nation’s approach to food has been rather more complicated than that.

Suzannah Lipscomb on a book about how the English ate in the high middle ages and early modern era.

John Etty examines how far history has been moulded by enviroment,

Nick Cullather explains how the scientific discovery of the calorie meant food values could be quantified – and the US could make food an instrument of foreign policy.

Editor Peter Furtado introduces what this month's magazine has to offer.

Andy Lynes experiences a colourful and tasty vocation lesson in the history of the Regency period.

Janet MacDonald looks at the surprisingly good rations that kept the Jack-Tars jolly.

Paul Brassley puts MAFF's policy towards Foot and Mouth Disease into historical perspective.