Edible Delights in History (Food History and The Art of Food)

This event occurred onNovember 14, 2015.

Nancy Zaslavsky of the Culinary Historians of Southern California leads a discussion on the Getty's exhibitions about food—“The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals” and “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance”—with Getty curators Marcia Reed and Christine Sciacca, and noted culinary authority Anne Willan.

This lecture complements the exhibitions The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals, on view at the Getty Research Institute from October 13, 2015, to March 13, 2016, and Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, on view at the Getty Museum from October 13, 2015, to January 3, 2016.

The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals
Elaborate artworks made of food were created for royal court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. Like today's Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day or Mardi Gras just before Lent, festivals were times for exuberant parties. Public celebrations and street parades featured large-scale edible monuments made of breads, cheeses, and meats. At court festivals, banquet settings and dessert buffets displayed magnificent table monuments with heraldic and emblematic themes made of sugar, flowers, and fruit. This exhibition, drawn from the Getty Research Institute's Festival Collection, features rare books and prints, including early cookbooks and serving manuals that illustrate the methods and materials for making edible monuments.
Learn more about this exhibition: https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibi...

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
The cultivation, preparation, and consumption of food formed the framework for daily labor and leisure in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Illuminated manuscripts offer images of the chores that produced sustenance, cooking techniques, popular dishes, grand feasts, and diners of different social classes. Food had powerful symbolic meaning in Christian devotional practice as well as in biblical stories and saintly miracles, where it nourished both the body and the soul.
Learn more about this exhibition: https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions...

Learn more about this event: https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibi...

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