ICREFH Symposium, Berlin, September 2005
Scientific Report
Ninth Symposium of the International Commission for Research into European Food History (ICREFH)
Food and the City in Europe since the late eighteenth century:
Urban Life, Innovation and Regulation
Domäne Dahlem, Berlin, 20th - 25th September 2005
The 2005 ICREFH symposium took place at the “Domäne Dahlem”, an open-air museum located in the outskirts of Berlin and in the grounds of a former estate property. The Domäne Dahlem is a museum dedicated to the history of agriculture and food in Berlin and the region of Brandenburg and, as such, it was the perfect place to discuss the interrelationship between food and the growth of cities from the 18th century onwards.
Although our topic was ‘Food and the City’, the scholarship on display at the ICREFH symposium was very different from what one might find at a congress of urban historians. We had contributions with an historical dimension from practitioners of geography, nutrition, cultural studies, anthropology, ethnology, sociology, museology, contemporary history, social and cultural history and economic history. This interdisciplinary and international flavour is a crucial ingredient in the deliberations of ICREFH, which are an innovative fusion of perspectives from the social sciences and humanities. In Berlin, there was an interesting range of research questions, and of methodological approaches, leading to lively and productive discussions during each session. ICREFH adds value to the historical themes it discusses at its biennial symposia, as witnessed by the excellence of its resulting publications. Much of its work is agenda-setting.
The 2005 symposium in Berlin was about ‘food in the city’ and also ‘the city in food’. By the former we mean the production, processing, marketing and consumption of food, and the latter addresses the impact of urbanization upon diets and food systems in the last 200 years. Surprisingly perhaps, both are neglected themes in European history, at least in the way we posed the questions. ICREFH has an interest in comparative history and it seeks to encourage as broad a European view as possible. The need for comparisons was particularly noted by the President, in his introductory remarks, and the Commission will in future be making this a key feature of its deliberations. Peter Atkins also identified what, in his view, are specific ‘gaps’ in the food history literature on our chosen symposium theme. First, there is a need to look at the new opportunities, in kind as well as degree, that were presented to food producers by the burgeoning urban markets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An issue for ICREFH here was scale because the papers presented ranged from the largest metropolis in Europe, London, down to the small towns of Slovenia, the solution being as far as possible to compare cities of approximately the same size and functional diversity. Second, the literature is thin on the evolving structures of supply, processing and marketing that made it possible to feed the city. In a sense here we are writing a ‘history of the present’ because many features of this ‘urban commissariat’ are still with us today. For instance, there is very little literature on the fragility of historic urban food systems in the face of wars, civil disruption, terrorism and natural hazards. Third, we need to know much more about the special nature of urban cuisine and diets, including the ‘melting pot’ effect of immigration. There are many publications on this for the present day but few writers have pushed their insights back in time beyond 1945. Fourth, a consideration is essential of the distorting nature of city environments. The symposium decided at an early stage to disavow whiggish histories of ‘improving’ diets and to engage with the fraudulent practices of adulteration, the malnutrition of certain classes and certain periods, and also with the major problem of diseases that were spread through the food supply. This leads on to the fifth gap, which is the lack of detailed case studies in different European countries on the need for regulation and policy-making. There are some excellent existing publications on this theme but they tend to be limited to national studies only, and there is an urgent need for work on the institutions of the state and civil society that facilitate or hinder progress. Finally, a consideration is essential of ‘creative cities’, notably the ‘urban effect’ upon the accumulation of food knowledge and innovation.
In addition to these five fundamental points, the introductory session considered a number of issues that, although not necessarily soluble, were important considerations. First is the common observation that food lies in the realm of the everyday and therefore is in danger of seeming banal. This applies at every stage of the food chain, including the invisibility of the restocking of supermarkets at night time. The ICREFH delegates agreed to reject this banalization of one of the most important reproductive elements of life and we strongly assert the importance of research in food history. Second, we argued that cities are a form of socialized nature, a hybrid that deserves a fuller and more nuanced interpretation than studying their social history and the material substance of their food in separate categories. Flowing from this is the third point, that the urbanization process deserves attention in its definition, not just for numbers of inhabitants, nor even for the range of urban functions, but also in the constitutive part played by food production and consumption. The elimination of noisesome livestock owners and small abattoirs from cities was thus, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a vital stage in the redefinition of the relationship between the natural and the social. Fourth, at the outset we also discussed the similarities and differences between our food histories of European cities and the situation in present-day cities in the global South. The literature on the ‘urbanization of the countryside’ is particularly relevant here. Finally, by way of these introductory remarks, ICREFH members were conscious that European food histories are essentially constitutive of modernity and that food has therefore come to shape urban life just as much as cities act as a setting for the working out of the systems of supply and the shifting currents of consumption.
With these preliminary thoughts at the forefront of our minds, we proceeded to the first substantive session, which was entitled ‘Setting the Scene: Urbanization, Nutrition and Policy’. Taking stock of the research done during the last decades in Germany, Hans-Jürgen Teuteberg gave an outline of pre-modern urban food supply, starting with self-provisioning ackerbürger (field-citizen), and moving through the era of itinerant hawkers and peddlers to that of fixed shops. Interestingly, this paper showed how much later the transition to modern retailing was in Germany than in, say, Britain. Professor Teuteberg explored the driving forces behind changes in urban provisioning systems, which included the industrialization of food processing, and the regulation of food quality in large cities.
A second introductory paper was given by Corinna Treitel. This was on the foundational concepts of nutritional science, with particular reference to the work of Max Rubner in Berlin in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although little known by comparison with giants such as Justus von Liebig and Carl Voit, Rubner was responsible for the caloric ‘standard values’ for basic foodstuffs that later became the basis of all nutritional discourse. Professor Treitel demonstrated also that he was of significance for the intellectual role of his ‘rational nutrition’ project in the progressive biopolitics of the day.
After introductions to the relationship between urbanization and food systems, and to nutritional ideas in food science and food politics, our third paper explored the commodity theme. Adel den Hartog looked at the relationship between the discovery of vitamins and the export of tinned, sweetened, condensed, skimmed milk from Holland to the United Kingdom. This by-product of butter making was a potential money-spinner for Dutch farmers but protectionism across the Channel was expressed through the medium of nutritional arguments, citing the vitamin-deficiencies of skim milk which might harm babies and young children fed on this product as a major part of their diet.
For Session II, ‘Feeding the Multitude’, a number of research questions had been posed in advance: (a) When and how did local food production cease to be able to provide for the city and when did improved transport conditions and liberal commercial relations replace local by supra-regional food supplies? (b) How far did the food industry contribute to improved living conditions in cities by supplying the masses with reasonably priced food? (c) What influence did urban consumers themselves have, for example, in consumer organizations, consumer co-operatives or through charitable agencies? By way of answers inspired by particular large cities, Peter Atkins compared the food systems of London and Paris, Josep Pujol discussed the developments in Barcelona’s food as an example of the food change in Mediterranean Europe during 1870 and 1935, and Jürgen Schmidt depicted the problem of feeding Berlin in the first years after the Second World War. The peculiarities of West in contrast to East Berlin introduced to the question of the differences of food on both sides of the iron curtain, were then enlarged on by Martin Franc’s in his talk on Prague’s role as a shop window of the former communist regime.
The next session was entitled ‘Food Regulation’. Here we sought answers to three questions. Was there basic scientific research and public discussions about food hygiene in the cities that stimulated municipal authorities to invest in a modern infrastructure with central slaughterhouses, market halls, etc.? What new roles did the food and health authorities take on in the city? What connexions are there between the growth of nutrition science and the beginning of modern consumer protection, and how did this come about? Standing in the middle of the conference this was the session with the liveliest debates. Peter Scholliers examined food fraud in Brussels and the responses to anxieties during the nineteenth century, and Derek Oddy, Alessandro Stanziani and Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki then presented similar studies on London (1870-1939), Paris (1878-1907) and the Piraeus (1835-1914) respectively, all of them picking up the question of the role of the public analyst. It was obvious from these papers that discussion of standards and regulation is a vital component of any history of urban food supplies, and we concluded that more work needs to be done in this area.
Session IV concerned ‘Food Innovations – the Product Perspective’. Apart from facing problems of provisioning their people with proper food, towns also succeeded in finding solutions for the special problems resulting from their increasing numbers of inhabitants. Here we were interested in which new foods (sugar, coffee, chocolate, snack meals, pizza, kebabs, Asian food etc.) gained acceptance in cities first and when and how this happened. In addition, there was speculation about the role of world exhibitions and new retail outlets (such as food divisions of large department stores, delicatessen and grocers’ shops, street traders, supermarkets and superstores) played in presenting consumers with new products. Also, we asked what contribution the food industry made to food innovations (brands, ready-to-serve meals, frozen food, convenience foods, and genetically modified foods). Peter Lummel sketched out the development of the supermarket as a trade innovation answering new consumer demands. Anneke van Otterloo discussed the role of exotic foods in Amsterdam and Panikos Panayi spoke about the impact of immigrants on London food. The session was closed by a paper from Jukka Gronow on the emergence of soviet food culture in first class restaurants and gastronomic food shops, which was enriched by a number of personal memories from former visits to the Soviet Union.
The fifth and final session was on ‘Eating Fashions – the Consumer Perspective’. We asked ourselves a number of questions:
The opening paper was by Alain Drouard on reforming the diet, followed by a paper from Ulrike Thoms on scientist’s festive meals in Berlin 1830-1940. Maja Godina-Golija turned the spotlight to the eastern part of Europe in her talk on the influence of social elites on eating habits in Slovenia up to WW II. Finally, Isabelle Téchoueyres explored the role and influence of direct selling in Bordeaux from the 60s to today.
The general discussion at the end of the meeting made clear that there still is a lot of work to do in order to if we are to write comparable and comparative histories. Most surprising was that the ‘metropolitan effect’ was not such a prominent and universal aspect as expected. Instead, there were a number of different approaches, locations and developments, which were rather different in different parts and countries of Europe, especially during times of crisis. One problem noted was the lack of “hard” data on many food items at the micro-level.
The methodological approaches as well as the perspectives were at times rather different; at the present this poses problems for comparisons, even if some of the papers showed, that international co-operation and exchange played an important role. This became even clearer during the discussion in the session on consumption, where the question was raised as to the definition of a luxury product or what fancy food, and whether this should be on sociological, historical, legislative or financial grounds. Another question was how (reflexive) social practice relates to social identities. This shows the importance of theoretical reflection, sharp definitions and helpful theoretical concepts, which might not be shared by all, but can serve as a basis for comparison.
The lively debate in a fruitful and friendly atmosphere and the pleasant location in Dahlem illustrated the high commitment and engagement of the participants, who have set up a dynamic network of food historians over the past 16 years. The stimulating social programme also contributed to the success of the Berlin symposium. The Deputy-Director of the archives of the Max-Planck-Society gave an overview about the history of this scientific society which started at the place of the conference in 1911. During a reception the participants had the opportunity to meet notable colleagues from several universities and museums of Berlin. We were welcomed in the German Bundestag by a represent of the committee for consumer protection, nutrition and agriculture and had the opportunity to do a guided tour also in the safety zone. The director of the largest European delicatessen-department and the Chief Secretary of the association of Retail Trade for Berlin-Brandenburg as well made an introduction into the history of Germany’s most important department store KaDeWe. Finally we saw and discussed both the historic and the new Berlin during a field trip to the Berlin Wall Memorial, the new Holocaust Memorial, the Sony Centre at the Potsdamer Platz, and the Jewish museum.
Overall, ICREFH is very grateful to Dr Peter Lummel and his staff at the Domäne Dahlem for their hospitality and excellent organization of the symposium. In addition, we wish to thank the Thyssen Foundation for their sponsorship.
As usual, a book will be published containing selected papers revised on the basis of the critique and suggestions of the participants.