Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams
Shrouding the Caucasus: Georgian Hospitality Rituals through the French Gaze
Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams
Janet Beizer [+]
Harvard University
Janet Beizer is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University,
and specializes in literature, cultural studies, and food studies. Her forthcoming book is
The Harlequin Eaters: From Food Scraps to Modernism in Nineteenth Century France.
Description
In 1858 the French writer Alexandre Dumas undertook a voyage to the Caucasus and a concurrent memoir of the trip. Much of this travelogue is devoted to descriptions of his reception in various regions of Georgia, in lodgings ranging from palaces to embassies to mountain hovels. His detailed commentary on Georgian rules of hospitality is particularly relevant to an understanding of alimentary ritual – with a twist, however: Dumas' Voyage au Caucase is a better source for what it reflects about presuppositions and projections of French gastronomic laws than for what it reveals – and simultaneously veils – about Georgian culinary rites.