FPS LIVING ROOM LECTURES

The French Porcelain Society continues its series of weekly online lectures with Meredith Chilton on the appearance of a new food culture and its impact on dinnerware in France and England during the second half of the eighteenth century. We hope you can join us!

Lecture: THE KING’S PEAS: FOOD CULTURE IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT – Meredith Chilton

Time: Saturday, 6 June 2020, 19:00PM London, UK (BST)

PLEASE NOTE WE ARE BAK TO OUR USUAL TIME NEW TIME

Members will receive an email invitation with instructions on how to join the online lecture. If you want to join, please contact us for more details on FPSenquiries@gmail.com.

THE KING’S PEAS: FOOD CULTURE IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Meredith Chilton

By the middle of the eighteenth century, a significant change occurred on the tables of the European elite with the appearance of a veritable avalanche of new forms in silver and porcelain for serving and eating.  This expansion of forms was preceded by new developments and experiments in horticulture, a bounty of novel foods fuelled by exploration and colonialism, advances in the technology of the kitchen, and changes in the ideologies of food, cuisine, and dining.  The result was the rise of a new French cuisine which dominated Europe into the following centuries.

This lecture traces the evolution of these changes in France and England, from increased growing seasons to the import and cultivation of new crops; from innovations in stoves to exponents of vegetarianism and locally sourced diets, all leading to profound transformation of cooking and the subsequent development of new and desirable wares in silver and porcelain as the dictates of consumer demand impacted the market.

Image: Cook, Germany, Meissen, c. 1753–4. Model attributed to Peter Reinicke (1715–1768). Hard-paste porcelain, enamels and gilding. The Alan Shimmerman Collection