This is a past event
From its industrialised beginning at the start of the nineteenth century, the preserving of foods in hermetically sealed metal canisters would go on to vastly alter global foodways and people's engagement with convenience foods.
Throughout the nineteenth century, however, tinned foods and tinned meats in particular, were resisted and debated for a multitude of reasons. Worries about adulteration, sanitation, and the quality of foreign goods clashed with arguments in favour of convenience, economy and the facilitation of luxury. Both the working and middle classes were blamed for the prejudice against tinned meats, yet the marketing of them reveals a disconnect between the product itself and its intended consumers.
Moreover, the preparing of tinned meats presented unforeseen difficulties in the kitchen. This paper will use nineteenth-century recipes, periodical articles and cookbooks to unravel a few of the contested and disruptive narratives that surrounded tinned foods as their advocates and critics interpreted how the new preservative method would fit into British society, engaging with ideas of domesticity, technological progress, British power and globalisation.
- Speaker
- Lindsay Middleton, University of Glasgow
- Venue
- via Teams