Rachel Laudan (born 1944) is a
food historian, an author of the prizewinning ''Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History''.
[Food And Power: An Interview With Rachel Laudan]
by Elatia Harris, 3 Quarks Daily
''3 Quarks Daily'' is an online news aggregator and blog that curates commentary, essays, and multimedia from selected periodicals, newspapers, journals, and blogs. The focus is on literature, the arts, politics, current affairs, science, philos ...
, September 30, 2013
Early life
Laudan grew up on a traditional
family farm
A family farm is generally understood to be a farm owned and/or operated by a family; it is sometimes considered to be an Estate (land), estate passed down by inheritance.
Although a recurring conceptual model, conceptual and archetype, archet ...
in
South West England. Her father was
Cambridge-educated and his opinion of farming as “the highest calling” could well have been carried by his daughter as she moved through life. Laudan’s mother was the traditional image of a farmer’s wife and cooked three meals a day for the family and the farm workers, every day of the year. This idyllic picture was noted by Laudan in an interview with ''
The Austin Chronicle'' in 2013 where she comments “It created drudgery for my mother”.
Her mother cooked everything from scratch and despite Laudan not being forced to help her mother cook, or her father with the farm-work, she grew up surrounded by the food processes of farm to fork. A much repeated memory during interviews with Laudan tell of her father experimenting with grinding wheat to make his own flour. He removed the husks and then attempted to grind the grains by pounding with a pestle and mortar, followed by feeding the wheat through a meat grinder and eventually striking it with a hammer on a
flagstone floor.
However, Laudan was drawn more towards
history as a subject, which she attributes to her awareness of "living in history" while growing up. From finding
flints and
artefacts from
Roman times scattered around the farm to playing in the cloisters of
Salisbury Cathedral
Salisbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England. The cathedral is the mother church of the Diocese of Salisbury and is the seat of the Bishop of Salisbury.
The buildi ...
, Laudan felt connected to the history around her. Consequently, after time spent in
Nigeria with the
Voluntary Service Overseas at the age of 18, she returned to study
Geology at
Bristol University
, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter
, type ...
. Moving to
University College London she attained her Ph.D. in
History and Philosophy of Science in 1974.
Career
Moving across the
Atlantic, Laudan started her academic career teaching history of science and technology, social and economic history and world history. Initially teaching at
Carnegie-Mellon, she also taught at the
University of Pittsburgh,
Virginia Tech and then the
University of Hawaii. While living on the Island, Laudan was struck by the interconnected cuisines that created the
fusion of
local food and subsequently went on to write her first non-academic book ''The Food of Paradise'' which was published by the University of Hawaii in 1996. Despite being rejected by several cautious publishers the book was awarded the 1997 Jane Grigson/ Julia Child prize of the
International Association of Culinary Professionals. In 1996, Laudan and her husband the philosopher
Larry Laudan, both retired from academia and moved to Mexico. However, they both continued to visit America, Argentina and Spain as visiting lecturers. During her time in Mexico, Laudan worked on the ambitious task of writing her next book ''Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History'' which was published in 2012. Like her previous book it became an award-winning publication, gaining the IACP Cookbook Award for Best Book in Culinary History.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laudan, Rachel
Food historians
Food scientists
Living people
British women historians
American women historians
20th-century English historians
20th-century American historians
21st-century English historians
21st-century American historians
20th-century British women writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century British women writers
21st-century American women writers
Alumni of the University of Bristol
Alumni of University College London
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
University of Pittsburgh faculty
Virginia Tech faculty
University of Hawaiʻi faculty
1944 births