Anna Fielding
A PhD researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University, I’m devoting my time to the wonderful sensory world of food history and early modern communal dining. ... From agency and materiality, to the history of the senses and emotions to physiology, from emotional communities to social and pious performances, architecture to the actual recipes and dinner conversations. We can understand a lot about the early modern period through the microcosm of the dinner party, through looking at those seated around the table and what they might have been thinking and doing in a highly pressurised social event. This involves approaching things from a 16th and 17th century mindset set against a backdrop of reformation, civil war, interregnum and restoration.
22 October 2022
Recreating early modern food has many benefits. While using period recipes is not a formal part of my PhD thesis, it has helped me consider the sensory aspects of food in the kitchen...
3 September 2022
I am currently taking part in the above conference which has been full of different perspectives on remaking early modern recipes (culinary and medicinal). It has set so many ideas...
Harvest season and the Festival of Lammas
16 August 2022
Grain crops and grasses display at the National Wildflower Centre near Liverpool. This has unfortunately now closed and the National Wildflower Centre has relocated to the Eden Project...
Midsummer and Seasonal Festival Food
22 June 2022
I have been thinking recently about what foods were associated with each early modern seasonal festival. This isn’t easy as it involves getting into the mindset of people who were...