Steven Kaplan
Steven Kaplan is the Goldwin Smith Professor of European History at Cornell University. He writes on French history and the history of food, with a particular focus on bread.
Books by Steven Kaplan
“Good Bread is Back is the story of Kaplan’s efforts to save the baguette from industrial bakers. It led to an actual piece of legislation called l’ordinance Balladur which put in place the criteria for what a baguette could and could not contain. That’s now recognised by Unesco World Heritage. But it wasn’t before Kaplan’s intervention as an American in Paris; the French had been perfectly willing to allow the baguette to run downhill and become a much more ultra-processed kind of bread than we think is good nowadays.” Read more...
The best books on The History of Food
Diane Purkiss, Historian
Provisioning Paris
by Steven Kaplan
Steven Kaplan is writing about how Paris is fed. He is interested in the supply of grain to Paris in the period just before the French Revolution and spends a great deal of time on how in Paris the king was known as the ‘baker of last resort’. In the minds of the people he was responsible for feeding the city. This put the king in a very difficult position: the problem is not only whether you can grow enough food, but also whether you can transport it and so on.
Interviews with Steven Kaplan
The best books on The History of Food, recommended by Steven Kaplan
From body and blood of Christ or an act of seduction to a means of social control and even a weapon of war – Professor Steven Kaplan picks the best books on the history and power of food.
Interviews where books by Steven Kaplan were recommended
The best books on Food and the City, recommended by Carolyn Steel
The architect, writer, lecturer, and director of Kilburn Nightingale Architects says architecture should not be just about buildings, but about everything else in our environment
The best books on The History of Food, recommended by Diane Purkiss
History too often glosses over basic questions of subsistence and food availability, argues Oxford academic Diane Purkiss—whose new book English Food is a social history told through the food on people’s tables. Here, she recommends five books about the history of food that focus on the diet of the common person as opposed to the royal banquet table.
