Changes

''This review is published with the agreement of the journal ''Histoire & Sociétés Rurales'', in which it was originally printed in French (2020, 53, p. 171-176). Cozette Griffin-Kremer translated the text into English. Additional information and bibliographical references appear in the notes – and in brackets – in the English version. Illustrations have also been added for this translation.''

The re-edition of this book, which could only be found in libraries, is to be welcomed. Adam Maurizio’s text has remained a reference work as an essay in the global history of vegetable foods, in spite of some aspects that have become out-dated. The Introduction and Annexes for the new edition, written by the agronomist and ethno-botanist Michel Chauvet, enable the reader to see the work in its historical context. Maurizio’s innovative project was nonetheless too demanding for a single researcher to undertake, which led him to make certain thematic and geographical choices. These limits do not call into question his contribution to the analysis of food cultures. Nor do they deny its resonance with present-day preoccupations: interest in cuisine based on cereal grain, vegetables and leguminous plants, the concern with rediscovering a biodiversity eroded by industrial agriculture, and the environmental stakes involved in producing plant and animal resources.

The choice of publishing a commentated facsimile was the only one possible. Otherwise, it would have been necessary to rewrite the book completely with corrections and updating. Hence, this edition utilizes the 1932 French translation of the 1927 German edition, which was revised and enlarged from the 1926 edition in Polish (published as a reprint in 2017). As for Maurizio’s other books, it was not translated into English. The historian François Sigaut pointed out the errors that occurred in the French edition from the German text. M. Chauvet, who worked on both versions as well as the Polish, notes these problems in his Introduction and Annex. The 1932 edition was preceded by a presentation in French: A. Maurizzio [sic], « Histoire de l’alimentation végétale chez l’Homme », ''Revue de botanique appliquée et d’agriculture coloniale'', 1931, 115, p. 159-168. His study particularly concerns Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Scandinavia and Western Europe, with examples from outside these areas. This work is based on Maurizio’s reading, personal contacts, and field inquiries into practices that have disappeared today. The text had 82 figures that were either original or borrowed from other authors.

These crisis periods “gave rise to survivals in habits and often showed there were returns to the past with consumption of bark and leaves, for example” (A. Maurizio, 1931, p. 165). All the while set within the evolutionist conception of history dominant at the time, which led from the “primitives” to the “civilized”, Maurizio does not have a strictly linear perception. What is more, his text is a goldmine of information on plant foods such as lichen, moss and roots used by Northern peoples, which can be eaten fresh but also dried or put up in “sour preserves” or “sauerkrauts” (2019, p. 43-44) <ref>[Peoples of Northern Europe, Asia and America let the leaves, young flowering or leafy shoots, as well as lichens, ferment. Fresh, dried or fermented, these were often used with other plant or animal resources. On the diversity of this gathering (berries, bark, tubers, etc.) and preparation ways, see A. Maurizio, 2019, p. 39-50.]</ref>. Maurizio minutely describes these ancient strategies against hunger right up to the substitutes European countries had recourse to during the First World War. If societies affected by food scarcity try to remain faithful to their usual foodways, the seriousness of a food crisis subsequently wipes out the differences “between peoples of diverse civilizations” (2019, p. 168). He compares this famine behaviour to similar observations from other areas of the world, thus rehabilitating the know-how associated with gathered foods and defending a critical vision of “progress” that led, in his opinion, to a pauperization in food resources (A. Maurizio, 1931, p. 168). In this, he has a very similar attitude to today’s concerns. However M. Chauvet adds nuance to this idea by referring to recent plant domestications linked to urban growth, mainly in tropical countries.

Maurizio also elaborated an inventory and classification of foodstuffs that often gives rise to problems of translation and terminology, recalling the remarks by F. Sigaut who called for establishing reference terms in the field of food technology linked to the analysis of ''chaînes opératoires'' <ref>See his article « Nomenclature et identification des produits », ''in'' H. Franconie, M. Chastanet et F. Sigaut (éd.), ''Couscous, boulgour et polenta. Transformer et consommer les céréales dans le monde'', Paris, Karthala, 2010, p. 443-456.</ref>. If this hope was not fulfilled, it is doubtless because this taxonomy is more difficult to develop than in life sciences, considering individual researchers’ practices, regional traditions and agro-alimentary norms. Also, this is perceived as less necessary, since people continue to use local names with their own definitions – with all the risks of confusion and misunderstanding they involve.