Changes

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.