Matters of Taste: French Eating Cultures

In France since the 19th century, the preparation, serving and consumption of food and drink, in both the domestic and public space, has been emblematic of French bourgeois cultural hegemony. In this subject students will examine the elaboration of normative codes relating to food and wine and the emergence of gastronomy as an expression of cultural dominance and identity. Students will also study challenges to bourgeois cuisine and gastronomy as have been experienced since at least the mid-20th century, resulting from the colonial history of France and globalisation. Contemporary issues relating to food sovereignty and security will be considered in the context of French and European appellations and provenance regulations. Students will engage with a wide variety of discursive practices including treatises on taste and gastronomy, recipe books, restaurant critiques, works of fiction and contemporary film. This subject is taught and assessed in French.

• 1Gain an appreciation of academic French through the confident use of sophisticated oral and written French at level B2/C1 of the Common European Framework for Languages
• 2Gain an overview of the development of the French culinary tradition from the Middle-Ages to the present, and an appreciation of the different factors leading to the emergence of the concepts of taste, terroir and French gastronomy in the 19th century
• 3Understand the challenges to French bourgeois cultural hegemony effected by immigration, globalisation, and integration in the European Union, as well as the impact of these challenges on shaping today's French cuisine
• 4Draw from, and reflect upon, their own eating and drinking experiences to gain an understanding of the major role of food and drink as a marker of cultural and national identity, as well as the site of cultural resistance in the context of immigration and globalisation
• 5Interpret and give a critical analysis of French literary texts, recipe books, films, documentaries, and other media related to the topic of food and French gastronomy
• 6Gain the confidence and competence in conducting small research projects, either independently or collaboratively, in the field of French Studies
• 7Employ learning and research technologies in French and English.