The French Science of Food

Abstract

The article discusses the most important works by the French experts on the history and current practices of food published in the last twenty years. It is during this period that the French cuisine becomes a new interdisciplinary area of research. The review presents the main approaches of historians, ethnologists, sociologists, and psychologists to the changing relationship between humans and their food, as well as to the history of establishment of the French gastronomy cult in Europe, and of the emergence of the contemporary system of nutrition.