Le goût et la nécessité : sur l'usage des graisses dans les cuisines d'Europe occidentale (XIVe-XVIIIe siècle)

Taste and Necessity : Some Thoughts about the Use of Fats in Western European Cooking (14h-l6th centuries) To what extent do the culinary practices of a society and the changes in these practices depend on its tastes and to what degree are they conditioned by constraints clearly perceived as such ? The shift from the spicy and acid seasonings used in the late Middle Ages to the fatty seasonings of classic European cuisine seems to have been caused by changing tastes, and not by a change in the availability of certain foodstuffs. But the shift from cooking with oil in the 14th and 15th centuries ( a low-fat cuisine) to cooking with butter in the 17th to 20th centuries was connected with the lifting of certain religious restrictions that had been very unpopular in the non-Mediterranean regions of Europe and had failed to change the patterns of taste in those regions (in contrast, as we know, the dietary rules of other religions, such as those of Jewish and Moslem society, have had lasting effects on patterns of taste).Flandrin Jean-Louis. Le goût et la nécessité : sur l'usage des graisses dans les cuisines d'Europe occidentale (XIVe-XVIIIe siècle). In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 38ᵉ année, N. 2, 1983. pp. 369-401