Project Overview

Love and Gold: The Reception of the Tomato in England Revisited, 1500-1800

I am a fourth-year doctoral researcher, kindly funded by Midlands4Cities and supervised by Professors Rebecca Earle and Beat Kümin.

My research is on the introduction and assimilation of the tomato and other New World foods into England and Italy in the early modern period. I intend to tackle the prevailing assumption that foods and goods from the Americas were met with fear and rejection in Europe, and demonstrate that their presence and consumption – both physical and economic – was part of a larger culture of demand for the rare and exotic. I also intend to show that the understanding and use of the tomato in Europe was drawn from the knowledge and practices of Indigenous Mesoamericans, rather than purely a product of European cuisine.

Themes and Interests

My work tackles a number of key themes in the study of food and consumption, namely the reception of novelty and the integration of new cultural items; the global nature of the early modern world; and the transfer and exchange of cultural ideas and knowledge. The history of food and drink is my primary research interest, but others include environmental history, garden history, the history of animals, and material culture studies.

Groups and Engagement

I am a co-founder and convenor of the Food and Drink History Reading Group at Warwick, which meets monthly to discuss various themes and issues in the study of food and drink.

I am also a member of both the Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre and the Global History and Culture Centre at Warwick, and have participated as a discussant in the departmental research seminar.

Public engagement

OUT NOW: Talking turnips with Tony Robinson on Tony Robinson's Cunningcast, available now on Spotify,Link opens in a new window Apple PodcastsLink opens in a new window and all good podcast sites!

Author for The Conversation:

Turnips: how Britain fell out of love with the much-maligned vegetableLink opens in a new window

Easter eggs: their evolution from chicken to chocolateLink opens in a new window

Part of the Coventry City of Culture/Warwick Resonate 'FEAST!' program, helping to organise the Berkswell Feast Food Fair event, as part of which I have spoken about festive drinks and the history of hot chocolate, video available here.

Guest post on the GHCC Blog, '"The Most Delicate Rootes": Sweet Potatoes and the Consumption of the New World, 1560-1650Link opens in a new window', June 2021.

Publications

NEW ARTICLE: '"The Most Delicate Rootes": Sweet Potatoes and the English Consumption of the “New World” reassessed, c. 1580-1650', Food & History, vol. 21, no. 2 (2023), 55-80.

Link opens in a new windowUpcoming review: 'Roberta Cevasco, Valentina Pescini, and Robert Hearn (eds), Situating Foodways and Foodscapes: Dalla Tavola al Terreno (Genova University Press, 2023)', Agricultural History Review 72, 2 (December 2024), 2 pp.

'D 1.6 Genealogishe Rolle der Könige von England', 'D 1.8 Illustriete Handschrift des Leben des HI. Eduards "des Bekenners"', and 'D 4.1 Chronicon ex chronicis', in Die Normannen, ed. by Viola Skiba, Nikolas Jaspert, Bernd Schneidmüller and Wilfried Rosendahl (Schnell & Steiner, 2022), pp. 170-1, 173-4, 216-8. Exhibition catalogue of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum, Mannheim, exhibition Die Normannen, 18.9.2022 – 26.2.2023.Link opens in a new window

Conferences and papers

‘Transferring Tomatoes: Early Modern Spanish Recipes and the Incorporation of Indigenous American Knowledge and Practices’ at the conference Global Recipes in the Early Modern World: Ingredients, Actors, Exotica, University of Cambridge, May 2024

'Xitomamolli to Salsa de Tomates: Tomatoes and the Incorporation of Indigenous American Knowledge and Practices in Early Modern Spain' at the Histories of Global Recipes: A Workshop on Sources and Methods, Warwick IAS, October 2023.

'Exotic luxury or dangerous novelty? Conflicting narratives in the reception of ‘New World’ foods in Europe', at the BrIAS Workshop Dietary Dilemmas: Influences on Consumer 'Choice' in Pre-Industrial Societies, Université libre de Bruxelles/Vrije Universiteit Brussel, April 2023.

'Edible vs Ornamental? What the Reception of the Tomato in England Reveals about Exotic Foods and Beauty, c. 1500-1800', at the FOOD! Workshop, Medici Archive Project, Florence, January 2023.

'Red and Gold: Tomatoes, Ornamental Plants, and Knowledge in Europe, 1544-1750', at the 7th International Conference on Food History and Food Studies, in Tours, France, June 2022.

‘"The Most Delicate Rootes": Sweet Potatoes and the English Consumption of the New World, 1560-1650' at the Newberry Multidisciplinary Graduate Conference in Premodern Studies, January 2022.

'Red and Gold: Tomatoes as Ornamental Plants, 1500-1800' at the Warwick Early Modern History Workshop, November 2021.

'“The Spanish Potato, he holds as a bauble”: New World Foods and the Early Modern English Body' at Warwick's History Post Graduate Conference, May 2021.

'Consumption as a Point of Contention: Aphrodisiacs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Print' at the Dresden-Warwick Workshop 'Media and Public (Dis)order', March 2021.

Co-organiser of the virtual conference 'You Are What You Eat: Food and Identity from the Middle Ages to the Modern', June 2021.

Academic Profile

2020-2024: PhD, University of Warwick

2019-2020: MA, Early Modern History, University of Warwick (Distinction)

2014-2018: BA (Hons), History and Italian, University of Manchester (First-class)

Awards and Funding

​2020/24 – Midlands4Cities AHRC Doctoral Studentship Award

2019/20 – History Department MA Studentship

– Warwick Taught Masters Scholarship Scheme​

– History MA Best Overall Performance Prize

Teaching

Seminar tutor for:

Caravans and Traders: Global Connections, 1200-1500 (HI2B8), Autumn 2021 term

Galleons and Galleys: Global Connections 1500-1800 (HI2C1), Spring 2022 term