On 24th May, Susan gave a keynote lecture at the Posthumus Conference, hosted at the University of Antwerp. The conference theme was ‘food inequalities’ and the lecture focused on the the value of interdisciplinary research and practice based approaches to understanding diets in the past.
On 17th April 2023 Susan presented a keynote lecture at a BrIAS Workshop on
‘Dietary Dilemmas: Influences on Consumer ‘Choice’ in Preindustrial Societies’. The workshop was organised by Prof. Dr. Beat Kümin & Prof. Dr. ir. Frits Heinrich as part of a collaboration between Department of History & Food GRP, University of Warwick and the Brussels Institute of Advanced Studies. The paper focused on food and religion in early modern modern Ireland and presented findings from across the workpackages, exploring the significance of religious ideas and practices on consumption and social interaction in early modern Ireland.
On 2nd February, Susan will present a talk on ‘Bere and Brewing History’ at the IBH seminar. The seminar is focussed on working with heritage barley, and the talk will share the FoodCult teams’s experience of recreating sixteenth century beer with bere.
On 6th January 2023 the FoodCult team presented a panel of 7 papers at the SHA annual conference in Lisbon. These papers represented individual ongoing workpackages, but also our efforts to integrate our approaches towards developing a deeper understanding of diet and food culture in Ireland.
Marc Meltonville, FoodCult’s ‘Brewer in Chief’, will present a paper featuring our recent research at the ‘Ale Through the Ages’ Conference at Williamsburg VA. The paper, ‘Beer & Roses, building a Tudor brewery’ reflects on the process of recreating historic beers and the challenges of authenticity. The conference runs from 11-13th November.
Delighted to announce the publication of a new open access article in The Historical Journal. The article, which is based on the forensic analysis of household accounts from Dublin Castle transcribed as part of the Food Microhistories work-package, explores the role of food and drink in the demonstration and negotiation of power in Ireland.
Delighted to announce the publication of a new open access article in Food and History. The article, “Food and Social Politics in Early Modern Ireland”, is a deep analysis of fictional representations of food in Gaelic Ireland. It demonstrates the acceptance and interpretation of broader cultural food ideas in early modern Ireland. The article received an honourable mention by the jury for the the Food and History biennial prize.
Delighted to announce the launch of a ‘Virtual Exhibition’ focused on the Brewing Project. This presents a photo-journalistic overview of the project in five chapters, exploring the background, ingredients, equipment, process and analysis.
On 16th October 2021, Susan presented some initial findings from the FoodCult Brewing Project at the National Monuments Service Nexus: People and Places Through Time Conference. The lecture is now available as an online podcast.
After almost three years of preparation, last week finally saw the completion of the brewing experiment at the Weald and Downland Museum. Four barrels of sixteenth-century beer are in the last stages of fermentation, having been brewed with carefully selected yeast, heritage grains, and period equipment. These will soon be moved to three different labs for analysis.
Prof John Morrissey at University College Cork, who researched and reconstituted the yeast will undertake analysis from a microbiological perspective. Prof Janet Montgomery at Durham University is examining the isotopes in the beer. She will measure the change in O-isotopes from cold water to beer. This will help better understand how oxygen isotopes are used to examine human mobility and migration. In addition, C,N and S-isotopes will be examined to better understand beer in dietary studies.
Finally, nutritional analysis is taking place at the School of Biosciences, Nottingham University, under the direction of Dr Stephen Lawrence. This will allow us to consider in great detail, the dietetic value of beer in early modern society.
The entire process has been filmed by Storylab at Anglia Ruskin University, under the direction of Dr Shreepali Patel. This film will show the immense interdisciplinary efforts involved in bringing this project to life, following the story all the way from the archive to the finished beer.
Results to follow soon…