A01=Piero Camporesi
account
act
Author_Piero Camporesi
beliefs
bread
cakes
Category=JBCC
Category=JBCC6
Category=JHB
Category=NHTB
Category=WB
christmas
copulation
darkness
earth
easter
eggs
eq_bestseller
eq_food-drink
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
europe
fertile
food
forces
fruits
harvest
history
magic
metaphor
offspring
popular
rich
social
special
symbolism
talisman
weddings
Product details
- ISBN 9780745621968
- Weight: 369g
- Dimensions: 154 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 25 Sep 1998
- Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The Magic Harvest is a rich and wide-ranging account of the history of popular beliefs about food in Europe.
Focusing on Italy, Camporesi examines the social symbolism of food, and its associated rituals. He shows how the act of eating at weddings and seasonal feasts was seen as a metaphor for copulation; how Christmas and Easter were marked by special cakes rich in eggs, symbolizing renewal; how bread was viewed as a magic talisman against the forces of darkness; and how the harvest was regarded as the offspring of a fertile Earth which yielded up its fruits. All this rich and varied symbolism, he suggests, has become an opaque enigma for us today.
Piero Camporesi is Professor of Italien Literature at the University of Bologna.
