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This chapter aims to highlight what can be achieved through archaeobotany by focusing on one aspect: food. It is divided into five main sections, each concentrating on one of the five phases of food: food production, the realm of the farm and the landscape; food distribution and trade, the realm of the granary, the market, and long-distance transport; food preparation, the realm of the kitchen; food consumption, the realm of the meal and, in many instances also, the realm of the table; and finally food disposal, the realm of the dustbin or refuse deposit and, par excellence, the realm of archaeology. Other human–plant interactions are mentioned in passing. The chapter concludes with a brief reflection on how these interactions helped create many different modes of being. It considers how daily life in antiquity varied across time and space.

With the growing demand for food in emerging economies, and for biofuels, many governments are re-examining their strategies for dealing with long-term food security. In the past, governmental responses to concerns with both the long-run trend level of food prices and their short-run fluctuations have not always been the most appropriate. In particular, trade-restricting food policies rather than more-efficient domestic measures are commonly employed, and by both high-income and developing countries. This chapter examines how such trade policies have contributed to the amplification of international food price fluctuations. They have done little to advance national food security while collectively imperiling global food security and thus fostering rather than relieving tensions that foment social unrest. The chapter concludes by examining how unilateral actions or multilateral trade arrangements over the coming decade could help advance global food security without risking sociopolitical unrest.

Vulnerability to food import disruptions has been part of the collective consciousness in the Gulf throughout the twentieth century. World War II offers an interesting case study for how such memories have shaped policies in subsequent decades. It constituted the apogee of a regional food trade that had developed since the nineteenth century and gave way to an international system of food surplus disposal by developed countries after the war. The war period also established a legacy of state intervention and state-led development models. The Gulf saw projects of mechanized agriculture and the importance of food policies and external rents for political legitimacy became apparent. Particular attention is given to the role of the Allied Middle East Supply Center for food provisions to the Gulf countries, trade with neighboring regions like South Asian and East Africa, and how food politics between the Saudi ruler and the US and Britain played out in detail.

Chapter 1 shows how the Gulf countries have been affected by the global food crisis of 2008 and how they have reacted to it. Basic challenges of Gulf food security are outlined such as population growth, lack of water, economic diversification, and vulnerability of poor migrant workers. The role of subsidies and price controls in the ruling bargain of the region’s rentier states is highlighted. Causes and consequences of the global food crisis are given. After a discussion of major factors like productivity development, biofuels, or dietary change, the chapter posits that there is reasonable indication for a paradigm shift towards higher food prices. It is then shown how the Gulf countries currently operate in global food trade and what items they import from which countries of origin.

Chapter 9 concludes and offers a speculative outlook. Food security in Gulf countries is about managing import dependence. Self-sufficiency is no longer an option because of water scarcity. Food imports offer the opportunity to import “virtual water” that is embedded in food. Foreign agro-investments in developing countries can be one piece of the puzzle, but they may end up stillborn like previous attempts in Sudan in the 1970s. Win-win situations will only prove possible if the interests of stakeholders in targeted countries are safeguarded. Apart from this, Gulf countries will need to look at other areas to guarantee food security. They can improve cooperation with institutions like the WTO. They can work on international storage solutions in order to prevent a renewed occurrence of export restrictions. They can improve water security with domestic policies. They can also ensure revenue streams by stretching the lifetime of their oil reserves and further economic diversification.

Gulf countries tried to develop Sudan as an Arab bread-basket in the 1970s. It was hoped that Sudan with its huge land mass and considerable water resources could alleviate the vulnerability of imports and the threat of food embargoes. These plans fell by the wayside but they have resurfaced with the global food crisis of 2008. This chapter takes a detailed look at the companies and institutions involved in the 1970s. It is shown how Khartoum’s neglect of the peripheries and the fall-out of large-scale projects have caused political conflict in the past. Sudan’s agricultural sector and forms of land tenure are analyzed. The reasons for the failure of the bread-basket dream are provided and analyzed in detail. Yet a reloaded version of it appeared on the stage when the Sudanese government launched a massive dam program and announced plans for an “agricultural revival” (al-nahda al-ziraʿiyya) in the 2000s

This book explores the centrality of food in the Italian American community of East Harlem in New York City between the 1920s and 1940s. It examines why the food of immigrants and their children has continued to serve as a powerful means of identification across different generations of Italian Americans; why, and how, Italian food and foodways have come to define Italian America; and what the persistence of Italian foodways tells us about the character and meaning of the Italian experience in America and, more generally, about the role of consumption in the production of race, ethnicity, and nation. The book is organized in two parts: the first focuses on the role of food in the Italian American family and community in East Harlem in the 1920s and the 1930s, while the second analyzes the Italian American food trade and market in New York, along with their national and transnational ramifications. This introduction provides an overview of the historical literature on consumption, class, and ethnicity and the book's structure.

In November 1793, the Convention acknowledged that goods passed through multiple hands en route to consumers, and it began to reform the Maximum to include both wholesale and retail prices. This chapter dissects how the Dames, their brokers, and market police compelled the deputies to economically affirm and politically legitimize merchants as useful citizens in their revisions. During the five months it took the state to plan tiered prices, retailers like the Dames remained unable to legally sell at a profit. To protect retailers and the food trade, the Dames and market police urged the deputies to hasten their recalculations. From a pragmatic perspective, they highlighted marketplace practices to illustrate why retailers’ services were necessary for supplying Parisians. From an ideological perspective, they argued that symbiotic trading relationships between merchants and consumers naturally underscored fraternal bonds among cooperative citizens. They also insisted that the municipal government balance commercial relationships by enforcing ceilings on workers’ wages. Due to police reports and merchants’ interventions, the national political economy of the Terror ultimately bent to local realities of les Halles. When the Thermidorians abolished the Maximum in December 1794, crippling inflation created shared interests between previously opposed retailers and wage workers, which encouraged class-based political alliances.

This chapter examines how the Dames des Halles derived their influence from their roles as retailers in the food trade and as traditional representatives of the Third Estate. It draws on evidence from 151 market women to situate them in les Halles and to establish their relationships with clients, brokers, inspectors, and wholesalers. It also demonstrates how the Dames’ ritual relationship with the king and Old Regime literary precursors positioned the Dames as the voice of the people. Revolutionary propagandists drew on the prerevolutionary “genre poissard” to appropriate stock characters of the market women. From 1789 to 1792, political pamphleteers from rival parties channeled the poissard style and deployed fictive Dames to personify popular sovereignty. Thus, the living market women’s political influence hinged on their commercial and ritual activity as well as others’ cultural constructions.