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The Braudel Center's Review dedicated an issue to his life and work last year... > On Jan 1, 2016, at 4:46 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism > <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > > NY Times, Jan. 1 2016 > Sidney Mintz, Father of Food Anthropology, Dies at 93 > By SAM ROBERTS > > Sidney W. Mintz, a renowned cultural anthropologist who provocatively linked > Britain’s insatiable sweet tooth with slavery, capitalism and imperialism, > died on Sunday in Plainsboro, N.J. He was 93. > > The cause was a severe head injury from a fall, his wife, Jacqueline Mintz, > said. > > Professor Mintz was often described as the father of food anthropology, a > mantle bestowed on him after the critical and popular success of his 1985 > book, “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.” > > Even before that, though, he had stretched the academic boundaries of > anthropology beyond the study of aboriginal peoples. (He joked about those > who believed that “if they don’t have blowguns and you can’t catch malaria, > it’s not anthropology.”) > > His groundbreaking fieldwork in the Caribbean was the basis of his book > “Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History” in 1960, in which he > profiled the rural proletariat — the “millions of people in the world, nearly > all of them people of color, working at ghastly jobs producing basic > commodities, mostly for consumers in the West,” as he described them to the > journal American Anthropologist last year. > > Professor Mintz also explored the legacy of language and religion that slaves > took with them from Africa. He was instrumental in creating a black studies > curriculum at Yale University in the early 1970s before joining Johns Hopkins > University, where he helped found its anthropology department in 1975 and > became professor emeritus in 1997. > > The son of a restaurateur and an amateur chef himself, Professor Mintz was > best known beyond the academy and his own kitchen for his Marxian perspective > on the growing demand for sugar in Britain, beginning in the 17th century. > > In his view, that hunger shaped empires, spawned industrial-like plantations > in the Caribbean and South America that presaged capitalism and > globalization, enslaved and decimated indigenous populations, and engendered > navies to protect trade while providing a sweetener to the wealthy and a > cheap source of energy to industrial workers. > > “There was no conspiracy at work to wreck the nutrition of the British > working class, to turn them into addicts or ruin their teeth,” Professor > Mintz wrote in “Sweetness and Power.” “But the ever-rising consumption of > sugar was an artifact of interclass struggles for profit — struggles that > eventuated in a world market solution for drug food, as industrial capitalism > cut its protectionist losses and expanded a mass market to satisfy > proletarian consumers once regarded as sinful or indolent.” > > He added, “No wonder the rich and powerful liked it so much, and no wonder > the poor learned to love it.” > > Professor Mintz was as much at home in the 21st century as he was in the > 17th. In “Sweetness and Power” he observed that Americans were consuming more > by multitasking, writing, “Watching the Cowboys play the Steelers while > eating Fritos and drinking Coca-Cola, while smoking a joint, while one’s girl > sits on one’s lap, can be packing a great deal of experience into a short > time and thereby maximizing enjoyment.” > > Sidney Wilfred Mintz was born on Nov. 16, 1922, in Dover, N.J., the son of > Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Solomon, was a dye maker > who became a clothing salesman. His mother, the former Fanny Tulchin, was a > seamstress and an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. (By the > time the group was banned by the government as radical, he said, “she was > married and organizing only her kids.”) > > His father was a dishwasher in a diner before buying it and converting it > into “the only restaurant in the world where the customer was always wrong,” > Professor Mintz said. (Its previous owner had been enticed to purchase a > Ferris wheel and left town with a carnival.) The diner went bust during the > Depression. > > “Very early I became interested in how people acquired, prepared, cooked and > served food, and that all came from my father,” Professor Mintz told American > Anthropologist. “I came by my interest in food honestly; feeding people had > become what my father did for a living. As I grew, I was able to help.” > > But when he was home from college during summers, Professor Mintz gorged on > breakfast after his overnight shift at the local military arsenal — so much > so, he said, that his father complained that “our financial security as a > family would remain at risk until I moved out or lost my appetite.” > > He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brooklyn College in 1943, > taught celestial navigation in the Army Air Forces during World War II and > received a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University. > > Like his father, he did most of the cooking at home. In addition to his wife, > the former Jacqueline Wei, with whom he lived in Cockeysville, Md., he is > survived by two children from an earlier marriage, Eric Mintz and Elizabeth > Nickens; and two grandchildren. > > In 1996, Professor Mintz wrote “Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions > Into Eating, Culture and the Past,” in which he maintained that Americans did > not have a national cuisine. What they share, he said, is a “lively > appreciation of sin,” which manifests itself in an obsession with dieting > > He also complained about the eating habits of too many people today. > > “We appear to be capable of eating (and liking) just about anything that is > not immediately toxic,” he wrote in “Sweetness and Power.” “What constitutes > ‘good food,’ like what constitutes good weather, a good spouse or a > fulfilling life, is a social, not a biological matter.” > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/shalva.eliava%40outlook.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
