History Globalization on our plates

Most of these products are on our tables every day, such as pizza, sardines in oil or corn flakes, so familiar that we no longer question their origin. Others are rarer because they are closely linked to a local culture, such as attiéké, cassava semolina born in the Ivory Coast, yak butter or injera, a sour pancake prepared in Ethiopia. For two centuries, grocery stores have multiplied in cities, despite competition from supermarkets. Thanks to the acceleration of trade, there are all kinds of foodstuffs from all over the world that are used to prepare dishes that are sometimes emblematic of a national identity. After the world store, Sylvain Venayre and Pierre Singaravélou pursue the history of globalization since the 18th century by focusing on food. In nearly ninety short articles, written by young researchers or expert historians (Philippe Artières, François-Xavier Fauvelle, Pascal Ory, etc.), the grocery of the world it unfolds a history that is also that of uses and their evolution through wars, shortages, industrialization. We thus learn that rum, a drink associated with the slave revolt, was replaced by whiskey on American soil after the War of Independence because the raw material, molasses, was no longer accessible. Or that Fanta was a replacement for Coca-Cola in Nazi Germany. Why is margarine consumed all over the world unlike butter, of which it is the substitute? What makes pizza the globalized dish par excellence? A playful way to approach a story that questions our most intimate practices. SJ