Food and Art

Food and Art takes readers on a richly illustrated journey through eight remarkable eras, from Ancient Rome and Byzantium to Medieval Europe and Renaissance Italy, Baroque Versailles, Rococo Venice, Impressionist Paris, and twentieth-century California. Drawing on Robin Trento’s experience creating and teaching popular culinary programs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the book reveals the fascinating connections among the art people created, the food they ate, and the cultures in which they lived. Each chapter brings a historical period vividly to life through engaging cultural and art history, masterworks and revealing visual details, culinary traditions, and historically inspired menus and recipes adapted for today’s kitchen. Readers are invited to look closely at art for clues to everyday life—and then take the experience one step further by recreating the flavours of the past and, quite literally, “eating our way through history.”

Celebrating the sensual pleasure of food, the intellectual pleasure of discovery, and the emotional pleasure of art, Food and Art offers an inviting new way to experience history—from museum gallery to kitchen to table.