Consumption and Capitalism

Question 1

what were the ‘fruits of empire’?

Answer 1

New consumer cultures which emerged in Europe from their imperial endeavours e.g. sugar, tea, chocolate

Question 2

what areas of the character of Europe did commodities such as sugar change?

Answer 2

Fundamental changes in the social, cultural and biological character of Europe

Question 3

How did these products (sugar/tea) become available?

Answer 3

European traders and merchants travel –> opening up of food culture from all over the world

• this stimulates changes e.g. exchanges
• discovery of materials –> European countries establishing relationships of power = colonialism

Question 4

When was tea introduced into england? what was its purpose? who had it?

Answer 4

mid-17th C

initially a luxury with supposed medicinal benefits

the elite

Question 5

where was tea consumed and how did this change?

why did it change? (Fromer)

Answer 5

Initially consumed in public e.g. coffee houses.

By the 18thC tea had moved into the domestic sphere

By the 19thC tea was indispensable for most people –> everyday staple

WHY?
Ease - could re use leaves multiple times

Cost - reduction in import duty through 18thC forced price down
- Black market tea also forced price down

Question 6

Which movements has tea been arguably involved with?

Answer 6

Urbanisation

Industrialisation

Colonialism

Question 7

How was tea involved in industrialisation?

Answer 7

An integral part of tea was the accoutrement of tea.
- e.g. the tea pot

The tea pot became subject to the mass market as tea became more and more popular.

Packed in with tea imported from China, ‘china’ became abundant and cheap to purchase –> access for artisan and middle class

Question 8

How does culture fit with industrialisation

Answer 8

there can be observed cultural shifts and fashions e.g. oriental things

This was neatly tied with industrialisation as with most fashions trickling down from the upper classes, trying to be imitated

Question 9

What are some figures for tea import increase? (Fromer)

Answer 9

1675 - 4713lbs

1725 - 2m

1800 - 25m

1877 - 187m

Question 10

in which ways did tea arguably distinguish English identities?

Answer 10

1. Class - ability to buy material resources + cultural knowledge e.g. how to serve/what to serve with/ manners
2. Binaries - male vs female; public vs private; luxury vs necessity; labour vs leisure; home vs empire
3. Routines - daily, habitual secular rituals –> establish familial and social relations
4. Tea and Empire

Question 11

Was tea inclusive or divisive

Answer 11

Victorian tea historians said it united people in imagined communities - every english person was drinking tea with me at this time

However, could be argued that instead it created boundaries over class
- details of preparation and consumption marked class status and moral position within the culture 

Nonetheless, gender, familial, leisurely and imperial connectedness

Question 12

What can literature reveal to us about tea drinking and gender? (Fromer)

What did Ellis point to?

Answer 12

a notion of ritualized tea tables occurring after the main evening dinner. Women withdraw to drawing room while the men drink port and have cigars. Once men have had enough they withdraw to the drawing room to join the women for tea
- tea brings men and women together again, reinforcing shared domestic identities and values

Despite men and women crossing boundaries to form and retain relationships there are gender distinctions e.g. women nourishment of home

• Sustained not just home but empire – represented expansion
• E.g. seen in tea advertisements + novels

The roles that men and women enacted at private tea tables echoed larger roles in family and English society 
- Gender and class intertwined in creation of domestic ideal

2. Ellis
   - Tea offered a peaceful refuge from outside world – imbibed moral influences of domesticity re-entered public world refreshed and renewed

Question 13

which relationships can be affected through the ritual of tea? (Fromer) (6)

Answer 13

Narratives of courtship, family pleasantries, visiting other women, male/female interactions, male patterns of creating domesticity in the home, wives providing a warm, comforting, nourishing tea table at center of game

Question 14

How did Victorians see tea as creating national identity?

Answer 14

• 19thC representations of tea highlight the role of the tea table in forging unified English national identity out of disparate social groups, economic classes, and genders separated by ideologically distinct spheres of daily life
• imagined communities

o creates unified English national identity out of this
o domesticates tensions
o shared cultural symbol between groups

Question 15

1. What did Day and Read coin?

Answer 15

1. Day and Reade - ‘necessary luxury’ - epitome of middle class

suggests that the middle-class with values of consumerism – appreciating commodities within the bounds of moderation and thrift – which came to represent the nation as a whole

Question 16

How did fiction dictate how we see the role of tea? (Fromer)

Answer 16

Fiction – diverse texts worked together to create a sense of self and society and to establish the role of tea in helping to shape that society

• reflected contemporary and historical trends
• gains increased significance with historical accounts and adverisements

shows GENDERED
- when men choose to be restored emotionally they choose coffee, women select tea – even when alone

• enables, allows and enhances connection between characters
• signals hospitality, warmth, and friendship to break barriers

Question 17

What do advertisements show? (Fromer)

Answer 17

Single-sheet advertisements from grocers, tea dealers, and importing firms offer glimpses into circulating ideas about tea, gender, class, domesticity, and English identity
- a commodity on the boundaries of identity

e. g. Lipton
- tea to imperial metropole
- straight from gardens

e. g. 2 coopers
- exotic women
- value beyond the beverage - a status

Question 18

What do tea parties reveal?

Answer 18

Gender at play - space for particular gender discourses
- space for women to establish a particular set of social and cultural practices

Representations of little girls drinking tea with dolls etc –> imbedding role of women within society using tea.

Question 19

What are some other significant effects that tea had on Britain?

Answer 19

Medicinal property
- boiling water incidentally kills germs instead of drinking bad water or alcohol which are both bad for you

Tea breaks

• part of industrial story
• Not there at start of revolution
• requires acknowledgement of righteousness of labour regulation
• trade unions required
• emerge in 20thC as part of working day in factory

Imperial commodity

• represents imperial dominance
• naturalising imports as ‘british’ significant because these were foreign goods yet becoming british through practice

Question 20

when was tea drunk? (Shalleck)

Answer 20

Afternoon tea - light meal to fill increasing gap between lunch and dinner
- ‘low tea’

Question 21

why did tea come to England? (Walvin)

Answer 21

Accidental fruits of empire

• however, extraordinary rise of tea trade was not an accident
• urge to profitability brought together distant producers and an expanding army of EU consumers
• health benefit stressed at beginning
• coffee houses
• With East India shows demand and growing opinion to import more tea

Question 22

What is the significance of the court? (Walvin)

Answer 22

Tea really took off when Charles married a Portuguese princess

with importance of tea in court itself –> imp for east india

dissemination of fashionable things from court –> 1680s elite –> 1780s tea drink of the common people

Question 23

What was main problem of companies trading in Asia? (Walvin)

2. What were some positives?

Answer 23

Transhipping in India or Indonesia - after the uncertain deliveries by Chinese shippers –> much less satisfactory system than direct trade to and from China.
- as tea profit grew became clear direct trade with china lucrative

BUT

• heavy duty on imported tea because lucrative
• warfare made trade harder
• Very long way to go £££

EVEN…
when trade did begin with China from 1717 business was difficult
- chinese imposed severe limitations on trade and insisted on silver

2. • HUGE profits
     - also packed chinese silks, porcelains - creating fashion of ‘chinoiseries’
     - profits 5X in 50 years

Question 24

What other problems occurred for East Indian company? (walvin)

Answer 24

Other European companies scuppered complete success

Smuggling - 25% east india - rest smuggled

• By 1770s EU companies importing 13.5m lbs of tea + most reexported i.e. smuggled
• Duty 100% - milk cow for gov
• punishments failed - too ingrained

Question 25

How much did smuggling affect mass tea-consumption? (Walvin)

Answer 25

Their activities helped to force down the price and ensured that tea became ever more popular and diffused throughout British society.

instrumental in consolidating tea-drinking as one of the most important cultural habits of the British people

lead to duty cut from 120 to 12.5% in 1784

Question 26

What was the impact of porcelain on the tea industry? (Walvin) Stat

Answer 26

• As cheap ballast at first
  For every ton of tea imported, 6 tons of porcelain were added as ballast. In this fashion, it has been calculated, some 240 tons of Chinese porcelain were imported into England each year.

Imported in such quantity that they prompted a revolution
- Porcelain from exotic rarity –> commonplace and ubiquitous artefact

Question 27

Did behaviour change? (Walvin)

Answer 27

subtle change in the way millions of people behaved. British sociability itself had changed, revolving, at certain key time of the day and for particular occasions, around the serving of tea. Tea insinuated itself into every walk of life.

• penetrated poor which upset rich
• Became essential like sugar
• tea success dependent on sugar for British taste
• tea was cheap, adaptable, used again, instant refreshment

Question 28

How much of British GDP was involved in tea? (walvin)

Answer 28

5% by 1820

Question 29

What was the advantage of British producing their own tea? (walvin)

Answer 29

Importing from China expensive and not the best tea - no knowledge of manufacturing or grown

India and Ceylon
- secure cultivation, production and distribution through own companies with demand already having been established

The company and colonial control were functions of British power and dominance

Question 30

What does Mintz discuss in Sweetness and Power?

Answer 30

The production value of sugar

• power
• efficiency

Changes to architecture of meals and eating

• content: carbs to sucrose
• time change (cf. Douglas)

Modernity
- sugar and ‘industrial’ food

Question 31

What is the usefulness of sugar? (seminar / Mintz)

Answer 31

sugar: 1 acre = 8m calories
potato: 4 acres = 8m calories
wheat: 12 acres = 8m calories

EFFICIENT
–> becomes fundamentally bound up with modernity e.g. bagged sugar, Coca-Cola

20 tonnes of dry material per hectare –> 1/2 of which can be used as food or feed
- other 1/2 can be used as fuel or to manufacture paper products and building materials

Question 32

In what ways has sugar’s impact manifested?

Answer 32

1. Spice Trade: exotic import; mercantilism
2. Colonial production: plantation; slavery
3. Industrial production: overseas; industrialised
4. Global commodity: 20th/21stC

Question 33

how has sugar changed eating habits? (Mintz)

Answer 33

desocialised eating - e.g. snacking, on the move, take away

Food technology and time constraints predetermine our food and the way we eat

Question 34

when did sugar become integral to British diet? (Mintz)

Answer 34

By 1900

• consumed daily
• common feature of festivities
• bread, wine and sugar - diet of a whole species was gradually being remade

Question 35

How was sugar production made possible? (Mintz)

Answer 35

Chemical knowledge improved

Transport technology

Agricultural techniques

Empire
- sugar colonies

Question 36

Sucrose stat in developed countries (Mintz)? hows it viewed?

Answer 36

1/7th of average caloric intake in developed populations

Linked with general welfare since centuries ago - still viewed as beneficial

Question 37

Is sucrose an economic success?

Answer 37

If we take into account the underlying hominid predisposition toward sweetness,

and add to it the astounding caloric yield of sucrose and the efficiency of production that yield betokens,

together with the steady decline in the cost of sugar over the centuries, we have some reason for sugar’s success in gaining new consumers.

Predisposition + high yield + efficient production + decline in cost = DEMAND

Question 38

Why did the sugar market do better than other consumer markets? what did it symbolise?

Answer 38

foods like sucrose made it possible to raise the caloric content of the proletarian diet without increasing proportionately the quantities of meat, fish, poultry, and dairy products

Refined sugar became a symbol of the modern and industrial

westernisation

sign of progress

Question 39

How did sucrose’s relationship with the metropolises change over time?

Answer 39

At first, sugar was brought from afar, purchased from foreign producers. Later, each metropolis acquired its own tropical colonies for the production of sugar on a mercantilist basis, simultaneously enriching the state and its commercial and financial classes, stimulating the consumption of both its home manufactures and colonial products, and increasing the market involvement of its own hinterlands.

Question 40

What does the level of sucrose consumption reflect in wider processes?

Answer 40

One of first items transformed from luxury to necessity from rarity to mass produced

Statistics show clearly that the more developed the country, the higher the percentage of nonhousehold, industrial use of sugar
e.g. restaurants, snack bars + check out counter

Increased consumption of prepared foods at home itself

Moving away from household toward non-household consumption is a way of saying that citizens bound to eat more meals away from home, and to eat more prepared foods at home

SUGAR IS SYMBOLIC OF IT

Question 41

Mintz quote on importance of sugar?

Answer 41

Sugar is even more important for what it reveals than for what it does

Question 42

How did sugar affect the production end?

Answer 42

Became one of the leading motivations for making overseas agricultural experiments with capitalist means and unfree labour

Question 43

What are some stats on sugar production?

Answer 43

1800 - 250,000 tonnes
X15
1880 3.8m tonnes
X4 (modernised centrifugal production)
1914 16m tonnes

1900-1970 - centrifugal sugar 500-800% production increase

1970 - 9% of all available food calories were sucrose –> higher now

Question 44

Who was biggest consumers of sugar in Europe? how much consumed? which groups?

Answer 44

UK 135g a day
15-18% of total energy consumption per capita

Poorer consumer more
Younger consumer more

Question 45

What was the effect of ‘development’ on grain consumption?

Answer 45

1938 250lb/year
1969 170lb/year

Sugar 70lb-115lb

Question 46

Increased consumption of fats and sugars with less complex carbs (grains) has nutritional, psychological, and economic implications but what does the trend mean culturally?

Answer 46

First it is associated with the increasing tendency to eat outside the home. e.g. fast food
o 1/3rd of all food dollars spent outside home
- typical american eater 9 times to fast food a month

increased consumption of prepared foods within home
- number of foods that require nothing but temperature changes before eating has risen in proportion to the total number of prepared and partially prepared foods, including those that may require more than heating to be done to them before they can be consumed.

Variety of heating and chilling appliances have gone up –> speediness, economy and convenience –> more energy needed

Changed role playing of traditional family meals
- possible for everyone to eat exactly what he or she wants to in exactly the quantities and under exactly the circumstances he or she desires

Question 47

How has increased availability changed eating habits?

Answer 47

Generalized - now acceptable e.g. to drink coke or coffee all day any day

Structures of meals and colander of diet in daily life have tended to disappear

Munchies/snacks - nutritive medium within which social events occur rather than other way around

= These transformations have made ingestion more INDIVIDUALISED, desocialised and non-interactive

Question 48

What is the paradox Mintz talks about?

Answer 48

paradox implicit in modern society-that its more productive technologies result in individuals having (or feeling they have) less time, rather than more.

Tendency towards max enjoyment in minimum time e.g. eating while working or eating on the move

Question 49

What does Fischler reveal about meals?

Answer 49

3 meals a day no longer a reality

• 75% of American families don’t breakfast together
• family mean in evening down to 3 a week
• Return to hunter gatherer - eating when available/convenient

Sugary snacks and drinks constitute brief meal like interventions during the day which further erode the traditional 3 meal pattern –> enlarged snacks make meals seem more snacklike

SUGAR IS INTEGRAL TO THIS CULTURE

Question 50

what does sugar prefigure?

Answer 50

History of sugar consumption prefigures the spread of unscheduled eating as an aspect of modern life

Question 51

How has sugar had an effect on non-sweet food?

Answer 51

E.g. bread for shelf life
E.g. tenderizing effect
E.g. smoother, softer, whiter
E.g. body in soft drink –> feels better in mouth (heavy)

many food manufacturers would dearly love a chemical having all of the qualities of sucrose without the calories and, in some cases, even without the sweetness.

X – corn syrup takeover - e.g. Coca-Cola HFCS

Question 52

How might sugar consumption be disguised?

Answer 52

Artificial sweeteners

‘Disappearance’

Question 53

Why is sugar paired with fat?

Answer 53

They’re paired together

burger and cola

juicy vs crisp
rich vs refreshing

Sugar for go away and mouth feel – mouthful of food can be swallowed without leaving the inside of the mouth coated with fat particles
e.g. peanut butter

Question 54

How has sugar permeated into other foods?

Answer 54

The peculiar versatility of sugars has led to their remarkable permeation through so many foods and into nearly all cuisines.

some sugars, particularly sucrose have become more important because prepared foods inside and outside the home become more popular

the function of sweetness in the patterning of ingestion has changed, even when the non-sweetening uses of sucrose has expanded –> fact sugar still integral to diets and eating habits shows versatility

Question 55

Mintz on importance of sugar in history?

Answer 55

The track sugar has left in modern history is one involving masses of people and resources, thrown into productive combination by social, economic, and political forces that were actively remaking the entire world.

The place of sugars in the

• modern diet, the strangely imperceptible attrition of people’s control over what they eat,
• with the eater becoming the consumer of a mass produced food rather than the controller and cook of it, -
• the manifold forces that work to hold consumption in channels predictable enough to maintain food-industry profits,
• the paradoxical narrowing of individual choice,
• and of opportunity to resist this trend in the guise of increasing convenience, ease and “freedom”

– these factors suggest the extent to which we have surrendered our autonomy over our food.

Question 56

Effects of sugar on people in slavery (Brown)

Answer 56

6 hours rest out of 24

Caloric content of their diets barely exceeded energy needs –> more likely to be susceptible to illness –> death

Expansion of Europe was facilitated by the destruction of black labourers

Low birth rates and high infant mortality

In short, because of the demographic disaster wrought by sugar production, the regeneration of social roles, including gender roles, in enslaved communities was accomplished in the course of burial ceremonies as much as in the rearing of children

Question 57

How does Dunn describe the features of women in slavery? (Dunn)

Answer 57

Exhaustive manual labour

Lethal disease environment

Savage physical punishment

Sexual abuse

infertility

Question 58

What does Mazumdar focus on? what does he argue?

Answer 58

Exchange/western dominance not as strong as thought

Looks away from the Atlantic narrative to that of China which Seemed to do without sweeteners until very recently

By refocusing attention on the core dynamic of capitalism as a global social-economic system, he argues this difference may be more apparent than real, a temporary divergence in the consumption of a particular commodity that should not be taken to indicate that some areas remained external to the transformations of diets and food practices inaugurated in the wake of capitalism

China already powerful and trading like columbian exchange before the exchange existed

• east and west conceptual framings owed to 19th and 20th empires
• reputed wealth and spices of Asia driving force of expedition that found Americas!

Upper classes turned to China when goods like silver and gold abundant e.g. silks

Chinese merchants to Mexico from 1585

Slave trade needed asian goods - 40% of commodities traded in west africa were asian goods

50% of silver produced in Latin America 1500-1800 ended up in Asia

Thousands of tons of Asian sugar transported to Netherlands in 17thC

Use of sugar already existing in China –> mid 13thC cook books shop up to a quarter of recipes using sweetener
- England unique in sugar consumption?

Question 59

What’s the new powerful chapter of sugar? (Mazumdar)

Answer 59

Fermentation of sugars –> fuel automobiles with ethanol

Question 60

Which historians do you know for tea?

and for sugar?

Answer 60

1. Fromer, Walvin, Ellis, Shalleck
   Day and Reade
2. Mintz, Fischler, Brown, Dunn, Mazumdar