Let them eat hallucinogens
Eric Christiansen
BREAD OF DREAMS: FOOD AND FANTASY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE by Piero Camporesi, translated by David Gentilcore
Polity Press, f19.50, pp. 212
There was a time when new history books came out and the first question people asked was What is it about? Nowa- days we ask: What sort of history book is it meant to be? Psycho? Feminist? Old Hat? New Left? Annales? Blockbuster? There are many methods, each with its own cant, its own chic, and its own fan-club. None speaks for all, and some are unintelligible to each other.
Here is a new history book which seems to fall into two categories a-la-mode: Men- talites and Food-history. 'Seems to', be- cause the subject-matter is erratic. There is some medicine and just a dash of political stuff as well, and an underlying willingness on the part of the author to write about almost anything. He is an exponent of the `Live Professor' style of prose, which is different from the 'Dead Professor' style, although their vocabularies overlap.
Perhaps I should explain. Here is Dead Professor, taken at random from a review:
With this sort of issue riding on the attribu- tion, it behoves both editor and reader to scrutinise the evidence with the utmost vigilance.
Now Live Professor, from Camporesi: The nocturnal deliria were piled together with the daytime intoxications and obsessions in order to build a particularly adaptable dream- machine which still awaits a visit from social psychoanalysis in order to penetrate a bit more
lucidly into the ancien regime's intricate labyr- inth of dreams.
Here, the real giveaway is the patent adaptable dream-machine, slowly pulsat- ing in the professor's garage, until the man from social psychoanalysis drops in to tune the engine. There are many other ways of recognising the style, such as the brief allusions to the Scriptures: to Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Foucault (compulsory), Keith Tho- mas and Jacques le Goff (optional). There is the phrase 'We have learned from A, B and C' or 'A, B, and C have taught us that. . . ' which locks the individual prof into the long shield-wall of professorial enlightenment. `Labyrinth' is good, too, and 'pathological scenario', `cultural imba- lance' and 'longue duree' are perfect.
According to the introduction, 'real dif- ficulties are presented by Camporesi's work.' Roy Porter speaking, sent in from the Wellcome Institute as a sort of resident straight-man to acclimatise the cheaper seats at the Glasgow Empire to the profes- sor's fast, international novelty act. For Camporesi works in the sausage-capital of Northern Italy, where an elite of dons and accumulators throve for centuries in an atmosphere of economic decline punctu- ated by famine. By the end of the 18th century, he tells us, beggars made up 23 per cent of the population of Bologna; and they were only a section of the poor. Fate, the weather, or the unfair distribution of wealth offered the Bolognese the choice of dying of starvation or dying of gluttony.
Throughout this period (1500-1800), doctors, poets and officials fought hunger by suggesting to the hungry alternatives to the eating of corpses, refuse or parts of themselves. They were to dig up roots and herbs to make bread-substitutes, or simply go away, or attend spectacular public banquets in the main square, waited on by ladies and soothed by trumpets. Neverthe- less, thousands lay down to die on dung- hills, dreaming of 'big loaves' in a better world.
Camporesi's readers will certainly gain a clearer idea of what famine meant to its victims and spectators in parts of Italy during these centuries. They may already know about that, from reading Manzoni's great novel. The question is, what does Camporesi add to I Promessi Sposi? Unfortunately, he is not always easy to follow when he tries to explain things. There is a chapter called 'Artificial Para- dises' which begins 'It would be wrong to suppose that one must wait for the arrival of 18th-century capitalism, or even of imperialism, in order to see the birth of the problem of the mass spreading of opium derivatives. . . to dampen the frenzy of the masses. . . '. Then we are told that the starving poor were fed 'disguised breads,. somewhat hallucinatory and mildly stupefying' according to a 'thought-out medico-political design': the lower classes were drugged to stop them rebelling, and so they had visions, ecstasies and religious mania instead.
This is an interesting proposition, and it is sort of backed up by another; that in modern times the capitalists and the im- perialists have 'utilised mechanisms which induced collective dreaming, and weakened the desire for renewal by means of visionary "trips", in order to impose their will.' That is, drugs were given to students in order to stop them overthrow- ing the state. I do not know about the students in 1968, but I would be surprised to find evidence that they were deliberately stupefied, rather than naturally over- excited. On the other hand, it is no surprise to learn that some of the things eaten by starving Italian peasants in the 17th cen- tury had narcotic properties. That follows from the sad truth that they were prepared to eat anything, quite apart from the published opinions of botanists who re- commended them to defeat hunger by going for the more hallucinatory weeds. There is no clear analysis of what these were and how often they were eaten: only quotations from the medical opinion of the day. There is a chapter called poppyseed Bread', but it appears from that that poppyseed was not a famine-grain, but a normal component of bread, grown as a crop. No evidence is given that this dietary preference was part of the 'strategy' of rich against poor; we are left to assume that it was an opiate with a generally de- revolutionising effect on the consumer. However, as the old-time chemical- voyagers will testify, the seed is the one part of the poppy which doesn't yield the latex from which opium is derived.
It doesn't add up. Perhaps that is why the poppyseed chapter suddenly breaks off and the professor turns to the cultural importance of insects and intestinal worms• That is the beauty of mentalites: no fron- tiers. It may be what Roy Porter calls a `breathtaking vision', but there are times when I wonder what sort of bread Cam- poresi has been eating.
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