France and Italy: Codifying European Haute Cuisine

What is commonly called a "national cuisine" is, in practice, the product of geography, history, trade, religion, and identity layered over centuries. Climate and soil determine which crops and livestock a region can sustain; rivers, coastlines, and trade routes determine which spices, techniques, and ingredients arrive from elsewhere; and political history determines which of those influences get absorbed, rejected, or transformed. Many cuisines now presented as unified national traditions were, until relatively recently, a patchwork of strongly regional foodways, unified retroactively by the rise of the modern nation-state, printed cookbooks, and, later, tourism and media. Understanding any cuisine therefore requires looking past the label of nationality toward the specific regions, classes, and historical moments that produced its dishes.