User:Beccamiller14/sandbox

THE FINAL WIKI PROJECT:

Edible Mushroom History of mushroom use

Mushrooms have a complicated history throughout the course of history and across the globe.

The edible mushroom in the Roman Empire

Mushrooms were also eaten early in the Roman Empire, eaten by the upper classes as a symbol of their status and wealth. The Roman Empire cuisine focused on foods that represented status and social hierarchy. The most prevalent example of food as a status symbol is garum, however mushrooms are similarly a symbol of status. Mushrooms were so prestigious that they shared a name with Julius Caesar, who was killed by a mushroom, hence Amanita caesarea or Caesar's mushroom. Mushrooms were also referred to in Roman literature during the empire as foods fit to feed to the Gods.

The edible mushroom in the Renaissance in Italy

Platina, a papal scholar, published a book in 1465, discussing the negative aspects to mushrooms. He said in his writing, “Mushrooms are considered of cold and damp nature and for this reason have the force of poison.” Platina included that mushrooms could be eaten if consumers were desperate to do so, hence the prolificness in Italian recipes during the Renaissance. Mushrooms appeared in multiple cookbooks of Italian chefs for affluent families throughout the Renaissance describing both how the mushrooms were cooked as well as how they were found -- foraging was a very popular activity done by these chefs and written about frequently. Foraging was included in much of the Renaissance Art in Italy as an important activity.

The edible mushroom in Britain

In what is now Britain, Humorism had a main influence on the diets of citizens. Galen, an early founder of medical theory, popularized the notion that the balance of the humors, Black Bile, Yellow Bile, Blood and Phlegm, led to an individual's overall health. These four liquids, or humors, existed in each human. Humoral theory relied on maintaining a constitution that balanced the humors, each of which correlated to a descriptive nature -- wet, cold, hot, and dry. Each individual was given a temperament based on a doctor's understanding of the individual's physical and mental wellbeing. The ideal state for individuals varied on their temperaments, however humans were supposed to balance their diets in order to balance their temperaments to ideally maintain a warm and dry constitution.

Certain foods in the Middle Ages were restricted because of their negative impacts on an individual's constitution in relation to their humors. Mushrooms were seen as harmful to the humors because of their wet and cold physical properties. Rachel Laudan, a food historian, explained that from the consumption of mushrooms, humorism and the balance of the humors could be greatly affected and lead to major health issues in the individuals who ate them. Melon shared a similar constitution to mushrooms, and were also to be avoided. Those people who avoided mushrooms were mycophobic. This phobia stemmed both from the negative relationship between mushrooms and humors as well as the prevalence of the poisonous mushrooms which, in Europe in the 18th century, were easily confused for edible mushrooms. Furthermore, mushrooms, because of their negative impacts on the human body, were associated with sorcery.

The edible mushroom in France

The edible mushroom appeared more frequently in cookbooks in France than in Britain. The entire population was more mycophilic than, in particular, the British. French citizens often consumed mushrooms throughout their everyday diets. Mushrooms were an acceptable food to be eaten both during Lent and during the fasting days prevalent because of France's emphasis on Catholicism. Mushrooms were also very popular in French cookbooks and recipes particularly during the 1700s in the upper classes. French cuisine spread throughout Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. France also expanded the cultivation of mushrooms, in particular the Champignons de Paris, or the button mushroom, because King Louis XIV enjoyed eating them. The French production of mushrooms in caves in Paris expanded their popularity across the country and then to the rest of Europe in the eighteenth century. This spread of knowledge is responsible for the popularization of mushrooms in the otherwise mycophobic Britain.

Peer Review: Nicole Vladimirschi

Hi Becca,

I think this is a very good start for your article and I am super interested in mushrooms as well. I definitely think you can find some more sources in the library or in a database with many more facts. For example, you can mention where in Europe were mushrooms were most prevalent? Another option is to expand this location. For example, how where mushrooms being consumed in Asia during this same time. I know today there are many medicinal mushrooms such as Reishi, but maybe you can trace it back historically? Also, before the humoral theory, how were mushrooms consumed?

Peer Review - Zoe Becker

Becca!

This is great so far. I agree with Nicole in terms of finding more sources - the Fales Library in Bobst may be of assistance. I was curious, though, if you were able to find at what point mushrooms became destigmatized and how often they were eaten when they were considered to be unhealthy. I also might put more citations in, such as after the first sentence so it doesn't seem like you're making a broad claim. I was also curious to see how you'd feel about explaining the humors less and then kind of doing a one sentence tie-in to mushrooms and then go more into how that idea changed over time, sort of as I mentioned earlier.

Here is another article to check out in relation to the later acceptance of them:

http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/edible-mushrooms/

Great job!

What you have here is good and the decision to move your article to the Edible Mushroom page makes perfect and logical sense.  At this point, you need to further develop the article in the next few weeks

Article evaluation: Garum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum. Article somewhat informative and accurate to my knowledge. In Manufacture and Export section, author goes into detail about composition and health benefits of Garum as well as the flavor -- irrelevant to the subsection and should be put into a "Flavor and Nutrition" subsection. "Social Aspects" section missing information about the hierarchical importance of garum -- should be the main focus of this section.

re: your removed edit on the garum page; rather than shoehorning it in at the bottom (after the tapeworm thing? gross) I think you could've found a more natural way to work it in above, where it's already talking about its putrid nature and explain how it was a cultural gatekeeper. Rgh234 (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

this was in my talk page on my Sandbox -- I'm sorry if it was in the wrong place

Potential topics for wiki page Mushrooms: Add a Middle Ages history of mushrooms: Was particularly interested in the Laudan article about the Humors and the risk of eating mushrooms on the humoral system of humans. Interested in adding a history and importance of mushrooms in the middle ages to the mushroom page as it seemed to be a vital piece of the humoral theory as well as the construction of the diet in the Western world in the middle ages.

Garum: Interested in adding a section to the garum page about the hierarchy of garum as well as its rejection in early christianity — attempted to do so for previous wiki assignment. Feel as though the garum page is severely lacking in the social importance that we’ve spent so long covering.

Colatura di Alici: this topic was very interesting to me post Ryan’s discussion of the sauce in recitation. It is missing huge chunks of information — and is important to food history as this acts as the modern day example of Garum.

Final topic:

Mushrooms: I plan to add a Middle Ages History section to the Mushroom page on Wikipedia. I was particularly interested in the Laudan article about the Humors and the risk of eating mushrooms on the humoral system of humans. She wrote that mushrooms were to be avoided as they were wet and cold and would negatively impact the humans who ate them. I'm interested in adding a history and importance of mushrooms in the middle ages section to the mushroom page as it seemed to be a vital piece of the humoral theory as well as the construction of the diet in the Western World in the Middle Ages, and nowhere on the page is there a history section. I, however, would not include a history section because this would be too broad.

sources: The Birth of the Modern Diet -- Rachel Laudan Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice -- Nancy G. Siraisi