The Magic Harvest

* Camporesi is one of Europea s most important and original historians of food and culture* This is a lively account of the history of popular beliefs about food in Europe* His previous book on a similar subject, The Bread of Dreams, was very widely reviewed; the present book should also receive a good deal of exposure.

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The Magic Harvest is a rich and wide-ranging account of the history of popular beliefs about food in Europe. 

Focusing on Italy, Camporesi examines the social symbolism of food, and its associated rituals. He shows how the act of eating at weddings and seasonal feasts was seen as a metaphor for copulation; how Christmas and Easter were marked by special cakes rich in eggs, symbolizing renewal; how bread was viewed as a magic talisman against the forces of darkness; and how the harvest was regarded as the offspring of a fertile Earth which yielded up its fruits. All this rich and varied symbolism, he suggests, has become an opaque enigma for us today.