Does food influence larger cultural movements like war or demographics or disease?
Harris: One of my favorite examples of that is the Napoleonic Wars: canned food grows out of the Napoleonic Wars. The army’s rate of movement depended upon its stomach, but if soldiers could have canned food, they could move farther without having to stop and get fresh food. The thing that’s so fascinating about food history is that we all have to eat. If we do not eat, we die. And so most human development, in one way or another, comes back to food. The whole notion of how food works into human development is another part of the great light bulb and the surprises in studying food. Q: What is your process in studying a subject like sugar? Harris: I wish I had a process! I’m very peculiar about how I research. I will work in the library. I will search through bookstores. I will talk to people, and look at objects. With sugar, I’m reading everything from texts on sugar production, to books about the Code Du Noir (how the French colonial system dealt with its African slaves), to diaries o
