Folger Receives $1.5M from Mellon Foundation for Collaborative Research Project on Early Modern Foodways & Cultures
The Folger Shakespeare Library has been awarded a four-year, $1.5 million grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a collaborative research project, Before Farm to Table: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures.
The new Mellon initiative will be based in the Folger Institute, led by its Executive Director, Kathleen Lynch, and its projects will be carried out by collaborative, cross-disciplinary teams that the Folger convenes.
“Before Farm to Table will use the pervasiveness of food in everyday life as a window into early modern culture,” notes Lynch. “In the course of this project, participants will investigate big questions about the way food participates in and actively shapes human knowledge, ethics, and imagination. They will explore such issues as the unevenness of food supply, the development and spread of tastes, and the socially cohesive rituals of eating together. With fresh understandings of a pre-industrial world, this project also gives the scholarly community purchase on some post-industrial assumptions, aspirations, and challenges.” . .