Culinary Shakespeare

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Eating and drinking were vital to all human beings and held central importance for Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This collection is the first dedicated to exploring food and drink in Shakespeare’s plays, reframing discussions about cuisine, meals, and their cultural significance in early modern drama. It allows scholars to reconsider influential scenes through the lens of culinary dynamics. While earlier criticism focused on cataloging food items, recent analyses have engaged with humoralism, dietary literature, and the relationship between food and the early modern body. The essays in this collection build on this foundation, emphasizing the aesthetic, communal, and philosophical dimensions of food while providing valuable theoretical insights. Various contributions illustrate how central issues in Shakespeare studies can be illuminated through the study of food and drink, highlighting societal and religious associations, economic implications of ingredients, and their relevance to community, politics, and global food production. Topics such as addiction, performativity, posthumanism, and the intersection of art and food are also explored. This collection aims to open new interpretive avenues and will appeal to scholars and students of Shakespeare, the early modern period, and those in food studies, ecology, gender, and critical theory.