The Science of Cookery and the Art of Eating Well ― Philosophical and Historical Reflections on Food and Dining in Culture

The Science of Cookery and the Art of Eating Well is a philosophical and historical reflection on food and dining in human culture. It includes discussions of the nature of the first meals as found in Greek literature and the philosophy of history of Giambattista Vico, the Roman cookbook of Apicius (the first known cookbook), the cookbook of Artusi (the seminal cookbook of Italian cooking), Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste, Plutarch’s “Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” and Athenaeus’ work on the Learned Banqueters (the Deipnosophists). These discussions are joined with contemporary observations on the importance of the traditions of home cooking and dining with friends as essential to the promotion of human well-being.

Donald Phillip Verene is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, director of the Institute for Vico Studies at Emory University, and a fellow of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has been a visiting fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University, visiting professor in Italian Studies, University of Toronto, and a visiting research fellow, University of Rome La Sapienza. Among his recent books are The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Kant, Hegel, and Cassirer, Vico’s New Science: A Philosophical Commentary, and James Joyce and the Philosophers at Finnegans Wake.