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Food recommendations in domestic education, Belgium 1890–1940

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 49; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00309230.2013.790907

1477-674X

Peter Scholliers,

Historical Education and Society

AbstractThis paper addresses the question of dissemination of nutritional knowledge in textbooks of household schools between 1890 and 1940. It starts by considering the nature of food recommendations in manuals that are used in Belgian household schools, and then deals with the sources that are referred to by those who give food advice, comparing the latter to the state of the art of nutritional knowledge. If, prior to 1925, school manuals referred to working-class households, paid attention to abundant and economical food, recommended meat, hardly cared about breakfast and connected food to health in a general way, the manuals of the late 1920s and 1930s discussed the average consumer, advised limited meat consumption, warned against unbalanced diets that could lead to specific diseases and recommended required amounts of calories and vitamins. Textbook authors rarely referred to their sources – and if they did, international names were hardly mentioned – which raises the question of the value of the information in these textbooks. Yet from the late 1920s onwards, more direct references were made to science and researchers, which may be linked to the strengthening of scientific authority within society.Keywords: household schoolsschool textbooksfood recommendationsnutritional sciencepopularization of knowledgeoptimal dietsocial monitoring AcknowledgementsThanks to the anonymous referees for suggestions, corrections, and very concrete hints.Notes1"Vous voulez l'amélioration du sort des classes pauvres? Améliorez l'éducation de la femme. Tout est là". Report of the governor of the province of Hainault (1876), quoted in Commission du travail. Rapports. Propositions des sections et conclusions. Volume I (Brussels: Société belge de librairie, 1887, 456).2In 1914, Belgium was the third richest country in Europe, with huge social inequality. It had a parliamentary monarchy with three strong political parties (Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and Liberals) and had a Christian government between 1884 and 1914, but governments have been coalitions since.3Kenneth J. Carpenter, "A Short History of Nutritional Science," The Journal of Nutrition 133 (2003): 638–45, 975–84, 3023–32, and 3331–42; Alfred Harper, "Recommended Dietary Allowances and Dietary Guidance," in The Cambridge World History of Food, ed. Kenneth Kiple and Kriemhild Cornée Ornelas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1606; Barbara Schneeman, "Evolution of Dietary Guidelines," Journal of the American Dietetic Association 103, no. 2 (2003), Supplement, 5–9.4G. Harvey Anderson, Richard Black and Suzanne Harris, "Dietary Guidelines: Past Experience and New Approaches," Journal of the American Dietetic Association 103, no. 2 (2003), Supplement, 3–4; Bruno Latour, Les microbes. Guerre et paix (Paris: A.M. Métaillé, 1984).5Deborah Neill, "Finding the Ideal Diet: Nutrition, Culture and Dietary Practices in France and the French Equatorial Africa, 1890s to 1920s," Food and Foodways, 17 (2009): 1–28; Corinna Treitel, "Max Rübner and the Biopolitics of Rational Nutrition," Central European History 41 (2008): 1–25; Michael French and John Philips, Cheated not Poisoned? Food Regulation in the United Kingdom, 1875–1938 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); Peter Scholliers and Patricia Van den Eeckhout, "Hearing the Consumer? The Laboratory, the Public, and the Construction of Food Safety in Brussels (1840s–1910s)," Journal of Social History 44, no. 4 (2011): 1143–59; Peter Atkins, "The Glasgow Case: Meat, Disease and Regulation, 1889–1924," Agricultural History Review 52 (2004): 161–82; Josep Barona, "Nutrition and Health. The International Context during the Interwar Crisis," Social History of Medicine, 21 (2008): 87–105.6Alan Warde, Consumption, Food and Taste. Culinary Antinomies and Commodity Culture (London: Sage, 1997); Pernilla Jonsson, "Följ de omtänksamma husmödrarnas exempel" Livsmedelsannonsering i en Svensk dagstidning, 1875–1965," Historisk Tidskrift 129 (2009): 205–34; Anneke Geyzen, "Popular Discourse on Nutrition, Health and Indulgence in Flanders, 1945–1960," Appetite 56 (2011): 278–83; Yves Segers, "Food Recommendations, Tradition and Change in a Flemish Cookbook: Ons Kookboek, 1920–2000," Appetite 45 (2005): 4–14; Inger J. Lyngo, "The National Nutrition Exhibition. A New Nutritional Narrative in Norway in the 1930s," in Food, Drink and Identity, ed. Peter Scholliers (Oxford and New York, Berg, 2001), 141–61; Ulrike Thoms, "From Cooking to Consultation: The Professionalization of Dietary Assistants in Germany, 1890–1980," in The Diffusion of Food Culture in Europe from the Late 18th Century to the Present Day, ed. Derek Oddy and Lydia Petráňova (Prague: Academia, 2005), 107–18.7Katarzyna Cwiertka, "Propagation of Nutritional Knowledge in Poland, 1863–1939," in Order and Disorder: The Health Implications of Eating and Drinking in 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Alexander Fenton (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000), 96–111; Barbara Orland, "The Chemistry of Everyday Life. Popular Chemical Writing in Germany 1780–1939," in Communicating Chemistry: Textbooks and their Audiences, ed. Anders Lundgren and Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Canton, MA: Watson Publishing, 2000), 327–65; Adel den Hartog, "The Diffusion of Nutritional Knowledge: Public Health, the Food Industry and Scientific Evidence in the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th Centuries," in Diffusion of Food Culture in Europe from the Late 18th Century to the Present Day, ed. Derek Oddy and Lydia Petráňova (Prague: Academia, 2005), 282–94; Anneke Van Otterloo, "Dutch Food Culture and its Cookery Teachers: The Rise, Diffusion and Decline of a Tradition (1880–1980)," in Diffusion of Food Culture in Europe from the Late 18th Century to the Present Day, ed. Derek Oddy and Lydia Petráňova (Prague: Academia, 2005), 96–106; Mark W. Bufton, "British Expert Advice on Diet and Heart Disease, c. 1945–2000," in Making Health Policy: Networks in Research and Policy after 1945, ed. Virginia Berridge (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), 125–48.8Anna Landau-Czajka, "Diet Patterns in 19th and 20th C. School Manuals," Acta Poloniae Historica 85 (2002), 265.9See for example Jürgen Schmidt, "Diet, Body Types, Inequality and Gender: Discourses on 'Proper Nutrition' in German Magazines and Newspapers (c. 1930–2000)," in The Rise of Obesity in Europe, ed. Derek Oddy, Peter Atkins and Virginie Amilien (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 147–60; Sarah Stage and Virginia B. Vincenti (ed.), Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession (New York: Cornell University, 1997).10Landau-Czajka, "Diet Patterns."11James Vernon, Hunger. A Modern History (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2007), 210–1; Van Otterloo, "Dutch Food Culture."12Enrique Perdiguero-Gil and Ramón Castejón-Bolea, "Popularising Right Food and Feeding Practices in Spain (1847–1950). The Handbooks of Domestic Economy," Dynamis 30 (2010): 30, 141–65; Peter Scholliers, "Voedingsleer op zoek naar het ideale menu voor arbeidersgezinnen in België tussen 1900 en 1940," in De levenskracht der bevolking, ed. Jan Kok and Jan Van Bavel (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2010), 255–84.13Perdiguero-Gil and Castejón-Bolea, "Popularising Right Food," 147; Sofie De Caigny, Bouwen aan een nieuwe thuis (Leuven, Universitaire pers, 2010), 87–8; Martine Vandervennet, "'Pour le bien-être de la famille, pour le relèvement du pays', ou les mille et une vertus de l'enseignement ménager," Education & société 2 (1998): 215–43. These historians also list warnings with regard to the utilisation of the manuals (particularly the supposition of a full-time housewife and a fully equipped home).14Martine Vandervennet, "L'enseignement ménager en Belgique (1889–1940)", Education & société 3 (2000): 225–60.15Dominique Grootaers, "L'émergence des différents types d'institutions scolaires à but professionnel," in Histoire de l'enseignement en Belgique, ed. Dominique Grootaers (Brussels: CRISP, 1998), 381–3. The Catholic government reigned from 1884 to 1914, and Catholic or Christian Democrat ministers were in charge of education between 1914 and 1925. Then for two years a Social Democrat was in charge, until the creation of a separate ministry of education (1932), which was administered by Liberals.16Robert Smet and André Vannecke, Historiek van het technisch en beroepsonderwijs (1830–1990) (Antwerp and Apeldoorn: Garant, 2002), 112–6; Grootaers, "L' émergence," 387, 400–3.17Marc Depaepe, Maurits De Vroede, Luc Minten and Frank Simon, "L'enseignement primaire," in Grootaers, Histoire de l'enseignement, 161.18A.J. Germain, De l'enseignement des travaux du ménage dans les écoles primaires de filles et les écoles normales d'institutrices (Brussels: Polleunis-Ceuterick & Lefébure, 1887).19Louise Mathieu, Notions d'économie domestique (d'après le programme officiel du 6 septembre 1896) pour les écoles normales d'institutrices (Verviers: Hermann, 1906), 6.20Germain, De l'enseignement. This was explicitly put in Jeanne and Leo de Paeuw's manual "All what is mentioned in this book, had been experienced by the authors"; Jeanne De Paeuw and Leo De Paeuw, De moderne huishouding. Een handboek ten gebruike van de normaalscholen, de middelbare scholen en de hoogste klassen der lagere scholen voor meisjes (Baarle-Hertog: Office de Publicité, 1931), 5.21The latter can be interpreted as part of the older practice of selling household manuals to middle-class women – as in the United States: see Megan Elias, Stir it Up. Home Economics in American Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 6.22For example, A. Elen-Simon, in Kookkunst en huishouding. Programma der huishoudschool: 1ste, 2de en 3de jaar (Brussels: Vertil Services, 1938, 142–3), notes: "The book Kookkunst en huishouding (400 pages), accredited by both public and private schools, has had particular success".23Marc Depaepe (ed.), Order in Progress. Everyday Education Practice in Primary Schools – Belgium, 1880–1970 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000), 56–9.24The socialist monthly La Famille Prévoyante was in favour of household education (e.g., "La bonne ménagère vaut de l'or," February 1930, 12). Ideological differences need further study.25E.g., Mathieu, Notions d'économie domestique , front page: "Adopté par le Conseil de perfectionnement pour les écoles normales, les Bibliothèques scolaires et les Distributions de prix"; "Ouvrage couronné à l'Exposition internationale des arts de la femme" (Marseille, 1906).26Vernon, Hunger, 211–2; Perdiguero-Gil and Castejón-Bolea, "Popularising Right Food," 150, Pim Huijnen, De belofte van vitamines. Voedingsonderzoek tussen universiteit, industrie en overheid 1918–1945 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2011), 85. Very rarely, Belgian textbooks were supervised by medical doctors, e.g. Le conseiller de l'humble ménagère, divisé en quatre parties. Ouvrage dédié aux écoles ménagères. 3e partie : Notions d'hygiène et de médecine populaire, suivies des soins et de l'éducation à donner aux petits enfants, à l'usage de la classe ouvrière / par Mme Voituron-Liénard, régente de l'école moyenne de Pecq ; Ouvrage revu et corrigé par M. A. Van De Lanoitte, docteur en médecine à Pecq; précédé d'une préface par M. le docteur H. Kuborn, membre de l'Académie de médecine, professeur à l'Université de Liége (Namur: Ad. Wesmael-Charlier, 1893).27Yves Segers, Economische groei en levensstandaard. Particuliere consumptie en voedselverbruik in België, 1830–1913 (Leuven: Universitaire Pers, 2003), 310–2; Scholliers, "Voedingsleer," 261–3.28Em. Harmant, De l'organisation des écoles ménagères en Belgique et des moyens de les établir (Lille – Brussels: Ducoulombier – Société belge de Librairie, 1898), 9.29She was particularly prolific in the 1890s and published, among many other titles, Les travaux à l'aiguille à l'école normale et à l'école primaire (1888), L'éducation pratique de la jeune fille (1892), Arithmétique de l'épargne et de la prévoyance (1897), and Le livre de l'épargne et de la prévoyance (1898). Most of these were translated into Dutch.30Marie du Caju, Manuel d'économie domestique d'alimentation et d'hygiène. Rédigé conformément au programme des écoles normales, des écoles moyennes et du degré supérieur des écoles primaires et enrichi d'un choix de lectures propres à inspirer aux jeunes filles l'amour de la famille et des devoirs domestiques (Termonde: du Caju-Beeckman, 1889), 68.31du Caju, Manuel d'économie, 66; Marie du Caju, De jonge huishoudster. Leerboek voor de huishoudelijke en lagere scholen (Ghent: Siffer, 1898), 55, 57. Using present-day nutritional values, these quantities would supply roughly 2800 kilocalories per day and per person.32Marie du Caju, Het boek der huisvrouw. Deel 1. Keuken en voeding (Brussels: Lebègue, 1923), 144. This would supply about 2650 kilocalories.33This duo also published Cours complet d'économie domestique et d'alimentation, à l'usage de l'enseignement moyen des écoles normales primaires et des écoles ménagères (Namur: Wesmael-Charlier, 1888 [1917] and Le conseiller de l'humble ménagère (Namur: Wesmael-Charlier, 1893).34Zélie Voituron-Liénard and Louise Detienne, Notions d'économie domestique et d'alimentation à l'usage de la classe ouvrière (Namur: Wesmael-Charlier, 1912), 71.35du Caju, Jonge huishoudster, 55.36du Caju, Boek der huisvrouw, 136.37Voituron-Liénard and Detienne, Notions d'économie domestique, 71.38du Caju, Manuel, 68.39Mathieu, Notions d'économie domestique , 97 and 98.40E.g. L. Marcenay, La cuisine économique et facile (Tournai: Casterman, 1916).41du Caju's Manuel d'économie domestique was reissued in 1919 (19th edition); the Dutch version appeared in 1921 (which was the sixth edition).42A fully revised version of this book appeared in 1959. P. Mertens also published Moeder-Opvoeder [Mother-Educator] (Brasschaat: De Bièvre, 1933); M. De Beusscher did not publish another book.43Chris Schroeven, An Economic History of Consumer Expenditure in Interwar Belgium 1920–1939 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994), 255–7; Scholliers, "Voedingsleer," 268–9.44Paula Mertens and M. De Beusscher, Huishoudkunde. Voedingsleer (Antwerp: De Bièvre, 1928), 262. In 1936, the fourth issue appeared; there are no traces of editions after the Second World War.45Mertens and De Beusscher, Huishoudkunde, 265.46Mertens and De Beusscher, Huishoudkunde, 259.47Mertens and De Beusscher, Huishoudkunde, 260.48Leo de Paeuw, the only male author of the textbooks, needs attention. After becoming a teacher, he started a career as civil servant with the ministry of interior (c.1905), becoming chef de bureau in 1911. Two years later, he was chef de cabinet civil du ministère de guerre, and after the war he was promoted to general inspector of primary education. After a trip to the USA in 1923 (paid by the Commission for Relief in Belgium, meant to study hygiene education), he published Vers plus de santé par une meilleure éducation (Baerle-Duc: Librairie belge, 1924, 1929), in which he eagerly promoted modern (i.e. American) nutritional and educational insights.49de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 200. In 1931, this book had appeared in French; it was reissued in 1937.50A. Elen-Simon published only this book (which was reissued in 1938, 1939, 1943 and 1946, and translated into Dutch in 1938).51Elen-Simon, Kookkunst en huishouding, 115. This was the translation of the French, L'art culinaire et ménager. Programme de l'enseignement ménager (Brussels: Vertil, 1937).52Elen-Simon, Kookkunst en huishouding, 119.53de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 199.54Elen-Simon, Kookkunst en huishouding, 86. The menu would supply about 2900 kilocalories per day.55de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 59.56de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 221.57de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 190–4.58Perdiguero-Gil and Castejón-Bolea, "Popularising Right Food," 156.59Mertens and De Beusscher, Kookkunst en huishouding, 258.60de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 194. This metaphor already appeared in Leo de Paeuw's Vers plus de santé (1923), 86, which was taken from an American example.61Elen-Simon, Kookkunst en huishouding, 83.62Mertens and De Beusscher, Kookkunst en huishouding, 264.63Mathieu, Notions d'économie domestique, 99–101.64This, of course, implies that this author was generally known around 1900. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826), a politician and philosopher, is famous for his Physiologie du goût (1825).65Anselme Payen (1795–1871) was a French chemist who published, among others, Des substances alimentaires (Paris: Hachette, 1853, 1865); Alfred Becquerel (1814–1862) was a physicist and medical doctor, who published, among others, Traité élémentaire d'hygiène privée et publique (Paris: Labé, 1851, 1883).66Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) is one of the founders of present-day chemistry – see, e.g., William Brock, Justus von Liebig. The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Georges-Octave Dujardin-Beaumetz (1831–1895) studied medicine and became a doctor in the Paris Cochin hospital, doing research on public health and therapeutics; he published L'Hygiene alimentaire (Paris: Doin, 1887). C.A. Meinert (? – ?) was a German professor in physiology, who published extensively on the ideal diet, among which Comment on se nourrit bien et à bon marché (Paris: Soudier, 1882), the translation of Wie nährt man sich gut und billig? (Berlin: Mittler, 1882).67Fernand Legrand, Le problème de l'enseignement ménager (Charleroi: Imprimerie provinciale, 1931), 72.68Paul Héger, L'alimentation (Brussels: Imprimerie universitaire, 1901).69Raf De Bont, Darwins kleinkinderen. De evolutietheorie in België, 1865–1914 (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2008), 187–8.70De Bont, Darwins kleinkinderen, 18.71For these names see note 3, and especially Carpenter, "A Short History."72Auguste Slosse and Emile Van de Weyer, Etude analytique de l'alimentation d'un groupe de trente-trois ouvriers bruxellois (Brussels: Hayez, 1908).73Auguste Slosse and Emile Waxweiler, Enquête sur l'alimentation de 1.065 ouvriers belges (Brussels: Misch & Thron, 1910).74Jean Demoor and Auguste Slosse, "L'alimentation des Belges pendant la guerre et ses consequences," Bulletin de l'Académie royale de médecine de Belgique (1920), 457–510.75E.g. Perdiguero-Gil and Castejón-Bolea, "Popularising Right Food," 153.76Elen-Simon, Kookkunst en huishouding, 83 and 116.77Lucien Brouha (1899–1968) was professor at the medical faculty of Liège University. He moved to Canada and, later, the USA, where he was appointed professor. Albert Vande Velde (1871–1956) was professor of food sciences at Ghent University and head of the municipal chemical laboratory of that city.78Elen-Simon, Kookkunst en huishouding, 116.79Huijnen, De belofte van vitamines, 46. Clearly, the emphasis on "American" is a consequence of de Paeuw's trip to the United States.80de Paeuw and de Paeuw, De moderne huishouding, 223, 228–230, 240, 241, 246 ("doctor" was explicitly mentioned).81Auguste Slosse (1863–1930) was professor at Brussels University, conducting extensive research on human nutrition.82Joseph König (1843–1930) was a German chemist who produced one of the first nutrition tables.83Alfred Delsemme, Ce que chacun doit savoir concernant l'alimentation rationnelle. Résumé de conférences données en 1916 (Liège: Bénard, 1916, 1922).84Mertens and De Beusscher, Huishoudkunde, 338.85Albert Clerfayt (1859–1946) was the chairman of the medical commission of the Province of Hainault and founder of the Commission de lutte contre l'ankylostomiase du mineur (for the latter, see http://www.artthemis.be/saint-symphorien/steles.php). He published Comment doit-on s'alimenter? (Brussels: Van Buggenhout, 1916).86Louis Delattre (1870–1938) studied medicine at the university of Brussels. Prior to 1914 he had published a couple of accessible books (Le jardin du docteur [1911] and L'art de manger [1912]) and gave a number of talks (in the 1930s also on the radio) in which he pleaded for higher intake of vegetables, fruit and sugar but less meat consumption. He wrote about the bonne table in an entertaining way and occasionally published in the social-democratic magazine La Famille Prévoyante in the 1930s.87Josep Barona, "International Organisations and the Development of a Physiology of Nutrition during the 1930s," Food & History 6 (2008): 133–66; Vernon, Hunger, 203–4.88Josep Barona, The Problem of Nutrition. Experimental Science, Public Health and Economy in Europe 1915–1945 (Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2010), 70.89Edouard J. Bigwood, Guiding Principles for Studies on the Nutrition of Populations (Geneva: Ligue of Nations, 1939).90Bigwood (1891–1975) studied medicine in Brussels, obtained a grant to study in the USA, and became a pioneer of research in food chemistry. He was vice-chancellor of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (1953–1956) and a member of various international bodies (see Hendrik Deelstra, "Edouard-Jean Bigwood," in Historical Gallery of the Royal Flemish Chemistry Association (http://historiek.kvcv.be/Galerij.php, accessed December 20, 2012).91Edouard J. Bigwood and G. Roost, L'alimentation rationnelle et les besoins énergétiques d'une population ouvrière (Brussels: Institut de Sociologie Solvay, 1934).92A British enquiry in 1932 found similar results (Barona, Problem of Nutrition, 54).93Bigwood and Roost, L'alimentation rationnelle, 238.94Bigwood and Roost, L'alimentation rationnelle, II.95Bigwood and Roost, L'alimentation rationnelle, 116.96Edouard J. Bigwood, L'alimentation rationnelle de l'homme normale en Belgique (Brussels: Ministère de la Santé Publique, 1938).97Bigwood, Alimentation rationnelle, 55.98Bigwood, Alimentation rationnelle, 47–8.99Bigwood, Alimentation rationnelle, 8.100Jean Bartier, Université Libre de Bruxelles 1834-1959 (Brussels: Presses universitaires, 1959), 12, 17–8, and 54–5.101de Paeuw, Vers plus de santé, 10–11.102Alfred Delsemme, Menus à bon marché. Conseils pratiques pour leur composition rationnelle donnant un maximum de valeur nutritive (Liège: Bénard, 1939).103Félix Putzeys (1847–1932) studied medicine and became professor at the university of Liège, specialising in public hygiene and organisation of hospitals.104Delsemme, Ce que chacun doit savoir, 6. Both the words "calories" and "albumine" were put in italics.105Delsemme, Ce que chacun doit savoir, 13.106Jean Van Beneden (1898–1978) studied medicine at Liège University, where he was appointed professor of hygiene and bacteriology in 1932. He published, among others, Recettes et tours de main du laboratoire de bactériologie et d'hygiène prophylactique (Liège: Desoer, 1938). After the Second World War, he entered the Belgian government as minister of health (1946–1947).107Delsemme, Menus à bon marché, 5.108Jules Alquier (1869–1941) was a French chemist who specialised in animal and human feeding and established one of the first comprehensive tables listing the nutritional value of various foodstuffs.109Segers, "Food Recommendations," 9.110E.g. the intermingling between state, university, and industry in the Netherlands (Huijnen, De belofte van vitamines 24–30).111Rima D. Apple, Vitamania. Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 1996), 179.112David Knight, Public Understanding of Science. A History of Communicating Scientific Ideas (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006), 182–3; Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, "A Genealogy of the Increasing Gap Between Science and the Public," Journal of Public Understanding of Science 10 (2001): 102–5.