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Moral economies and commercial imperatives: food, diets and spas in central Europe: 1800–1914

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1755182x.2012.697487

1755-1838

Jill Steward,

Culinary Culture and Tourism

Abstract Nineteenth-century central European spas were important components in the medical marketplace as well as centres of recreational tourism. Histories of the spas emphasize the pivotal role of the mineral waters in spa life. Food and eating practices seldom feature in these accounts, even though some attention has been given to the role of diet in spa medicine and many spa patients suffered from dietary-related disorders. Mealtimes were, however, important social events in the daily routines of spa life; eating practices affected everyone and brought into play issues of social class, gender and cultural identity, just as much the rituals of the pump room and promenade. This essay examines the way that changes in eating practices and the growing importance of diet and nutrition in spa medicine were linked not only to shifts in medical theory and practice, but also to the broader movements and changes taking place in social life and consumer culture. It was at the dinner table that theories of dietetics (the principles of healthy living) conflicted most directly with the values of an urban leisure culture which thrived on the desire and ability of individuals to consume as much as possible. Keywords: healthfood and drinkbathingtouristsconsumptioncentral Europe Notes 1An earlier version of part of this essay appeared in the 16th Conference Proceedings of the European Ethnological as ‘The “Social Pathology” of Tourism: Food, Diet and Therapy in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Spa Culture 1800–1914’, in Sanitas per Aquas: Spas, Lifestyles and Foodways, ed. Patricia Lysaght (Innsbruck: Studium, 2008), 103–18. 2Alan Warde, Consumption, Food and Taste: Cultural Antinomies and Commodity Culture (London: Sage, 1997); Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik, eds., Food and Culture: A Reader (New York: Routledge, 2008). 3See Priscilla Boniface, Tasting Tourism: Travelling for Food and Drink (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). 4For example, Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food, Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985); Gunther Hirschfeld, Europäsche Esskultur; eine Geschichte der Ernährung von der Steinheit bis Heute (Frankfurt: Campus, 2001). 5But see Sabine Merta, ‘Karlsbad and Marienbad: the Spas and their Cures in Nineteenth-Century Europe’, in The Diffusion of Food Culture in Europe from the Late Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, ed. Derek. J. Oddy and Lydia Petránŏvá (Prague: Academia, 2005), 152–62. 6Karen Callen, Spa: Pamper Body and Soul with Ideas from the World's Best Sources (New York: Ebury, 2002), 44. 7In countries like France and, until recently, in Germany and many of the countries of eastern Europe, the health care system has supported the medical use of the spas, although many are being forced to adapt to changing conditions by catering to the growing market for ‘health and wellness’. 8This process was far from uniform. See, for example, Douglas L. Mackaman, Bourgeois Leisure Culture, Medicine and the Spa in Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998), 32–48. 9Rebecca L. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2000); Marc Jacobs and Peter Scholliers, eds., Eating Out in Europe: Picnics, Gourmet Dining and Snacks since the Late Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2003); Jill Steward, ‘Exhibiting Food: International Exhibitions as Cultural Crossroads 1851–1914’, in Food and meals at Cultural Crossroads: Proceedings of the 17 th Conference of the International Commission for Ethnological Food Research (Oslo: Novus, 2010), 280–93. 10A. Leonardi, ‘Entrepreneurial Mobility in the Development of the Austrian Kurorte in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Tourism History 2, no. 2 (2010): 99–116. 11Rudy Koshar, German Leisure Cultures (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 22. 12For example, Julie Cassidy, ‘Of Dandies, Flirts and Cockatoos: Shakhovskoi's Antithetical lesson to Coquettes’, Russian Review 65 (2006): 393–416. Ronan Foley, Healing Waters: Therapeutic Landscapes in Historic and Contemporary Ireland (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 3–7. 13Jill Steward, ‘The Culture of the Water Cure in Nineteenth-Century Austria, 1800–1914’, in Water, Leisure and Culture: European Historical Perspectives, ed. Susan B. Anderson and Bruce H. Tabb (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 23–35. 14Elisabeth Mansèn, ‘An Image of Paradise: Swedish Spas in the Eighteenth Century’, Eighteenth Century Studies 31, no. 4 (1998): 511–16. 15Burkhardt Fuhs, Mondäne Orte: einer vornehemen Gesellschaft. Kultur und Geschichte der Kurstädte 1700–1900: Historische Texte und Studien, 13 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1992), 232–4; Marian Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial German (New York: Oxford, 1991), 111; Mirjem Treindel-Zadoff, ‘Next Year in Marienbad: Counter-Sites of Jewish Modernity’, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 52, no. 1 (2005): 324–5. 16Karl E. Wood, ‘Spa Culture and the Social History of Medicine in Germany’ (PhD Diss., University of Chicago, 2004), 11. 17Mary Nolan, ‘Pilgrimage Traditions and the Nature Mystique in Western European Culture’, Journal of Cultural Geography 7, no. 1 (1986): 4–20. 18Erna Lesky, The Vienna Medical School, L. Williams and I.S. Levij, trans. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1976), 33. 19Central Europe includes the group of states which in 1871 were combined into the German Empire, the multi-ethnic complexities of the Habsburg Monarchy, which by 1867 split into the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, and the alpine confederation of the Swiss Republic. 20R. Mosse, Bäder-Almanach: Mittheilungen der Bäder, Luftorte und Heilanstalten in Deutschland, Österreich, der Schweiz und den angrensenden Gebeiten für Ärzte und Heilbedürftige, 8th ed. (Berlin: R. Mosse, 1900). 21Johanna Maia van Winter, ‘Medieval Opinions about Food and Drink in Connection with Bathing’, Sanitas 3: 96–101. 22Fuhs, Mondäne Orte, 39–50. 23Jill Steward, ‘The Spa Towns of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Growth of Tourist Culture 1800–1914’, in New Directions in Urban History: Aspects of European Art, Health, Tourism and Leisure since the Enlightenment, ed. Peter Borsay, Gunter Hirschfelder, and Ruth E. Möhrmann (Munich: Waxmann, 2000), 91. 24Wolfgang Kaschuba, ‘German Bürgerlichkeit after 1800; Culture as Symbolic Practice’, in Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth Century Europe, ed. Jürgen Kocka and Allan Mitchell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 392–422; Felix Czeike,‘Landpartien und Sommeraufenhalte: die Entwicklung vom augehenden 17. Bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, Wiener Gesichtsblätter 42 (1988/1989): 44. 25Vladimir Křítzek, Kulturegeschichte des Heilbades (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne: Kohlhammer, 1990), Figs 53 and 54. 26Heikki Lempa, ‘The Spa: Emotional Economy and Cultural Classes in Nineteenth-Century Pyrmont’, Central European History 35 (2002): 37–73; See also Wolfgang Kos, ‘Zwischen Amusement und Therapie: Der Kurort als sociales Ensemble’, in Das Bad, eine Geschichte der Badekultur im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. H. Lachmeyer, S. Mattl-Worm, and C. Gargerle (Salzburg: Residenz, 1991), 220–50. 27Lady Anne Vavasour, My Last Tour and First Work; or a Visit to the Baths of Wildbad and Rippoldsau (London: H. Cunningham, 1842), 455. 28William Bacon, ‘The Rise of the German and the Demise of the English Spa Industry: A Critical Analysis of Business Success and Failure’, Leisure Studies 16 (1997): 173–87; E.J. Carter, ‘Breaking the Bank: Gambling Casinos, Finance Capitalism and German Unification’, Central European History 39 (2006): 189–93. 29Augustus Bozzi Granville, Spas of Germany, vol. 2. (London: H. Colburn, 1837), 81. 30Vavasour, My Last Tour, 428. 34Vavasour, My Last Tour, 139. 31Fuhs, Mondäne Orte, 251–4. 32See, for example, the observations of Johanna Schopenhauer in Bath: Ruth Michaelis-Jena and Willy Merson, eds., A Lady Travels: The Diaries of Johanna Schopenhauer (London: Routledge, 1988), 118–20. 33Mary Shelley, Rambles in Germany and Italy, 1840, 1842, and 1843, vol. 1 (pt. 2), (London: Edward Moxon, 1844), 186–8. 35John Macpherson, The Baths and Spas of Europe, 2nd. (London: Macmillan, 1873), 14. 36Granville, Spas, 46; Suzanne Grötz and Ursula Quecke, eds., Balnea: Architekturgeschichte des Bades (Marburg: Jonas, 2006), 85. 37Granville, Spas, 80–1. 38Frances Trollope, Belgium and Western Germany in 1833; including visits to Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Cassel, Hanover, the Harz Mountains, etc. etc., vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1834), 102. 39Frances Trollope, Belgium and Western Germany in 1833; including visits to Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Cassel, Hanover, the Harz Mountains, etc. etc., vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1834), 94 40Jill Steward, ‘Representations of Spa Culture in the Nineteenth-British Media: Publicity, the Press and the Villes d'Eaux (1800–1914)’, in Spas in Britain and in France in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Annick Cossic and Patric Galliou (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2006), 386. 41Sir Francis Bond, Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau, by an Old Man (London: John Murray, 1834), 70. 42Granville, Spas, 80. 43Carter, ‘Breaking the Bank’, 192; Wood, ‘Spa Culture’, 148–60. 44Granville, Spas, 47. 45John Merrylees, Carlsbad and its Environs (London: Samson, Low and Marston, 1886), 38. 46Habbo Knoch, ‘Life on Stage: Grand Hotels as Urban Interzones around 1900’, in Creative Urban Milieus: Historical perspectives on Culture, Economy and the City, ed. Martine Heβler and Clemens Zimmermann (Frankfurt: Campus, 2008), 144. 47For example, in 1882 Wiesbaden had 80,000 visitors, by 1912 this had risen to 200,000. Marienbad had 12,000 and 20,000 respectively while in 1898 Baden Baden had 69,185, rising to 80,000 in 1912: cited in Carol Carribon, ‘Les villes d'eaux françaises, reines du thermalisme europeèn à la Belle Epoque’, in Spas in Britain and France in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Annick Cossic and Patric Galliou (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2006), 206. However, compare these with the figures for visitors to the great exhibitions where the catering represented a major source of income. 48Louise C. Moulton, Lazy Tours in Spain (London: Ward Lock, 1896), 303. See Merta, ‘Karlsbad’, 156. 49George Cheyne, An Essay of Health and Long Life, 2nd ed. (London: Strachan, 1725), 19–26; Anita Guerrini, Obesity and Depression in the Enlightenment; the Life and Times of George Cheyne (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2000), 120. 50Samuel A. Tissot, Advice to People in General, with Respect to their Health (1761), (Avis au people (sic)) (Edinburgh: A. Donaldson, 1772). 51Klaus Bergdolt, Wellbeing: A Cultural History of Healthy Living (London: Polity, 2008), 183–4. 52Sander L. Gilman, Obesity, the Biography (Oxford: Oxford University, 2010), 18–45. 53Bergdolt, Wellbeing, 251–5. 54Cristofer W. 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Buckland, Health Springs of Germany and Austria (London: W.H. Allen, 1892), 33. 67Erna Lesky, The Vienna Medical School of the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 301–2. 68Gilman, Obesity, 84. 69Edward Shorter, ‘Private Clinics in Central Europe, 1850–1933’, Social History of Medicine 3, no. 2 (1990): 159–95. 70An early example was Johannes Schroth's clinic near Lindesweise in Silesia. A former cart driver, he set up a sanatorium with a programme focused on a ‘fasting’ and a ‘purgative diet’, Bergdolt, 286. 71Jill Steward, ‘Travel to the Spas: The Growth of Health Tourism in Central Europe 1850–1914’, in Journeys into Madness: Mapping Mental Illness in Vienna, ed. Gemma Blackshaw and Sabine Wieber (New York: Berghahn, 2012), 72–89. 72See, for example, Shorter, ‘Private Clinics’, 165–71, 185–7; Eric J. Engstrom, Clinical Psychiatry in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 2003), 177–188. 73Alma Mahler, And the Bridge is Love (New York: Hutchinson, 1958), 50 ff. 74Susan Barton, Healthy Living in the Alps, the Origins of Winter Tourism in Switzerland, 1860–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 8–10. 75Dr Otto Leichtenstein, ‘General Balneotherapeutics’, in Book of General Therapeutics, ed. Von Ziemssens. John Macpherson, trans. (London: Smith, Elder and Son, 1885), 432–3. 76Dr Otto Leichtenstein, ‘General Balneotherapeutics’, in Book of General Therapeutics, ed. Von Ziemssens. John Macpherson, trans. (London: Smith, Elder and Son, 1885), 436. 77Shorter, ‘Private Clinics’, 165. 78Bergdolt, Wellbeing, 284. 79E. Meyer-Renschhausen and A. Wirz, ‘Dietetics, Health Reform and Social Order’, Medical History 43 (1999): 324–5. 80Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (London: Cassell, 1983[1943]), 30. 81Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (London: Cassell, 1983[1943]), 22. 82See also Janet Stewart, ‘Food as a Signifier of Urban Modernity in Vienna’, in The City and the Senses: Urban Culture since 1500, ed. Alexander Cowan and Jill Steward (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 183–5. 83Fuhs, Mondäne Orte, 315–20; Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class, 124–6. 84Fuhs, Mondäne Orte, 315–20; Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class, 125. 85Shlomo Aleichem, Marienbad, trans. Aliza Shevrin (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982 [1911]), 49–50. 86Mark Twain, ‘At the Appetite Cure’, Cosmopolitan (1898). http://www.twainquotes.com/Bradley/appetitecure.html 87Gabriele Praschl-Bischler, Kaiserin Elisabeths Fitness und Diät-Programm (Vienna: Amalthea, 2002), 160–9. 88Bergdolt, Wellbeing, 283–6; Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Kultur des weiblichen Korpers als Grundlage der Frauenkleidung (Leipzig: Diderich, 1901), 190. 89Stewart, ‘Food as a Signifier’, 191. 90Robert Jutte, ‘Naturheilkunde’, in Die Lebensreform: Entwürfe zur Neugestaltung von Leben und Kunst um 1900, vol. 1, ed. Kai Buchholz, Rita Latocha, Hilke Peckmann and Klaus Wolbert (Darmstadt: Hauser, 2001), 387–90, and Renate Ulmer, ‘Ernahrungsreform und Vegetarismus’, in Die Lebensreform, vol. 2, ed. Kai Buchholz, Rita Latocha, Hilke Peckmann and Klaus Wolbert (Darmstadt: Hauser, 2001), 529–38. 91Shorter, ‘Private Clinics’, 187. 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