The Magic Harvest: Food, Folkore and Society

The Magic Harvest is a rich and wide-ranging account of the history of popular beliefs about food in Europe.

Focusing on Italy, Camporesi examines the social symbolism of food, and its associated rituals. He shows how the act of eating at weddings and seasonal feasts was seen as a metaphor for copulation; how Christmas and Easter were marked by special cakes rich in eggs, symbolizing renewal; how bread was viewed as a magic talisman against the forces of darkness; and how the harvest was regarded as the offspring of a fertile Earth which yielded up its fruits. All this rich and varied symbolism, he suggests, has become an opaque enigma for us today.

Author: Piero Camporesi
Publisher: Polity Press
Published: 11/02/1998
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 8.96h x 5.95w x 0.82d
ISBN: 9780745621968

About the Author
Piero Camporesi is Professor of Italien Literature at the University of Bologna.

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