Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams
Rituals of Hygiene in the Cathedral of Meat
Food Rules and Rituals - Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023 - Mark McWilliams
Jack Hanlon [+]
Description
In the early twentieth century Smithfield was the largest meat market in the world, a central node in a food system that supplied Imperial London with meat from across the globe. This paper explores the ‘rituals of hygiene’ that informed the market’s handling, inspection, and disposal of meat. These practices not only shaped the market’s workplace culture, but also reached the national public through the lens of mass media. As Britain’s food system spiralled into new scales of globalisation and institutional complexity, such performances of cleanliness addressed the material risks and symbolic anxieties proliferating in the gulf between farm-and-fork.