Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction will provide the rationale for this book and give a brief overview of the methodologies used: historical, political, sociological, anthropological and literary. It will begin with an anecdote about Joseph Conrad’s great uncle Bobrowski, a lieutenant in the French Army under Napoleon , who once ate a Lithuanian dog. This moment of ‘gastronomical degradation’ synthesizes a range of ideas—personal, national, creative, cultural—that define its author and capture the essence of this book: to investigate how food and eating underpin codes of morality, political symbolism and cultural, national and personal identities.