Name: MARIANA COSTA AMORIM
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 02/10/2020
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| PATRÍCIA MARIA DA SILVA MERLO | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| PATRÍCIA MARIA DA SILVA MERLO | Advisor * |
| SERGIO ALBERTO FELDMAN | Internal Examiner * |
Summary: In this dissertation, we try to present some aspects of the relationship between individuals with food, focusing on Portugal from the beginning of the 18th century. The source we used for analysis was the Âncora Medicinal dietary manual - to preserve life in health, by Francisco da Fonseca Henriquez, doctor of King D. João V. Written in 1721, the work shows different perspectives that encompass the relationship with food : medicine, cuisine and distinction. In addition to being presented as a source of nutrients and important in maintaining health, the book features references from the author on suggestions for preparation and classification of types of food consumed by different social groups. In this way, we trace a brief trajectory on medical studies, eating habits and food culture in the European continent. We also entered the period in which the work was written, in the second half of the 18th century in Portugal, observing the social environment that occupied the doctor, the medicine of the period and the beginning of the clash between 'traditional' medical thinking in the country and the news that arrived, considered 'heretical' and radical. Francisco Henriquez was a doctor who studied and absorbed medical thought through scholastic methodology, which was based on the authors of the classical culture of Antiquity and the medieval, but he was not averse to popular knowledge, much less alien and disinterested in the new medical and scientific knowledge that started to seethe in Europe. His work reflects a lot of his thinking and the time he lived in, a transition period between the Medieval period and Modernity.
