Constructing New Expertise: Private and Public Initiatives for Safe Food (Brussels in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century) (2014)
In 1856, the mayor of Brussels proposed the establishment of a municipal laboratory with a chemist to analyse food and beverages to restrain fraud. His proposal was accepted and a laboratory -- possibly one of the first municipal laboratories in Europe -- was set up. The laboratory still exists today. This paper aims at tracing the conditions in which it emerged, situating it within the laissez-faire context of the time. It was brought into existence by a liberal administration, in a period of little interventionism replete with unencumbered private interests (those of bakers, butchers, grocers, millers, pharmacists, doctors and so on). What will be considered here is the general mood with regard to food fraud, fair trade, correct price, and the quality of food in the first half of the nineteenth century. On a broader level, this contribution addresses the frictions between private and public initiative, while focusing on the process of construction of expertise. The paper makes use of contemporary documents such as reviews, newspapers, association reports and city council chronicles.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Loeber, Anne;
(2011)
The Food Chain Reforged: Novel Food Risk Arrangements and the Metamorphosis of a Metaphor
(/isis/citation/CBB001034640/)
Article
Dunn, Elizabeth Cullen;
(2011)
The Pasteurized State: Milk, Health and the Government of Risk
(/isis/citation/CBB001210133/)
Article
Loner, Beatriz Ana;
Gill, Lorena Almeida;
Scheer, Micaele Irene;
(2012)
Enfermidade e morte: os escravos na cidade de Pelotas, 1870--1880
(/isis/citation/CBB001420624/)
Book
Levenstein, Harvey;
(2012)
Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat
(/isis/citation/CBB001210041/)
Thesis
Steere-Williams, Jacob;
(2011)
The Perfect Food and the Filth Disease: Milk, Typhoid Fever, and the Science of State Medicine in Victorian Britain, 1850--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001567315/)
Article
Scholliers, Peter;
Van den Eeckhout, Patricia;
(2010-11)
Hearing the Consumer? The Laboratory, the Public, and the Construction of Food Safety in Brussels (1840s--1910s)
(/isis/citation/CBB001231793/)
Article
Feindt, Peter H.;
Kleinschmit, Daniela;
(2011)
The BSE Crisis in German Newspapers: Reframing Responsibility
(/isis/citation/CBB001034638/)
Article
Neil Stephens;
Martin Ruivenkamp;
(2016)
Promise and Ontological Ambiguity in the In vitro Meat Imagescape: From Laboratory Myotubes to the Cultured Burger
(/isis/citation/CBB942221408/)
Article
Graf Rüdiger;
(2015)
Wahrheit im Dschungel von Literatur, Wissenschaft und Politik. Upton Sinclairs „The Jungle“ und die Reform der Lebensmittelkontrolle in den USA der „Progressive Era“
(/isis/citation/CBB720897603/)
Article
Carolyn Ann Cobbold;
(2018)
The Rise of Alternative Bread Leavening Technologies in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB931973305/)
Article
Souza, Juliana Teixeira;
(2011)
Carne podre, café com milho e leite com água: disputas de autoridade e fiscalização do comércio de gêneros na Corte imperial, 1840--1889
(/isis/citation/CBB001420548/)
Book
Angela N. H. Creager;
Gaudillière, Jean-Paul;
(2021)
Risk on the table : Food production, health, and the environment
(/isis/citation/CBB695571477/)
Article
Zachmann, Karin;
(2011)
Atoms for Peace and Radiation for Safety---How to Build Trust in Irradiated Foods in Cold War Europe and Beyond
(/isis/citation/CBB001033642/)
Article
Sarathchandra, Dilshani;
Ten Eyck, Toby A.;
(2013)
To Tell the Truth: Keys in Newspaper Portrayals of the Public During Food Scares
(/isis/citation/CBB001320901/)
Thesis
Janzen, Mark Ryan;
(2010)
The Cranberry Scare of 1959: The Beginning of the End of the Delaney Clause
(/isis/citation/CBB001567202/)
Article
Loeber, Anne;
Hajer, Maarten;
Levidow, Les;
(2011)
Agro-food Crises: Institutional and Discursive Changes in the Food Scares Era
(/isis/citation/CBB001034636/)
Article
Jacob, Casey J.;
Lok, Corie;
Morley, Katija;
Powell, Douglas A.;
(2011)
Government Management of Two Media-Facilitated Crises Involving Dioxin Contamination of Food
(/isis/citation/CBB001034662/)
Book
Josh Berson;
(2019)
The Meat Question: Animals, Humans, and the Deep History of Food
(/isis/citation/CBB923625897/)
Article
Brinkmann, Sören;
(2014)
Leite e modernidade: ideologia e políticas de alimentação na era Vargas
(/isis/citation/CBB001420714/)
Book
Joshua Specht;
(2019)
Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America
(/isis/citation/CBB436318919/)
Be the first to comment!