PREFACE

Written by Wolfgang Schivelbusch

Wednesday, 27 February 2013 00:00 -

'This book deals not only with the history of Genussmittel* the spices, stimulants, and other
substances ingested or inhaled by humans to produce a pleasurable effectbut more
importantly with the question: In what way did these substances affect the history of man? How
is it that at certain times new luxury food items appeared in Europe? Were coffee, tea, and
tobacco merely the casual results of colonial discovery? Or did they satisfy a need for new
Genussmittel not previously available, and how can these new needs be described?

These are the general questions I shall take up here and from which other more specific
questions suggest themselves for investigation as well. They are:

Why did the Middle Ages have such a pronounced taste for dishes seasoned with oriental
spices, and why did this craving disappear so suddenly in the seventeenth century?

Why did the eighteenth-century aristocracy prefer chocolate as a beverage, whereas the
bourgeoisie were fixated on coffee? How is it that in the eighteenth century tobacco was
primarily snuffed, whereas before that it had been smoked in a pipe and, subsequently, in cigars
and cigarettes?

Why, for centuries, were certain substancesfor instance, opium and hashishused freely as
everyday items of pleasure, but then toward the end of the nineteenth century suddenly labeled
as addictive drugs and prohibited?

The German word Genussmittel is somewhat misleading. The English and French languages
come closer to historic reality with the word "stimulants." For these items did not serve merely
for purely paradisiacal enjoyment. They always performed a "practical" function at the same
time. Their historical function was this "performance-in-the-process-of-enjoyment" which at first
sounds like a paradox. The effects they produced on the human organism were the final
consummation by chemical means, one might say, of a course that had been well charted
before in spiritual, cultural, and political ways. The morning cup of coffee and the Saturday-night
tipple tie the individual into his society more effectively because they give him pleasure.

* The German word Genussmittel, literally "articles of pleasure," denotes a group of substances

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PREFACE
Written by Wolfgang Schivelbusch
Wednesday, 27 February 2013 00:00 -

for human consumption which are eaten, drunk, or inhaled to create pleasures of the senses, as
opposed to those foods and beverages consumed as necessities. They include all spices and
condiments as well as stimulants, intoxicants, and narcotics such as tobacco, coffee, tea,
alcohol, and opium. The word Genussmittel therefore also implies that these substances are
luxuries for sybaritic enjoyment, means for creating epicurean delights and, by extension, a
state of sensual bliss.Trans.

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