ABSTRACT
The increasing consumption of imperial commodities in the 18th century enabled British society to explore the Empire via the literal sense of taste. Food was imbued with ideological significance and acted as a signifier of nationhood, class, wealth and political values. Janet Schaw’s Journal of a Lady of Quality (1774) presents a highly sensory account of her experience in the West Indies. This chapter will explore Schaw’s fascination with, and consumption of, turtle. Schaw’s conscious literary style elevates her experience of this West Indian delicacy, playing on this very gendered term and framing herself as an epicure. Evoking contemporary debates on the overly sensuous state of women’s bodies, Schaw mocks the senseless gluttony of alleged ‘men of taste’. Synonymous with the gluttonous alderman, and political and societal feasting, the assimilation of turtle within the rituals of the British constitution represented the consumers’ participation in the colonisation of the West Indies. Schaw appropriates these political connotations in order to defend the natural lifestyle of colonial society: Commodities such as turtle only became representative of exoticism and luxury when removed from their natural context in order to play a role in Britain’s ritualistic consumption of empire.
