ABSTRACT
In the second half of the nineteenth century, European nations competed to colonize the remaining independent lands of Asia and Africa. Although motivated by imperial power and prestige, colonists justified their brutal conquests with claims of uplifting “savage” peoples, a task dubbed the “White Man’s Burden” by Rudyard Kipling or the mission civilisatrice in French. This “civilizing” ideology extended to non-western foods, which were judged inferior to European diets in both nutritional value and hygienic preparation. Frenchman J. A. Colombani wrote: “We have the responsibility to lead the peoples of overseas territory to political and social maturity, to integrate them, to imbue them with our civilization. And is not bread the typical food of civilized people?” But unlike modern technology and social practices, generally transmitted from Europe to the colonies, culinary exchanges often reversed the direction of influence, as the British began eating Indian rice and curry while the French acquired a taste for Algerian couscous.
